One year down the line, back to my pre-baby weight!

[tolma2love]

This morning I saw that I’m back down to my pre-pregnancy weight, just a few days short of my baby’s first birthday! I’m so pleased and proud of myself as this was my goal all along (see a starting out post here).

I lost 20 lb (out of 40 gained) in my first month pp and my weight then pretty much stagnated until I started CICO at 6 months pp, using a Fitbit and aiming for a 500 kcal deficit per day, though I got derailed quite a bit (Vacations… Birthdays… Summer cookouts, you know how it goes).

Exercise-wise, I’m cycling around an hour a day on workdays, walking around 8000 steps and doing hypopressive PT workouts. The latter were prescribed for mild DR and prolapse symptoms and not only did they mostly sort that out, I now have a stronger core (and smaller waist! WTF) than pre-baby. So highly recommended.

I’m so happy that I decided to take it slow and not to try to « snap back ». The past year has been a whirlwind (in many different ways…), it went by so fast and the fact that I looked less than stellar for much of it does not make an iota of difference now (and believe me, I am VAIN).

It breaks my heart to see mamas on here beating themselves up about their weight at 6 weeks pp. You have so much time to drop those pounds (if you want to!!! If you can't be fkd that's awesome too), but those first months with baby are unique (again, in many different ways ). Take all the mom and baby pics, wear all the sweatpants, be extra snarky when MIL asks you when you’re going back to the gym and then forget she ever said anything Best of luck to you all.

 

[dnaexpert1]

@tolma2love Wow…can’t wait for this to be me.
I tap into this energy. (Am at the weight stagnation stage an 8 month pp

 

[chance7]

@tolma2love Congrats and thanks for the inspiration Did you continue to breastfeed? When did you wean of you have?

Edit: nvm I saw your comment about breastfeeding in your old post!

 

[tolma2love]

@chance7 Yup, EBF for the first month and then combo until month five or thereabouts. Not sure if there was any impact on weightloss or not as I didn't start CICO until six months pp.

 

[martinhero]

@tolma2love I have hope! I have started exercising again (2.5 months PP), but the scale isn’t moving. I know it’s early, but I lost about 25 pounds right away, and I think it setup unreasonable expectations. I gained over 50 lbs, so I feel like I have so far to go and will never get there again. I was in the best shape of my life before I got pregnant and jogged 6/7 days a week. I am feeling good and getting stronger, so I’m trying to focus on that, but it’s so hard.

 

[tolma2love]

@martinhero Solidarity! I had a quick stalk of your post history and we seem to be around the same age which probably doesn't make things easier... But you'll get there in your own time!

A word of warning though... You're so early on, please take things easy to protect your pelvic floor (even if you're officially "cleared"). Doing too much in the early weeks (not necessarily exercising, but trying to be superwoman) was how I damaged mine. Intensive PT has sorted out most of my issues but some things you can't come back from, unlike a few extra pounds!

 

[martinhero]

@tolma2love I may or may not also have a slight superwoman issue I am trying to take it slowly as far as anything with impact. Were you experiencing discomfort or how did you know there were problems and that you were overdoing it?

 

[tolma2love]

@martinhero I started getting a dragging feeling in my lower abdomen walking around the farmer's market at 6 days pp then felt something "go" when lifting the stroller onto the bus a few weeks later. I was also doing far too much around the house trying to make things look good for the never-ending stream of visitors I didn't really want to see. You live and learn!

 

[dakota03]

@tolma2love Way to go!! Well done

 

[petie1106]

@tolma2love What is CICO?

 

[tolma2love]

@petie1106 Calories In Calories Out, i.e tracking your calorie intake and energy expenditure.

 

[thedao]

@tolma2love Amazing job! I’m 1 year out and I still haven’t lost any weight. I have no clue what I’m doing wrong. I work our every day, I eat healthy since I’m still BF but the scale won’t go down at all.

 

[tolma2love]

@thedao Thanks! Sorry if this is a really obvious question, but have you tried tracking your calories? I was eating really healthily and exercising a lot at 6 months pp and still didn’t start actively loosing until doing CICO. But then you’re also BF, which makes weight loss harder for a lot of women.

 

[thedao]

@tolma2love I don’t usually track my calories mostly because I don’t really eat a lot. I try to eat healthy but it’s not much. I honestly should probably be eating more but I’m scared to gain more weight.

I eat fruit and eggs in the morning, veggies at lunch time or I sometimes skip lunch if I don’t have time. And I have a lean meat and veggie for dinner. Occasionally I’ll have a snack of a snack bag of pretzels or freeze dried apples. Just looking the general things I eat it’s about 1,300 calories per day. Which feels like it should be lower than calories our.