I want to preface this with three points:
- This is not a “if you do this I promise you’ll
lose weight” article. It is simply the things I have done to improve my life.
- What I did to lose weight is not taught by
professional trainers, nor is it practiced by dedicated gym attendees. It was
what worked for me in my home.
- My journey is far from over. Now that I have
lost the weight I wanted to, I will continue to work towards maintaining
healthy living.
I have officially lost all of my pregnancy weight, and I am
super close to my goal weight! (Super close as in three pounds away, so… there
probably won’t be a visible difference when I reach that goal. Oh my gosh I
sound like Regina George, “I wanna lose three pounds.” Ha ha ha ha) This
journey has been more than just losing baby weight, it has been a change in my
eating habits, exercise habits, and self-esteem. I want to share that journey
with you.
How I used to eat
For the first couple years of marriage I didn’t do a lot of
real cooking. I could follow basic instructions for things like Hamburger
Helper, tacos, spaghetti, etc. But making something like lasagna or chicken
cordon bleu? Nope. Part of it was I was still learning how to cook, and part
was I didn’t have time to try new and complicated recipes. I was a full time student
and a part time employee.
When I got pregnant with Benjamin, I was able to stop working,
and my evenings were more open. I started learning how to cook new recipes, and
slowly increased the homemade meals that we had. After Benjamin was born I went
from taking 12 credits a semester to only taking 6. This also freed up time and
energy, so I was able to increase my cooking skills and the number of recipes I
was able to do. At this time I also started adding fruit and vegetable side
dishes to go with our dinners.
How I eat now
I have continued making excellent homemade dinners for my
family. We generally have leftovers for lunch the next day, so our lunches are
also excellent and homemade. Since Luna was born the biggest change I have made
in my eating habits are what I eat for breakfast and cutting down on snacks.
My breakfast foods used to consist mainly of: Jimmy Dean
breakfast sandwiches, Pop tarts, and frozen waffles. I count calories (which
I’ll talk more about in the next section), and noticed that the breakfast
sandwiches and waffles had too many calories. The Pop tarts were a good amount
of calories, but they didn’t last me until lunch and weren’t made of great
ingredients. What ended up being the best for me when it came to calories,
ingredients, and making it to lunch was oatmeal with fresh fruit and a glass of
milk.
Now, my breakfast is usually a bowl of oatmeal with fresh
fruit mixed in and a glass of milk. On Saturdays I make a special breakfast
because Gerson doesn’t have to go to work, and we all get to sleep in! My Saturday
breakfasts are usually double (and sometimes triple) the calories of my
breakfast throughout the rest of the week, but it’s not like I’m eating that
way every day, so I think it’s okay.
When I was pregnant I snacked ALL. THE. TIME. Which was okay
then, but not now. Once I figured out my oatmeal breakfast, I was able to cut
out my morning snack. I have also cut out my afternoon snack and replaced it
with drinking water. Doing that used to make me starving by dinner, but my body
is slowly getting used to it. I sometimes want to snack before bed, but I try to
just have a bowl of cereal.
Counting Calories
When it comes to watching what I eat, and knowing how much I
exercise, I have chosen to count calories. I know there are debates about
whether it’s better to count carbs or calories, or neither; but for me,
counting calories is what works best. I use an app/website called “Lose It!”.
On Lose It! You put in your gender, age, current weight,
weight goal, and how many pounds you want to lose per week (or you can choose
to maintain your current weight). You also answer questions about how active
you are. Then Lose It! Uses all of that information to calculate how many
calories you should eat per day. As you eat throughout the day you put in the
calories that you ate, and it keeps track of them for you. Foods from
restaurants, prepackaged food, and individual foods like eggs, fruits and
vegetables are already in there; but anything homemade you need to figure out
and put in yourself. When you exercise you put in your exercise and Lose It!
adds more calories to what you can eat that day.
Counting calories has really helped me see what foods fill
me up for how many calories they contain. It has also helped me see how long I
need to do each kind of exercise to see the desired results.
