I detailed my journey with gaining the weight of
approximately 8-9 standard sized bowling balls and my motivation to lose it
gradually. I was immediately faced with the seemingly impossible task of how to
do it. SEEMINGLY is the pertinent word here, because it’s not impossible. First
step – fitting in exercise.
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| We've all been there. |
Everyone has to figure out how and when to fit exercise into
their day, and having an infant (yes, that’s right, he’s technically not a
newborn anymore!) complicates that. I work full time, I’m in a Master's program, I have to do my part to at least keep the house from looking like an
episode of Hoarders, etc. Oh, and the baby. There’s that too. Did I mention
he’s a bit time consuming as well? I say that with love, I promise. Even though
it’s complicated, in some ways it’s really not. The simple solution is **just
make it a freakin’ priority**. We prioritize things all the time, and if
exercise is important enough then you will make it a priority. If watching
Netflix is more important then that’s what you’ll do. I see this simple concept
all the time in the students I work with – if school is a priority for them,
they’ll make sure they do what they need to do to start. If it’s not (even
though they tell me it is), they’ll fall off the map and I won’t hear from them
anymore. I’ve decided that staying active is a priority for me, so we’ve fit it
in. One morning a week Noah leave with Adam just before 6am and I don't have to be at work until 10:30a. That’s my
morning to go for a jog, a longer walk, etc. On week days that I’m off at 5:00p
we usually go for a walk after dinner. We usually do active things on the
weekends, even if it’s going out shopping (hey, every step counts). Boom, there
ya go.
My diet, however, is another story. There’s been no “Boom,
there ya go”. I only weigh myself when Noah gets weighed, and at his 4-month checkup I was down 39 pounds, meaning I have 33 to go. I have dieted
before in that I cut calories and increased my exercise and I was able to lose
weight with a normal amount of effort. I’ve successfully changed my dietary
habits before – I was a vegetarian for a few years as a teenager, I dabbled with
a vegan diet just to try it out for a little bit in college, and I’ve had a
semi-healthy-but-not-too-worried-about-it diet since. I’m now in a very unique
situation. I still need to produce breastmilk, and that requires a lot
of calories. Breastfeeding moms needs about 500 calories additional to their
regular diet to keep up their milk production (“milk production” makes me feel
like a cow), which is the same as mom's in their third trimester need. I’m committed to continue breastfeeding, but I’m also committed to
start knocking off some pounds. So, for the first time in my life I have to eat
a ….. drumroll please…..
Balanced Diet.
Ugh.
Not only does my diet need to be well balanced with grains,
healthy carbs, healthy fats, minimal sugar, blah blah blah freakin’ blah, but I
need to eat more of it while somehow still aiming to lose weight and not being
able to exercise every day because of my schedule. I repeat my last sentiment
of “ugh”.
As with all things foreign and baby related, I turned to the
Internet for information. Some people said just eat cheeseburgers and
eventually you’ll hit a point where you lose weight no matter what while breastfeeding, some said you need just drink way more water, some said who
cares and ate whatever they wanted to. I considered going to a nutritionist
because what I want more than anything is to just have someone who knows what
they’re talk about tell me what to eat for every meal every day, even if it
means eating the same thing every Monday, same thing every Tuesday, etc. Then I
remembered that my insurance doesn’t cover that stuff and I don’t care $175 (or
more) worth. Instead, I found a sample menu online for a healthy breastfeeding
mother, which includes three meals and three snacks per day. I forget where I saw it (new mom memory loss),
but I love the idea of eating healthy 80% of the time. For me, “healthy” means
“well-balanced meals”. 80% of the time is doable and it’s not so strict that I
can’t have a cookie or pumpkin pie poptarts. If you’ve ever had my mom’s baking you will know that it
is 100% unreasonable to ask someone to give up baked goods entirely. I also
want to give myself the freedom to go out for meals and not feel like I’m a total
failure. The biggest change so far was that I willingly chose to not eat a
bagel for breakfast, which is what I have done every day for like 15 years.
I wish I could say that changing my diet has been as easy as being more active, but it really hasn't. It's fair season, how can I not eat fried dough and hand dipped corn dogs? HAND DIPPED?! I've been to like 6 birthday parties in the past month. We've been treated to special dinners and breakfasts. I literally have next to no time to go grocery shopping, and I'm freakin' serious when I say that, not like "Oh I have no time to go to store" and then I go home and watch The Walking Dead. Guys, I'm just whining about it. It's hard. It's hard to make a change. It's hard to make a lunch for myself every day when I get 1/2 off of yummy food at the caf at work. It's hard to go to the fair, something that happens once a year, and not get 3 cider donuts because they're only 75 cents each. But just like with being active, I need to prioritize it and just do it.
