Body Image - (My) New Mom Perspective

I know there is a HUGE range of perspective on the new mom and body image, and I know that we often hear about the negatives. The stretch marks, the extra belly skin, how NONE of our clothes fit, how our tits HURT!

And the list goes on.

My experience is quite different from the tales we so often hear. Like much of my pregnancy, life post pregnancy for me has been quite easy.

My stuff
stretch marks? Yes.
Still wearing mat pants? Nope.
Two pairs of pre-preg pants. Sometimes my pre-preggo jeans.
Still have a bit of a paunch.

Feeling good
Eating healthy (for the most part)
I was resting for quite some time, partially thanks to my c-section infection and time needed to heal. It was PRET-TY bad!
Perspective. The weight won't stay on forever. My priority is being mama and not losing weight and getting back into shape so shortly after giving birth.

During my pregnancy I gained 38 pounds. 20 pounds of that I lost in the hospital. 9 pounds of that was baby, the rest was fluids, water weight (that went straight to my boobs) and placenta. I lost 10 pounds pretty quickly by breastfeeding, but as I said previously, I had a c-section, so I had to take it easy. Then my incision got infected (while I was still in hospital. Yes, I brought up with all nurses and anyone who came into my room that it felt weird, everyone said it was fine... until I walked into the ER 11 days later... turns out, I was right, there was something weird!) so I had to take it easy for much longer.

Right now, I am 5-ish pounds away from my pre-preggo weight. And I'm not sweating about it. My priority is still being a mom rather than getting back into shape. I don't want to be fixated about a number on a scale.

Today, I woke up feeling tired, but a few minutes into the morning, I felt awesome. I felt energized, I fit into my pre-preggo jeans, my babe slept until 8:45 in contrast to her normal 6:30, I got my makeup done. And I had a good poop. Yup, I said it, deal with it.

Most days, I feel pretty good. Some days I wake up feeling exhausted and I really don't know how I'm going to get through the day. Most of the time it's with coffee and ice coffee. How I feel about my body image changes with each of those feelings. For the most part, I'm super comfortable and confident about my body.

My body is freaking awesome. I grew a child. I never felt more beautiful than when I Was pregnant. I felt freaking gorgeous, and I think that showed. And well, I still feel pretty awesome. I feel pretty... and, I have to say, I have the cutest kid ever. How can I EVER hate anything about my body when it housed her, kept her safe and nurtured her?

Yes, I have stretch marks, I have a scar above my pubic bone, I still have a bit of a mummy tummy.

My body is the only one I have and I have made a choice to love my body. The way it is right now. Flaws and all. Because the way it is right now, is perfect in my daughters eyes. And I want to take a lesson from her, to teach her a very important lesson later on. That our bodies are beautiful the way they are. I don't want her to hear me say "I'm fat and ugly and wrong." Because she will believe it, and she will learn it, and she will live it.

I want my daughter to learn the lesson later, that she already knows now. Her mommy's body is perfect the way it is. And so is hers.

180 - Turning It Around

I'm pretty sure I nearly fell over. I looked away, then looked back down again. Yup, there it is - 180. The scale read 180 lbs.

Now, I've made an unofficial and small effort over the years to NOT care about what the scale said, (partially due to a history of anorexia) but rather, if I could look in the mirror and be happy - that was good enough for me. The Scale hitting 180 was the last straw for me.

Over the past few years my weight has slowly, but steadily crept upward. For a couple years I wavered around 155-160. No biggy. Then I moved and it wavered between 160, 165 and 170. No Problem right? I'm a tall gal.

Mid March was the down fall - and the creep upwards. I was having a miscarriage. (And don't believe what the preggo books say, you do NOT have to be in severe pain or bleeding severely when you have a miscarriage, just sayin') This was no ordinary miscarriage, this was the miscarriage that wanted to stay for as long as it could.

The oral tablets the doctors gave me to help my body clean house, did not work. We found this out two weeks after I took the supposed "easy" pills. March and April were a blur of doctors appointments, ultrasounds, ER staff, lots of emotional exhaustion and confusion. I ended up getting day surgery scheduled. I was to go in for a D&C to clear out what my body, and those pills, couldn't so far.

For a month and a half I chose McDonalds instead of homemade chicken, Miss Vickys Salt and Vinegar instead of salad and LOTS of chocolate instead of fruit. It helped give me a distraction and numb what I was feeling. Eventually, (a few weeks ago) I was ready to start eating healthy again, and take control. I played with the idea of getting a personal trainer. I decided that I should weigh myself before I took any futher steps.

Which leads me to here. With you reading this right now. I gained 15-20 lbs in the span of a month and a half to two months. HOW ON EARTH did this happen? More importantly, how long will it take me to lose it?

A woman possessed and determined to meet my goal, I started creating a plan. I (more or less) cut out junk food from my diet. I wrote a list of what my temptation foods were, what I could replace them with; made a commitment to walking every evening after dinner and getting in some physical activity in every day.

I went to the library to find a book unrelated to health/weight loss/dieting, but found a great book on just that topic by a Wall St nutritionist, (more on that later) bought an exercise bike and decided to set my goals in 10 lb increments.

I still have a little way to go to 170 (here's hoping for any day now!) and I am still finding the tools that work for me to keep my motivation up, but no one else can make this happen. It's all me. I AM going to make it work.

I choose my health over greasy food.
I choose to make my life better.
I choose me.