Staying Fit As a Mom vs Living Your Mom Life

This post is an extremely personal, comical, and descriptive account of my attempts at weight loss post-baby. It includes the physical details of what it’s like.

Moms work desperately hard to get back to or do better than their post-baby bump. It’s hard. Sometimes, I just want to wear burlap sacks and pretend I’ve lost the weight, but I’m starting a fashion trend.

I stand in the mirror facing my post-baby belly. Yup, extra large. To be fair, it wasn’t super small when I became pregnant, but it did lack the giant bear-claw scars that now cover it. Coconut-oil did nothing for me. Stretch-mark oil did nothing for me. My daughter was just too powerful– she wanted her presence known before she got here.

“Can I get liposuction?” I ask hopefully to my husband while holding our baby. Perhaps the reminder of my 50 hour labor will inspire him to pretty much let me do whatever I damn well please. No luck.

“No. You can get a gym membership.”

“But that doesn’t get rid of my stretch marks.” To be fair, I don’t really know if liposuction does get rid of your stretch marks, but it was worth a shot.

“But that’s our daughter. I don’t want you to get rid of them. They’re beautiful because they come from her.” Awww.

“But when I want someone who makes more money, they won’t like them!” Not so cute of me.

The thing is, he’s right. Those stretch marks are my daughter. I worked hard for them. They show that she grew, was healthy, and was well-taken care of. It’s still frustrating to see, but I love that my husband constantly reminds me of how beautiful I am because they represent something so beautiful.

Okay, stretch marks= beauty. Check. There’s still my super gut.

Y’all. I’m so tired. Just to complain a little bit (because it’s not like I ever do in this blog), I’m a full-time teacher, part-time mom (just kidding), and in graduate school. I don’t want to work out. I don’t want to prep meals. I don’t want to think about the crap that enters my body. I especially don’t want to run. A) Because leggings make my already North American sized donk look like Antarctica. B) When I run, I take little steps because I’m short. All the other tall people pass me. I know they’ve been going for like 50 miles and I’m on mile .2. I get it. Your endurance is fantastic. 3) My boobs are too big to run. They’re like angry leprechauns hanging off of me and punching me in the face for every indecent thought I’ve ever had.

Here’s the thing. I don’t want my daughter to grow up being unhealthy. I love pizza more than anything. Second only to bread. Third comes my daughter. Even though she typically comes third in my priorities, isn’t she worth my eating only half of this pizza instead of the whole thing? I roll my eyes, but she definitely is.

So, I kicked it into gear. Y’all. This tired mom went to the gym at 5 a.m. so I could be at work at 7:30, work until 6:30 pm, be home by 7:30 pm, work on grades and grad school stuff until 11, and go to bed. Three times a week.

I didn’t lose any weight. I got angry. I wanted to give up because obviously my whale body is meant to be permanently beached. So, I talked to my trainer. Ah, apparently even if you work out, you need to eat better. Shucks.

So now, I add diet into the mix. I use the MyFitness Pal app along with a nutritionist to help me plan my meals. She’s super great. The biggest thing was just figuring out what I’m putting into my body. I didn’t realize that something that says Healthy might really not be. Did you know that you can’t eat an entire loaf of whole-grain bread just because it’s whole grain? Now I do.

I still eat what I want, but I just enter it into the app. That way, I know if I’m coming close to my daily limit of macros (protein, carbs, and fat). I “mess up” a lot of the time. I’m constantly going over my macros because sometimes I just want to eat bread and cheese. And it’s okay to mess up. I walked into a pole the other day, so there are worst things that can happen than my eating a roll.

Every day, I just think, my daughter is worth my being healthy. A lot of people ask me how much weight I want to lose, and honestly, I don’t care. I want to be fit and healthy. I want to be able to carry my daughter without huffing and puffing. I want to be able to chase a bratty kid who hits or bites my daughter. I want to win in a wrestling match with that kid and still have the energy to get up and cheer.

Even though pounds aren’t everything to me, I am proud of the five pounds I’ve lost. It’s a process,, and I’m never going to be a size 2. But I’m going to know about food and I’m going to be able to make my daughter healthy.

You can live your life and be healthy. You don’t need a nutritionist necessarily (although mine is super freaking awesome). Just be aware of what you’re eating. If I’m going to gain a pound, I want to know that cheese was worth it.