I initially started this journey because I was fed up with the excuses. I knew I was stuck and that something needed to change, but I dragged my feet. I dragged them long and hard.
Why was I holding myself back? What was I afraid of? Was I afraid that I would fail?
The truth? I didn’t realize I was in that bad of shape and hadn’t notice that I had gotten so big. I thought that I hid my weight well and that the excuse of being a new mom was enough to keep others from noticing. Boy, oh boy, was I wrong. I was in flat out denial.
I didn’t think others would take notice because I was only within 12 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight (not a healthy weight either). What I didn’t realize was that my body wasn’t carrying the weight so well anymore. I was lumpy fat, not fit fat. This reality bomb really hit me after seeing photos from a couple of my friends’ weddings (see below). Have you ever played the game “one of these things is not like the other”? I was the “thing”.
August 2012–218lbs+(we didn’t have a scale)
October 2012
How had I let myself get to this point? How did it happen?
Plain and simple, I justified every action with an excuse. I could eat that extra cookie because I “needed” the calories to produce enough milk to continue nursing my son. We “needed” to order take out because I was too exhausted to cook a healthy meal. I couldn’t go to the gym or exercise because I would lose my supply. The list was endless. I would continuously set goals in my head and plan on starting next week, but the following week would come and nothing would stick.
Come January 2013, I didn’t even bother with resolutions, I felt defeated and figured I couldn’t stick to anything until I was ready to wean my son. My number one concern (err excuse) was not being able to nurse him because of a lost supply. I didn’t want to feel like I was neglecting my son. Sadly, the truth was that if I had continued down the path I was heading down I would have been neglecting him.
By his first birthday he was well adjusted to walking (he started at 8.5 months) and had nearly mastered running. I remember chasing him down our hallway (our very short hallway) and getting winded. It scared me. I had the realization that some day soon my son would be fast enough to get away from me. What would I do if I couldn’t catch him? What if he wriggled away and ran in front of a car because I couldn’t react quickly enough because I was too out of shape? I needed to do something so that I could commit to being the best mom I could be.
I didn’t want to be the “fat mom” anymore. I needed to be the healthy mom. I wanted to be the healthy mom. I wanted to get my life back. I also didn’t want to plan on a second child until I had dropped the extra weight. I’ve read too many articles about how moms who don’t lose the baby weight within the first 6 months were more likely to not lose it and to continue to gain with each subsequent pregnancy. I could not fathom being any bigger than I already was and I didn’t want to become a statistic. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it for myself and for my family.
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