I wonder if there is anyone out there who has put on more weight than I did in pregnancy? If you read my blog on pregnancy you’ll know that I put on over 50 per cent of my starting weight. In actual kilos I put on 32.5. That’s a lot of weight to get rid of when it’s all over. Fortunately the first 20 kilos just fell off all on their own. Part of that was all that comes out with birth and then I assume breastfeeding did the rest? But then I hit a wall. I had roughly 10 kilos to go and nothing was happening. I had the all clear form my doctor to exercise so it was time to get outside and off the couch!
I had been anticipating with excitement but dreading this all at once, for a long time. During pregnancy I didn’t do any exercise unless you count walking from my car to the office and back daily. Prior to pregnancy I was probably the fittest I’ve ever been. I was walking, running and swimming regularly. But due to some complications in trying to get pregnant, I stopped exercising altogether very abruptly. So not only did I have a lot of weight to lose, but I had some serious work ahead of me to simply regain my fitness. That was probably the hardest part of my whole weight loss journey. That and the fact that I’m incredibly impatient and expected the weight to drop off quickly. Ha ha. So naïve.
The first time I took bub out in the pram for a walk I couldn’t believe how unfit I was. I knew that the walk I was doing was pretty basic yet I was huffing and puffing all over the place. I started with a one kilometre loop and I chose a route that had me walking up as many hills as possible. I did this loop four or five times, every weekday for a few weeks and gradually got faster and less puffed. I remember early on when I was walking up a hill and could barely breath. A man out in his garden said “Come on, you can go faster than that.” I desperately wanted to say, “Hey, I just had a baby!” But I was too puffed to get any words out. Whenever stuff gets hard like this I usually just give up. But giving up was not an option. I had some stern words with myself, which covered having no clothes that fit me and not being able to do basic things in life such as cross my legs, squat or just run. Every time I felt like quitting I thought about these things. Sure I could have gone out and bought bigger clothes but then I would lose all motivation to drop the kilos. So I cycled through the one pair of maternity jeans, one pair of maternity shorts and a very limited supply of shirts. Every time I put them on I would get mad that I had no other clothing options and that would motivate me to go harder.
To my surprise and disappointment all this hard work was yielding very poor results. The scales were barely moving! How can this be? How can I drop 20 kilos with zero effort and drop nothing with all this exercise?! Frustration plus!
I was chatting with some friends about this and they told me straight up. “Walking isn’t going to do anything for your weight loss. You want to lose weight? You need to run.” Run? This was going to be difficult as I’m pretty sure I stuffed my knees in pregnancy. Carrying around an extra 30 kilos takes its toll. Plus I was quite sure my fitness levels were not quite up for running just yet. But I was keen to lose weight so I had to try.
Having always had a small build, running had never been a problem for me. But now that I had some jiggly milk makers, running was a whole new ball game. Gees, is this what it’s like for people with big boobs? Before I could start running I would have to invest in a good sports bra.
Once I got the sports bra, it was on! I started out on my first jog hoping to make it one kilometre. I’m not sure if it counts as jogging when your pace is slower than a fast walk, but it felt a lot harder than walking so I can only assume it was doing good. It has never been so hard in my life to do a basic jog. But I kept pushing myself knowing that I had to step it up if I wanted to make progress. You know when you push yourself in exercise to the point where your body wants to cry and you don’t really know why? That’s the point to which I pushed myself that day. I made it the one kilometre and was so out of breath I thought I might pass out. Although I was proud of my effort, I think I may have pushed too hard. So instead of doing that again I alternated between walking and jogging as far as I felt able, slowly trying to make that distance a bit longer.
I kept this up for a few more weeks, a combo of walking and jogging. I would hop on the scales about 10 times a day, or just any time I walked past the bathroom. I couldn’t believe how nothing was happening. I would complain to hubby and he would tell me that I was looking great. Blah blah blah. The scales weren’t moving so his words were empty to me and I told him so. “Stop looking at the scales!” He said annoyed. “I’m going to throw them in the bin. They aren’t a good indicator of all this work you’re doing. You need to measure yourself because you’re probably losing centimeters.” Whatever, I thought. If I was losing weight it would be reflecting it on the scales.
