Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Losing my baby fat

A silly thought crossed my mind yesterday morning at breakfast. I am not simply losing weight, but instead I am on a postpartum recovery journey that has taken 17 1/2 years to come to. As absurd as it sounds, that is exactly what this is. Before my son entered my life , I was a lot heavier. At 310 pounds I was struggling with infertility, worked my butt down to 201 lbs and succeeded in conceiving my son . ( There was another son who was stillborn before him, but I quickly recovered from his birth). The day I conccived I was able to walk long distances, swim, lift fairly heavy objects and I was in excellent physical condition. 8 weeks into the pregnancy I started bleeding, and it was discovered that I had placenta pravia - which meant the placenta had attached in the wrong position. The recommended treatment was bedrest, and a lot of it. Then came numerous other complications that had us visiting specialists or tests all too often, being told that I must treat my body as a glass egg and to not get too attached to this baby. Sorry- it would be easier to tell a woman not to breathe. As a result, all of the things I did in my first pregnancy to stay healthy ( diet and exercise) I could not do. My muscles came very close to becoming atrophied I think, and the week before I delivered I could hardly even stand. As a result of all the bedrest my son was transverse, and a C section was required. For several reasons I could not have the standard Bikini cut, but instead got the vertical incision, which meant a lot more damage to abdominal muscles. Not to mention it was the second major opening of my abdomen in less than a year ( emergency surgery to remove an ovary). All of this left me physically weak, mentally shell shocked and struggling to find me. I would not change anything about that for the world, but it seems it is indeed time to get back to me. Time to work on building those muscles that I lost so long ago.

Breakfast was a Mom McMuffin and coffee. Mom McMuffins are simply an Egg McMuffin you make at home, but healthier. This was 1/2 cup of egg beaters, a slice of provalone, 3 strips of turkey bacon on a Thomases Better Start english muffin for 300. After that we did our first session with the Wii Fit Plus and then began our school day. It's a heavy math week for us, and it was very good to work out some energy before tackling the beast !

We finished school and broke for lunch. Turkey breast on whole wheat, carrots, celery and an apple with a diet soda for 405 calories. After lunch we worked out some more on the Wii and then i set down to the business of planning next weeks menu. It is definately getting easier to do this and stay in the calorie ranges for the three of us !

Afternoon snack was an apple and a Fiber Plus bar for 200 calories.

Dinner wound up being the 3rd sandwich meal of the day - just happened to work that way. This meal was a B.A.L.T.- bacon, avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich on whole whea with cucumbers, cauliflower peppers and an apple for 450 calories. After dinner we got in a 3rd session with the Wii. Somehow acting like a chicken trying to fly and adding with your hips is too much fun to stay away from for long. By days end, according to the calorie burner thing I had burned 200 calories through the day. Yay me !

We watched a bit of Dancing With the stars and The Biggest Loser, and I grabbed my snack of 2 rice cakes and whipped cream cheese for 150 calories. Total calories in for the day came to 1500. Calories spent contemplating the good or bad in the blue team's decision- probably at least 15.No spoilers here but I can understand how either choice would have been a good move. Sad thing is next week they will be home so we will not get to watch the trainers working on the one that got to stay. There has not been a death yet, but I think this contestant will be pushed close to that point !

2 comments:

Joanna@BooneDocksWilcox said...

We've been watching Biggest Loser too. I'm doing 1200 calories per day this week, I want to know if I can see a 2 lb difference by Saturday's weigh in, rather than 1 lb coming off this old, stubborn body.

Diane, Fit to the Finish said...

That baby weight is going to come off this time! I know you struggled with your weight before your pregnancies. For me I gained the majority of my weight during the 1st pregnancy and then added to it during the subsequent two. It took me seven years to lose the weight from that first pregnancy!

I'm glad you had a good day and that you all enjoyed time together. The food looks great too!