How I used to
exercise
As a teenager I was a competitive dancer and practiced
several hours a week. It kept me skinny and in shape. When I stopped dancing, I
needed to find a way to stay active. I tried different exercises videos, but I
didn’t really enjoy them. I started going power walking and riding my bicycle
with my mom, and I really liked that.
When I got pregnant with Benjamin I was too sick at first to
continue to exercise, and when I was better I was horribly misinformed about
exercising while pregnant. I thought I couldn’t do anything because I had spent
the first trimester lying down. I was terrified of causing damage to his
growing body, or worse a miscarriage; so I stayed pretty stationary during that
first pregnancy. I gained way too much weight and was very unfit.
After Benjamin was born it took me three months to be ready
to exercise again. I exercised to Dance Central and Kinect Sports on our Xbox
360 Kinect. It was a good start. It got me back into the habit of exercising,
but it took me a year and a half to lose all but three pounds of my pregnancy
weight.
When I got pregnant with Luna I stopped exercising because I
also started my student teaching and had no time. After I graduated from BYU I
asked my doctor what kind of exercises were safe to start 20 weeks into my
pregnancy. I explained that I had spent that last 3.5 months walking around a
classroom, so I hadn’t been completely stationary. She said that I could do
anything as long as I started slow and didn’t push my body past what it could
do. She said to go only until I felt myself getting tired and then to stop, and
over time I would notice that I could do more and go longer. I went on walks in
the afternoons and did Xbox Kinect Sports in the evenings. I set my Lose It!
goal to “maintain weight”. I knew that I would still gain weight – I was
pregnant after all – but as I ate and exercised on a “maintain weight” plan, I
didn’t gain as much weight as I had with Benjamin.
How I exercise now
I was able to start exercising again a month after Luna was
born! I’m pretty sure it’s because I was a lot more active during that
pregnancy. In the past my focus has been on cardio activities, and while I
still do that, I also want to strengthen my stomach and become more flexible.
So I have added a ten minute ab workout before cardio, a ten minute stretching
routine after cardio, and a once a week yoga routine.
I don’t like to do the same thing every day, so I mix it up.
I have a Kathy Smith “Tummy Trimmers” DVD that has five different ab videos on
there. I rotate through four of them (the fifth uses a stability ball which I
currently do not own). I also rotate through Kathy Smith’s “Dance Your Body
Slim” DVD, Kinect Sports Rivals for the Xbox One, Kinect Dance Central for the
Xbox One, and element’s “AM & PM Yoga for beginners” DVD . I then always
end with the stretching routine on the belly dancing portion of Kathy Smith’s
dancing DVD.
My Emotional
Journey
The changes I have made with how I feel about myself has
probably been the best part of this experience. I had really poor body image
during my pregnancy with Benjamin. I was not emotionally prepared for how much
my body would change. I seriously thought that only my belly would grow, I did
not expect the rest of my body to swell up like a balloon as well. I gained 60
pounds that entire pregnancy, and I felt terrible about myself. Taking a year
and a half to lose almost every pound was very frustrating for me. I didn’t
feel pretty, and I didn’t think I was skinny.
I am roughly the same pants size and weight now as I was
then, and I feel so much better now. It started with having a much better
pregnancy with Luna. I only gained 41 pounds during that pregnancy, and it was
gained gradually. I also believe that better eating and actually exercising led
to more positive feelings about myself.
The biggest change that has allowed me to have a positive
body image is finally accepting the fact that I am a woman now and I have a
woman’s body. I spent so much time trying to get back to what I looked like at
19 years old when I got married. I’ll never be 19 again, and I’ve had two kids;
but that doesn’t mean that I can’t look and feel good in my new body. My clothes may be size Large, but I am skinny, I just have some slightly
bigger curves – in the areas that count. ;) I feel great. I look great. I am
beautiful. Knowing that makes me happy, and I am a better mom and a better wife
when I am happy.
