This post is part of my series, A Real Picture of Post-Pregnancy, where I document my journey of postpartum weight loss after giving birth to my third baby in 4 years, including losing 52 pounds of baby weight. (For my raw, unedited look at my 10 months of pregnancy, check out my series, A Real Picture of Pregnancy.)
I can’t believe I’m writing my 4 months post-pregnancy post. Guys, do you know what this means? My little darling is already 4 months old. (*sad face emoticon*) I can’t believe how quickly time has flown by. In fact, I think the time has gone faster with each kid. How is my baby already one-third of the way through his first year? Everyday, I remind myself: I must savor every moment. And then, everyday, it’s sooooo hard. This is a kind-of tangent, but the truth is, I’m sad that it’s going so quickly. I want the baby time to slow down. But I want the baby weight to speed up in coming off. I almost feel like I have to choose one. It doesn’t make sense. Has anyone else felt this way?
This month, I’ve done a lot. I started Whole30. At first, I loved it. Eating no grains, dairy or processed foods wasn’t a huge departure from what I was already doing, and it felt great to eat so clean. But about 13 days in, I started feeling like I was punishing myself, so I tweaked the plan to work for me. (Full post on why I cheated on Whole30 here.) Still, I lost 6 pounds in those 30 days.
I also finally returned my friend’s maternity clothes to her. That’s right, no more maternity clothes. It only took me 4 months. In truth, this was more symbolic, as I still only have about 3 pairs of shorts that fit me. But leaving that Trader Joe’s bag full of clothes on her doormat was my way of saying, “We’re moving forward. There is no looking back.” Bam. That was powerful.
All month, I kept to my original plan: 4 days a week of 1-hour boot camp, 1 day a week of running, and clean eating almost everyday.
I also made a new, amazing discovery. Since I had to change a lot of my drinking habits to be Whole30-approved, I found a great substitute to beer. Have you ever tried La Croix? (This is NOT a sponsored post! I just love the stuff and wanted to share!) It only uses natural flavors, and it’s fizzy, and it makes me feel like I’m having something special. My sister-in-law introduced me to the coconut flavor, which is amazing. My favorite flavor is grapefruit, which I brought to the beach on a recent Saturday morning day date with the hubby. (Yes, we did it again. And it was just as glorious as the first time.)
I also hit a big goal. For the last few months, I’ve been running every Thursday morning with a friend. When we started, we both decided we just needed to move our bodies for 40 minutes. Sometimes, you gotta set the bar low so you stay encouraged and motivated. We decided we just needed to move. That’s it. Some days we’d run the whole way. Other days, we’d walk the majority. It didn’t matter. We just kept telling ourselves, “We will get there. Just being out here is a feat. We both left young children to get out of the house before 6am. We will get there. One step at a time.”
And so, week after week, we kept putting one foot in front of the other for our weekly run. At first, we rejoiced when we covered more than 2 miles. Then, our goal was to get past the playground. The whole time, we were loving our progress, rather than hating what we weren’t yet able to do. We got really ambitious and said, “Someday, we’ll hit 3 miles. And that day, we’ll really celebrate.” Well guess what? This month, we hit 3 miles. And it felt amazing.
The awesome thing was, it wasn’t that hard. It’s amazing how strong your body wants to be if you just give it the time and the chance to do the work. All I had to do each week was one thing: I had to show up. And then, I simply put one foot in front of the other. It made me realize that my body can do so much, if I just give it the chance.
That’s so true of many things in life. Oftentimes, especially as a mom of young kids, half the battle is just showing up. So, make the decision to SHOW UP. The rest will be accomplished. Just physically get there. The rest is all easy after that.
Okay, so now the fat lady sings. Losing weight isn’t my sole goal with this journey, but it’s a marker of progress.
This month’s stats
Pre-pregnancy weight: 148
Birth day weight: 200
Start of plan (1 month postpartum): 186
4 month update: 163
Pounds lost: 37
Pounds to go: 15
Woo hoo!!! I’m down 6 pounds in the last 3 weeks (while doing Whole30), and 11 pounds since last month’s weigh in! I’m pretty freakin’ proud of myself.
It’s not a race, but it feels good that I’m getting somewhere.
One foot in front of the other…
#justshowup
Don’t forget to check out my previous posts on my baby weight loss journey to see how far I’ve come!
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