The "W" Word

Weight.

gasp

I know, I know. Nobody likes to talk about weight.

Unless you're pregnant or just had a baby. Then your weight is talked about like the weather. Everybody is always telling moms, "Oh you look SO good," "There's no way you just had a baby," "You're alllllll belly."  My favorite was, "You can't even tell you're pregnant from behind!" to which I wanted to reply, "Oh, really? You couldn't tell I was pregnant from the fact I was waddling like an overgrown penguin?!"

I was always sure I'd be the girl who blew up to whale-like proportions when I got pregnant. Thankfully, I didn't, but that doesn't mean I was happy about all the weight I gained. I was on track to only gain my goal of 30 lbs, but then nasty preeclampsia snuck up and I gained 8 lbs the last week I was pregnant.

36 weeks pregnant and NOT all belly

I had to be in the hospital 5 nights and by the time I left, I only had 18 lbs left to go. At my 6 week check up, I had lost another 13. I figured if I lost 33 lbs in 6 weeks, the other 5 would melt right off of me...

I was wrong.
Shocker.

Fast forward to last week. Our scale's battery has been dead since Reuben was about 7 weeks old and I haven't been to the doctor again, so I hadn't had a chance to weigh myself in about 10 weeks. I figured I had lost the 5 lbs plus some because a lot of my pre-pregnancy pants were fitting again. We went over to a friends house to hang out and I weighed myself on their scale, fully expecting to see my pre-Reuben weight smiling back at me. Nope. Those darn 5 lbs are still here!

Now, let's be real, I'm not exactly a poster child for health. I'm too much of a sucker for cheese dip and chocolate (not together, of course) for that. But I would've thought between carrying my chunky baby around, breastfeeding, and not totally gorging myself on food, those 5 lbs would be gone!

So that was my wake up call. I want them gone. Them plus another 15 of their friends or so. And to get them gone, I'm going to have to work. I started with the baby step of getting a grilled chicken wrap at Chickfila today. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Our wedding, 2.5 years ago. Goal weight!

Now it's out there in blog world. I've said it and I can't take it back. By this time next year, I WILL be 20 lbs lighter and a whole lot healthier.

What are some of your tips to make the whole eating healthy thing easier? Anybody got any victory stories about losing baby weight? Or maybe you can commiserate with me for a moment about those lbs that just won't get lost?!

Disclaimer: I'm being entered in a sweepstakes for writing this post. Check it out at schuelove!