About a month ago I started going to a personal trainer to lose my pregnancy weight. I gained 50 pounds during my pregnancy and, after losing the first 35 pounds pretty easily, was stuck between 144 and 147 pounds for six months. I’m on the short side — 5′ 4″ — so 150 pounds on my frame is alot.
As I prepared for my son’s first birthday party it dawned on me that, despite my best efforts, the pounds weren’t really going anywhere. For the first time I considered that I just might need professional help.
The process has been pretty eye opening for me, so I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned.
1. Losing weight is hard (duh!)
Okay, first let me say, unless you have a super metabolism, losing weight is tough. There is no shortcut. No easy way out. Just weeks, and sometimes months, of working out and eating well.
After three kick ass workouts — one that pushed me so far to the limit that my arm went limp during a set of bicep curls — I still hadn’t lost a pound.
I asked my trainer about it and she casually replied, “That’s normal. You probably won’t see the weight come off for six weeks.”
“Six weeks?!” I thought. Six weeks of getting my ass kicked in the gym, of giving up Wendy’s and lamb pies and my addiction to maple syrup?!
Now I was lucky that (thank God) I actually lost my first pound after about two weeks of working out. And, to date, I’ve lost 3. But I have yet to see the difference in the mirror or feel the looseness in my clothes.
2. Sometimes you need professional help
I’ve always been a person who was into fitness. But it was ‘lazy fitness’. My diet was terrible (pre-pregnancy I subsisted on Cheerios and McDonalds) — but I knew how to control my calories. I knew that I could eat all the crappy foods I wanted if I didn’t eat them all at once. I had a similarly bad attitude towards exercise. If I started gaining weight, I’d go hard with working out for a month, lose a bit more than my target goal, then go back to NOT working out, until my weight crept back up again. See? Lazy fitness.
Needless to say, this strategy did not work after I gave birth. My diet had improved drastically during pregnancy — I ate way more fruits and veggies — but I was still eating fat and sugar ladden foods almost every day. My metabolism was slower, and my old weight loss tricks were just not working. I subscribed to a ton of fitness blogs and they offered great inspiration, but they couldn’t substitute for specialized guidance.
That’s when it dawned on me that I was not capable of helping myself. I simply did not know how to lose my baby weight. I was stuck. And I needed professional help.
3. I regret “eating for two” and not working out during my pregnancy
I really do. Especially since over-eating is totally not necessary. I had no complications that required bedrest. I was totally healthy and, according to my midwife, could have done hand springs right up to the moment I popped my baby out. So I had no excuse.
4. I have a terrible relationship with food, that pre-dates my pregnancy
You would think that exercise has been the hardest part of my physical training. Actually no. After a while, the body-numbing hour-long workouts become… kind of enjoyable. I get that rush of endorphins and feel proud for mentally and physically pushing my body to the limit. The hard part comes when I go home…
I’ve had hangups about food since I was 11. Never an eating disorder — but I’ve always seen food as either an enemy or a guilty pleasure. That’s why my m.o. was to suppress my calories (because food is an enemy), then eat large portions of salty, fried or sweet foods (because food is a guilty pleasure). I’ve never seen food for what it is — fuel for my body.
5. Maintaining lifelong fitness is a habit, a choice and a tradeoff
When I first met my physical trainer, I thought she was in her early 30s. I eventually discovered that she is in her mid-40s and had given birth to a child just a couple years earlier.
*Record scratch*
What???
Her body is… incredible. She always has tons of energy and she doesn’t remember the last time she was sick.
But here’s the thing — she doesn’t eat sweets, she doesn’t drink alcohol and she spends 6 days a week in the gym.
I once asked her if she ever missed junk food. She shrugged, “Not really. And what I have now is better than the alternative.”
It dawned on me that lifelong fitness is a tradeoff. I simply can’t have it all. If I want to stay fit, I can’t eat apple cider donuts (yum!!) every day. I can’t neglect the gym for weeks at a time. And maybe that means I’ll have less food-gasms, or less time to lay around and watch TV. But it also means that my body will look the way I want it to, I will have the energy I need and will increase my metabolism and my bone density.
6. A physical trainer is like a hair dresser; you’ll end up telling her all your business!
The hourlong sessions I do with my trainer fly by because we gab so much. It’s made things suprisingly fun.
So here I am… with 3 pounds down and 11 more to go. And I’ve decided that, even after I lose the weight, I will continue seeing my trainer to learn how to stay healthy and fit long-term.
Ladies, did you struggle to lose weight after you gave birth? How did you do it? And what did you learn about yourself and your health in the process?