Getting Back on the Horse

©Motherhood & Everything Else.

When I was two months postpartum, I rejoined Weight Watchers. I had promised myself I would give it eight weeks—to recover, to feel good mentally, to settle into a routine. And then I would start slow, get back at it, start tracking my food, eventually start tracking my weight…

…that was a bad, bad idea.

At two months postpartum, I was still pumping with every night feeding. When I woke up at 2:00AM and 5:00AM, I was starving. I was barely awake enough to remember to bag the milk and put it in the refrigerator and track it on my phone, let alone go into the WW app and track what the hell I was eating!

It backfired.

I tracked for two days, and even then only half of what I was eating. And then it stopped completely. For another two and a half months.

And almost every other day, I would get push notifications like those pictured above. At first, they made me feel guilty. Then, I started to ignore them. They became background noise.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. I know. A woman’s body after giving birth is a train wreck, and unless you’re a movie star or the Duchess of Cambridge, you don’t shrink back down to a size 0 the week after baby is born. Especially if you weren’t a size 0 before you got pregnant. Especially if you were more like a size 14…on a good day.

And the whole deal with my stomach and crap, if you know me in person then you know I’m super not happy about it and yeah, that’s a whole other deal and I’m not going to get into it right now because that’s not what this is about. Okay? Okay.

This is about being healthy. This is about feeling good. This is about being ready for when my son begins to explore the world on his own two feet. I don’t want to be huffing and puffing a hundred feet behind him, or—worse yet—sitting and watching him from a seated position somewhere far away. I want to be running beside him. I want to pick him up and spin him around and jump and play and wrestle without having to stop to catch my breath every minute.

So yesterday, I decided to just do it. The night pumps are over. I’m still as frazzled as ever, but the app has been seriously refined since I last used it a year ago. Scanning and adding should be a little easier, I hope. Being at work has actually helped as I can actually get a meal from the downstairs café (and they have a salad bar).

Let’s have a look at what we are working with here.

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Weight Loss Breakdown

Previous Weights (September 2013—Present)

Early September 2013 (joined Weight Watchers after 1st miscarriage, before 2nd): 212lbs
Late March 2014 (after 2nd miscarriage, before fertility treatment): 190lbs
Early July 2014 (very beginning of pregnancy): 198lbs
Early March 2015 (end of pregnancy): 256lbs
Late March 2015 (2 weeks postpartum): 218lbs(!!)

Goal Weights (Present—Future)

For New Year’s Eve, 2015: 175lbs
Before Trying for Maybe Baby #2, 2015-2016: 150lbs

Ultimate Weight Goal: 140lbs

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I think I’m going to try and post a weekly status update on how things are going. How well I did with my WW points, what I did for exercise, and maybe even post my weight. Why not use this blog as a motivation tool? Why not enlist all of you silly people who read this blog (all, what, three of you? 😉 ) to hold me accountable?

I have my reservations about trying to lose weight right now. Joey is just shy of five months old, and I don’t want to start weaning him until he’s six months. I know that exercising can reduce breastmilk supply (yes, I know, that’s only if you go to extremes, but you have to remember that I spent my 1st trimester on crutches with a fractured knee and then wasn’t allowed to even try to exercise after that). And after last night, I’m realizing it’s going to be really hard to eat less (or healthier, anyway), as I was absolutely famished at 11:00PM last night after using up all of my points for the day and then some of my safety points. Yeesh.

But then I have to remind myself, I can do it. I can find healthier foods to inhale when I’m starving during that last pump of the day. I can start exercising at a slow pace to build up my strength and endurance so that I don’t kill my supply.

I can do this.

So…let’s see how it goes. First Weight Loss Update will be next Sunday…?

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