{"id":4015,"date":"2014-04-18T07:15:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T11:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=4015"},"modified":"2016-01-02T16:21:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-02T21:21:54","slug":"losing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/18\/losing-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing It: The Lighter side of Postpartum Weight Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019ve known it was coming for a while.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been waiting for it for weeks, but a few days ago, it finally happened: My scale hit that magic number.<\/p>\n

Everyone who pays attention to their weight has a magic number.\u00a0 A number that is too high.\u00a0 A number that is just right.\u00a0 Or in my case, a number that is much too low.<\/p>\n

My number is one I\u2019ve never seen as an adult, a number that in my head has always been unattainable.\u00a0 It\u2019s a number I\u2019ve been close to and always thought \u201cwow, if I go any lower, there won\u2019t be anything left!\u201d<\/p>\n

While many women struggle with postpartum weight loss, it\u2019s never been a problem for me.\u00a0 It helped that I worked really hard during my pregnancies to not gain too much weight (32 pounds with my first and third and 28 pounds with my second).\u00a0 But I believe being an avid breastfeeder<\/a>\u00a0 has played a huge part in helping with easily losing the weight gained during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

With my girls, I was back down to my\u00a0normal weight<\/a>\u00a0by 2 months and lost a pound a month after that until I started giving them cups of milk instead of exclusive nursing.\u00a0 With Doodle, it took me 4 \u00bd months to get back to my normal weight, but since then (only 7 months) I\u2019ve lost another 13 pounds.<\/p>\n

\"9-15<\/a> As a former\u00a0ballet dancer<\/a>, I\u2019ve always been conscientious of my weight, though I never took extreme measures aside from diet and moderate exercise to manage any changes. \u00a0I discovered my \u201cnormal\u201d weight over 7 years ago when I broke my foot.\u00a0 At the time I was taking ballet class 5 days a week and teaching another.\u00a0 When I broke my foot I had to stop dancing altogether for 12 weeks and in that time I LOST a pound a week (I\u2019m assuming it was all my muscle!)\u00a0 That is the weight I easily maintained through my wedding and until I got pregnant and that is the weight I quickly returned to after my first two babies and the weight I returned to after weaning Sugarplum before getting pregnant with Doodle.<\/p>\n

And most importantly, that is the weight I feel my best at. \u00a0At my “normal” weight, I feel healthy, energized and motivated to take care of myself by eating right and exercising (mostly for fear of my weight going up too much if I don’t!)<\/p>\n

\"027_27\"I know that most mommies struggle with postpartum weight loss and I am fortunate that it\u2019s not been a problem for me.\u00a0 I feel lucky that aside from a little extra bulge in the belly\u00a0<\/a>that proves my mommy of three status, I have no complaints about my postpartum body (don\u2019t hate me, but I even survived all three pregnancies with no stretch marks on my stomach or boobs).<\/p>\n

But the thing is, I don\u2019t feel like a sexy, slim or beautiful woman who others should envy.\u00a0\u00a0People have started commenting on how much weight I’ve lost and say things like “you’re wasting away!” and I joke that Doodle is “eating me alive” but the truth is: I feel like crap.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m weak, exhausted and struggle with bouts of lightheadedness (presumably due to an iron or other vitamin deficiency despite still taking\u00a0 a daily prenatal vitamin) and all of that makes me irritable and easily stressed.\u00a0 My hair is dry, brittle and falls out in ridiculous amounts.\u00a0 My body has become so bony it\u2019s uncomfortable to sit, lay, kneel or lean on harder surfaces.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>My clothes (specifically my pants and skirts) just hang off my hips and I constantly sport a \u201csaggy bottom\u201d look.\u00a0 Even the clothes I bought after losing so much weight after the having the girls are too big now and I can\u2019t justify buying new clothes when I know I\u2019ll gain the weight back after I wean.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m insatiably hungry and though I can eat most anything I want and will still lose weight, I know I don\u2019t eat enough because I just don\u2019t have time.\u00a0 I try to maintain a healthy and well-balanced diet but I don\u2019t always have the energy to make proper meals and fall into eating what\u2019s easy which helps satiate the hunger but does nothing for my deficiencies. \u00a0And so it becomes a cycle: \u00a0I feel bad, I eat something easy, I don’t get the nutrients I need, I feel bad…<\/p>\n

My issues with postpartum weight loss are not something I discuss with people very often.\u00a0 I know too many moms who struggle with postpartum weight loss and I do not ever want to alienate them or make them feel bad.\u00a0 But it’s also because I worry that I will be judged, seen as a whiny, complaining or unappreciative which in this situation, I am none of.<\/p>\n

So before you look at a mommy who slims right back down after birth and think \u201cwow, she\u2019s lucky it\u2019s so easy for her,\u201d remember there are two sides to every coin and just because a mommy LOOKS good, doesn\u2019t mean she FEELS good and easily losing weight doesn\u2019t always mean an easy time.\u00a0 We all have our struggles in life and health (or lack thereof) comes in many forms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve known it was coming for a while.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been waiting for it for weeks, but a few days ago, it finally happened: My scale hit that magic number. Everyone who pays attention to their weight has a magic number.\u00a0 A number that is too high.\u00a0 A number that is just right.\u00a0 Or in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,9],"tags":[39,40,64,24,188,187],"class_list":["post-4015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-breastfeeding","category-family-life","tag-baby","tag-breastfeeding-2","tag-postpartum","tag-pregnancy","tag-weaning","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4015"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9858,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4015\/revisions\/9858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}