Okay, so I know it's really not that effortless. In fact, it's the exact opposite of effortless. I'm one of those people who gains weight far, far more easily than taking it off. I like to say that all you have to do is say the words "gain weight", and I'll do it!
This week I had my check-up after having our baby. My body has healed in good fashion and everything looks good. Everything, except one thing. With this pregnancy I gained more real weight, more lingering weight, than I had with my first. I knew this already just from the changes in my body, but it was piquing to see the numbers on the doctor's office scale. Not long after Simon was born, I started formulating a plan. I hated the way I looked and felt: it was humiliating to catch an unexpected glance of myself in the mirror. I definitely don't look the way I do in my head. Yet, I don't want to be stuck there. I want to do something about it.
My hope and goal is to take the next year to lose the weight. I'd love to lose 60 lbs, but that would bring me back to what I weighed sophomore year in high school. Possible, maybe, but not likely. My body has changed for too much in too many ways for that to be realistic. So, I'm instead hoping for somewhere between 35-45lbs. I know that the BMI measurements and today's culture would tell me this is still overweight, and that I should work harder for that last 14 lbs. but I think for my frame and for my life, I can be content with this goal and be more likely to accomplish it.
There has only ever been one time when I was able to drop that much poundage. Sadly, I've been this overweight before, and that experience is another post entirely. What it took then for me to lose the weight was to radically change my diet and I went on South Beach. After I plateaued on that diet (at an acceptable weight, though not my aim) I began biking a lot; I didn't lose any more weight, but I was far healthier. For many reasons, I can't do that. I can't lug two little ones on a bike. I've tried to retry South Beach and I just didn't work for where I was at then, and extreme changes in diet, however temporary, aren't a good idea while I am a nursing mother.
When I went on that diet, I had a burning desire and motivation to lose weight. I was single and had a great deal more time and freedom. Not true now. The same kind of motivation, again another post. But being a mother to two under two, well, that is definitely a restriction on time and freedom, one I certainly don't mind having. Videos and in-home exercise seems far more practical/possible. So here's the plan (finally, right?): first, we' re going to make healthier meals, mostly by adding in more vegetables. It's another reason we want to garden: to ensure that we have to eat our vegetables by eating our produce. Until then, I hope to buy veggies from the farmer's market and the grocery store and eat them up. To this end, I've been collecting recipes and scouring cookbooks and the internet for interesting ways to prepare them. Also, I plan to cut soda and flavored drink to a minimum. This might be more difficult than I hope it will be, because I confess on a rough day I always want a soda . As for exercise, there are a few videos in our collection that I have used before and with practice feel I can get some good exercise from. But my primary goal is to make it through the P90X program. Nick has it, and a friend of ours has told us that there's a cardio circuit of the program that would work well for my purposes. (After all, I don't want to bulk up on muscle, but to slim down on fat. I have few hopes of having a "beach body," just to get healthy.) I know the P90X is intense, so I'll have to work up to it, but it's just the challenge I need to both motivate me and keep me going. I want to conquer it. Last, I've come up with some motivational tools to use, but I'll save that for yet another post.
So, next year: May 19, 2012, I hope to have some results to show.
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