Friday, March 7, 2014

My fitness journey

So, here's the thing:

Loosing weight is hard.

Loosing baby weight is really hard.

Loosing baby weight after your third baby and after your poor body has basically been stretched and ballooned and expanded out of an sort of normalcy..... well that sometimes feels impossible.

I'm not going to lie, one of the hardest things about pregnancy for me is letting go of control of my body. I've always been an athlete, I've always been relatively thin, and I've always struggled with self-esteem issues when it comes to body image and weight. Thankfully over the years I feel like I've gotten a handle on my self-esteem issues. I know that strong is beautiful, and healthy is beautiful and bringing three beautiful babies into this world is the most beautiful thing of all.

But that doesn't mean I don't struggle when I feel like I don't recognize the body I see in the mirror. (Stretch marks? Really? I feel like that's a mean joke the universe plays on women. As is stretched skin and wide hips  and deflated boobs aren't enough) After I had L the weight came of relatively easily and my body bounced back, despite a 50 lb weight gain. With L2 I gained 50 lb again, and that time the weight did not come of nearly as easily and I never felt like I fully bounced back. I made it a point to be healthy and mindful of my weight gain with R, and managed to only put on 17 lbs. As of now, my weight is back to my pre-pregnancy, a few pounds under actually, but I need to work on toning and tightening. I was able to get back to the gym at 2 weeks post partum and at 8 weeks I started the Insanity program. I did insanity after L2 was born and was impressed with how strong it made me, so I was ready to challenge myself again.

If you've ever done insanity, or any of the Shaun T fitness programs, you know they are pretty fricking hard. Especially when you are chasing three times little ones around. And breastfeeding. And changing diapers. Truthfully, by the time I got to week 6 and the "max" portion, I wanted to quite so bad. But I didn't I stuck it out, and I'm pretty happy with the results. I still feel like I have aways to go, and I want to continue getting stronger and tightening everything up, but I"m feeling good and motivated after finishing this program and I'm ready to dive back into yoga and running and weights. I'm even signed up for the Lozilu mud run in April!

OK, I"m going to share my "before" and "after" pictures. This is hard for me to do. I hate how I look in the 8 week picture. I know I was pretty newly post partum, but it's still hard for me to look at. I feel better about the 16 week picture, I think I have slimmed down and am looking more toned. It definitely motivates me to keep going! Oh, and the bottom picture is a pair of my pre-pregnancy jeans from before L.  I love these jeans, but they are tiny with no stretch and I never got back into them after L2. I pulled them out and tried them on the other day and was thrilled when they fit!!!



1 comment:

  1. Baby weight is so hard to lose but you my friend look like you have done a great job. You look great! I too struggle and I can FINALLY say I am happy with my body....only 11 months after giving birth. My body shape changed so much after Madeline, not in a bad way I just had to figure out what workouts would be best for me. I recently started Barre and it is amazing along with my running of course. By the way we will be there in April...lets get together :)

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