At around this point we got a bout of rain. It was only for a few days but was enough to discourage me from continuing with my daily exercise. In addition to this, I had also hurt my knees from all the jogging I was doing. So I took a break. A long break with no real intention of returning to exercise. What as the point? I wasn’t getting any results so why bother.
Every now and then hubby would subtly encourage me to get back out there. He’d call from work to see how I was going, “What are you up to today?” “Nothing I guess. Don’t really have anything on.” To which he would reply, “Why don’t you go out for a walk? You’re always happier when you’ve been out for a walk. And so is bub. It will do you both some good to get out of the house.” To which I would shrug and think, ‘can’t be bothered.’
I just had no motivation. It’s funny how we’re all motivated by different things. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding that one thing that ignites the fire and gets us going. For me, this came from hubby giving it to me straight. One night I was sitting on the bed and hubby was in the bathroom. I don’t even remember how the topic came up. I was probably complaining about not being able to lose weight. What I do remember is that hubby said, “You know, I actually think you’ve put weight back on.” “What?!” I said, my jaw almost hitting the floor. “Yeah, you look puffy in the face and a bit pale.” “What?! Seriously? You really think I’ve put weight on?” I rushed to the mirror to have a closer inspection of myself. “Yep,” he said matter of factly. Then he added, “Because you’re not getting outside and in the sun, your skin is looking a bit pale too. And your diet is crap. You eat so much rubbish.”
This may sound a little harsh to many people but I think hubby knew this was just what I needed to hear. How dare I put weight back on! The next day I got back out there. It was pretty bad that I wasn’t losing weight, but to put it on is even worse! And he was right about my diet. It wasn’t that fantastic. The truth is that I don’t know how to diet. I’ve never had to do it before. And post pregnancy I have had some major chocolate cravings. I usually have severe chocolate cravings in the lead up to my time of the month which usually lasts about a week. But as my body is not back to it’s usual routine and hormones are probably not settled yet, I’m all over the place and have constantly been craving chocolate. I walk around feeling like I need chocolate to be able to breath, to live. That’s a hard temptation to fight.
But, all I could hear ringing in my ears were “You look like you’ve put weight on.” So I got back out there. I must admit, my heart was not in it though. I was really only doing it so I could tell hubby I was exercising and because I was horrified that I was putting weight back on. I didn’t believe that any of this exercise would help me lose weight though.
Something had to change… and it did. Big time. It all changed for me when I gave the Lose Baby Weight shakes a go. But my Lose Baby Weight journey is a story is for next week!
I had been anticipating with excitement but dreading this all at once, for a long time. During pregnancy I didn’t do any exercise unless you count walking from my car to the office and back daily. Prior to pregnancy I was probably the fittest I’ve ever been. I was walking, running and swimming regularly. But due to some complications in trying to get pregnant, I stopped exercising altogether very abruptly. So not only did I have a lot of weight to lose, but I had some serious work ahead of me to simply regain my fitness. That was probably the hardest part of my whole weight loss journey. That and the fact that I’m incredibly impatient and expected the weight to drop off quickly. Ha ha. So naïve.
The first time I took bub out in the pram for a walk I couldn’t believe how unfit I was. I knew that the walk I was doing was pretty basic yet I was huffing and puffing all over the place. I started with a one kilometre loop and I chose a route that had me walking up as many hills as possible. I did this loop four or five times, every weekday for a few weeks and gradually got faster and less puffed. I remember early on when I was walking up a hill and could barely breath. A man out in his garden said “Come on, you can go faster than that.” I desperately wanted to say, “Hey, I just had a baby!” But I was too puffed to get any words out. Whenever stuff gets hard like this I usually just give up. But giving up was not an option. I had some stern words with myself, which covered having no clothes that fit me and not being able to do basic things in life such as cross my legs, squat or just run. Every time I felt like quitting I thought about these things. Sure I could have gone out and bought bigger clothes but then I would lose all motivation to drop the kilos. So I cycled through the one pair of maternity jeans, one pair of maternity shorts and a very limited supply of shirts. Every time I put them on I would get mad that I had no other clothing options and that would motivate me to go harder.
To my surprise and disappointment all this hard work was yielding very poor results. The scales were barely moving! How can this be? How can I drop 20 kilos with zero effort and drop nothing with all this exercise?! Frustration plus!
I was chatting with some friends about this and they told me straight up. “Walking isn’t going to do anything for your weight loss. You want to lose weight? You need to run.” Run? This was going to be difficult as I’m pretty sure I stuffed my knees in pregnancy. Carrying around an extra 30 kilos takes its toll. Plus I was quite sure my fitness levels were not quite up for running just yet. But I was keen to lose weight so I had to try.
Having always had a small build, running had never been a problem for me. But now that I had some jiggly milk makers, running was a whole new ball game. Gees, is this what it’s like for people with big boobs? Before I could start running I would have to invest in a good sports bra.
Once I got the sports bra, it was on! I started out on my first jog hoping to make it one kilometre. I’m not sure if it counts as jogging when your pace is slower than a fast walk, but it felt a lot harder than walking so I can only assume it was doing good. It has never been so hard in my life to do a basic jog. But I kept pushing myself knowing that I had to step it up if I wanted to make progress. You know when you push yourself in exercise to the point where your body wants to cry and you don’t really know why? That’s the point to which I pushed myself that day. I made it the one kilometre and was so out of breath I thought I might pass out. Although I was proud of my effort, I think I may have pushed too hard. So instead of doing that again I alternated between walking and jogging as far as I felt able, slowly trying to make that distance a bit longer.
I kept this up for a few more weeks, a combo of walking and jogging. I would hop on the scales about 10 times a day, or just any time I walked past the bathroom. I couldn’t believe how nothing was happening. I would complain to hubby and he would tell me that I was looking great. Blah blah blah. The scales weren’t moving so his words were empty to me and I told him so. “Stop looking at the scales!” He said annoyed. “I’m going to throw them in the bin. They aren’t a good indicator of all this work you’re doing. You need to measure yourself because you’re probably losing centimeters.” Whatever, I thought. If I was losing weight it would be reflecting it on the scales.
At around this point we got a bout of rain. It was only for a few days but was enough to discourage me from continuing with my daily exercise. In addition to this, I had also hurt my knees from all the jogging I was doing. So I took a break. A long break with no real intention of returning to exercise. What as the point? I wasn’t getting any results so why bother.
Every now and then hubby would subtly encourage me to get back out there. He’d call from work to see how I was going, “What are you up to today?” “Nothing I guess. Don’t really have anything on.” To which he would reply, “Why don’t you go out for a walk? You’re always happier when you’ve been out for a walk. And so is bub. It will do you both some good to get out of the house.” To which I would shrug and think, ‘can’t be bothered.’
I just had no motivation. It’s funny how we’re all motivated by different things. Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding that one thing that ignites the fire and gets us going. For me, this came from hubby giving it to me straight. One night I was sitting on the bed and hubby was in the bathroom. I don’t even remember how the topic came up. I was probably complaining about not being able to lose weight. What I do remember is that hubby said, “You know, I actually think you’ve put weight back on.” “What?!” I said, my jaw almost hitting the floor. “Yeah, you look puffy in the face and a bit pale.” “What?! Seriously? You really think I’ve put weight on?” I rushed to the mirror to have a closer inspection of myself. “Yep,” he said matter of factly. Then he added, “Because you’re not getting outside and in the sun, your skin is looking a bit pale too. And your diet is crap. You eat so much rubbish.”
This may sound a little harsh to many people but I think hubby knew this was just what I needed to hear. How dare I put weight back on! The next day I got back out there. It was pretty bad that I wasn’t losing weight, but to put it on is even worse! And he was right about my diet. It wasn’t that fantastic. The truth is that I don’t know how to diet. I’ve never had to do it before. And post pregnancy I have had some major chocolate cravings. I usually have severe chocolate cravings in the lead up to my time of the month which usually lasts about a week. But as my body is not back to it’s usual routine and hormones are probably not settled yet, I’m all over the place and have constantly been craving chocolate. I walk around feeling like I need chocolate to be able to breath, to live. That’s a hard temptation to fight.
But, all I could hear ringing in my ears were “You look like you’ve put weight on.” So I got back out there. I must admit, my heart was not in it though. I was really only doing it so I could tell hubby I was exercising and because I was horrified that I was putting weight back on. I didn’t believe that any of this exercise would help me lose weight though.
Something had to change… and it did. Big time. It all changed for me when I gave the Lose Baby Weight shakes a go. But my Lose Baby Weight journey is a story is for next week!
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