Becoming Mother

Someone, somewhere started this saying, “Nine months to put it on, Nine months to take it off.”

Ha, I say.

Nine months?

I wish.

For both of my pregnancies, it took a solid 15-18 months to get it all off.

And it took the magic of intermittent fasting to get the last 10 pounds off.

First, disclaimers. Everyone is different (duh) and I’m not a medical professional (obviously).

But here’s what I experienced.

Basically, the experience of pregnancy and birth puts your body into metabolic overload.

Chugga-chugga-choo-choo!

Then, after birth, your body continues in its highest gear for a period time, before it completely powers down. It takes a while for your body to figure out it’s new normal metabolism. We’re talking months. Even if you’re eating well and exercising.

I’ll detail it out here:

Birth – 6 Months Postpartum: The Engine Slows to a Crawl

• Birth – 1 month postpartum
  • Exercise: Moving self through the house
  • Diet: Eating whatever I was hungry for–and I was hungry a lot
  • Lost 10 pounds

It’s too bad that I was too sleep deprived to fully appreciate how quickly I lost weight in that first month postpartum. Pretty sure I’ll never lose weight that quickly ever again in life.

• 2 months – 5 months
  • Exercise: Walking, light aerobics and weightlifting, 3-4 days per week
  • Diet: Eating whatever I was hungry for–and I wasn’t hungry as frequently
  • Lost
    • 2 months postpartum: 3 pounds
    • 3 months postpartum: 1 pound
    • 4 months postpartum: 1 pound
    • 5 months postpartum: 1 pound

I started keeping track of my measurements around this time.

Why? I’m sure some of you are asking. Why would you do that to yourself?

A few reasons. First, any change in my measurements gave me motivation to keep going–especially since I started out with six inches to lose from my hips.

• 6 months
  • Exercise: Light jogging and weightlifting, 5-6 days per week
  • Diet: Keeping intake to 1600-1700 calories per day
  • Lost 0 pounds

Undoubtedly, six months postpartum was my peak dissatisfaction with body. I mean. Really. Lost 0 pounds.

When the dust settled and my body figured out that it wasn’t carrying another human being anymore, my metabolism settled on a nice comfortable rate of losing 1/4 pound per week. It wasn’t the rate that I wanted, but at least I was moving in the right direction.

7 months: Second Gear

• 7 months
  • Exercise: Medium-impact aerobics and weightlifting, 6 days per week
  • Diet: Keeping intake to 1600-1700 calories per day, eating more protein
  • Lost: 2 pounds

At 7 and 8 months postpartum, I had recovered enough (Kegels, ahem) to get back into my higher intensity aerobic training. It was a gradual ramping up of intensity, being careful to avoid injuries. This higher intensity training helped to kick start my metabolism again and begin the path back to my previous fitness level.

8 months – 13 months: Figuring Out How To Keep the Engine Going

• Exercise: Running and heavy weightlifting, 6 days per week
• Diet: Aiming for 1500-1600 calories, eating more vegetables and protein
• Lost
  • 8 months: 3 pounds
  • 9 months: 2 pounds
  • 10 months: 2 pounds
  • 11 months: 1 pound

Over time, I saw my metabolism slow again. At 11 months postpartum, I was still 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight. And I just wanted to be done with the whole thing.

Nevertheless, I just couldn’t stomach counting calories at all anymore. I had been pretty laissez-faire about it from eight months postpartum onward, but at this point, I just cringed at the thought of keeping any more tallies of calories. Instead, I would just eyeball what I was eating and try to keep meals in an acceptable range.

My husband recommended adding more protein to my diet. So I added some peanut butter to my oatmeal. I didn’t change anything else. Just added the peanut butter.

• 12 months
  • Exercise: Running and heavy weightlifting, 6 days per week
  • Diet: Not counting calories–added peanut butter to daily oatmeal
  • GAINED 3 pounds

It turns out that adding the peanut butter was not such a great idea. So I went back to my old routines.

• 13 months
  • Exercise: Running and heavy weightlifting, 6 days per week
  • Diet: Return to old diet without the peanut butter
  • Lost 2 pounds

This is the month when I was ready to do something drastically different. ANYTHING different.

Enough already! I’m running 3.5 miles three times per week! I’m eating healthy! I’m tired of just dropping 1 or 2 pounds a month!

This is when I heard that one of my friends (Thanks, Cate) was doing intermittent fasting. She said that for two days per week, she was restricting her calories to 500 calories. On the other days, she would eat normally.

Oh brother, I thought. That can’t be good for exercising.

“You can exercise,” she told me, after I asked.

“Really?”

“Yeah, look it up.”

So I did.

What’s really funny is that I had been reading The Secret Life of Fat by Sylvia Tara for several months–but I stopped reading just before I got to the section about intermittent fasting.

There are different ways to do intermittent fasting, and eating 500 calories two days a week didn’t really fit in with my need for daily consistency.

But there was a version that would work great for me: Fasting for 16 hours and eating for 8 hours.

For me, that would mean skipping breakfast. Then eating lunch and dinner.

The idea behind intermittent fasting is to extend your body’s natural fat-burning mode, which happens when you sleep. While you sleep, your body consumes its energy from the day before. When it runs out, it starts burning your fat reserves. As soon as you start eating, your body stops burning fat and starts working on the food. If you can keep your fast going for a few months hours, you give your body a chance to burn more of your fat reserves.

And if you exercise in the morning on top of intermittent fasting?

Powerhouse.

14 months – 18 months: Intermittent Fasting = Quick, Permanent Results

So here’s what happened to me:

• 14 months
  • Exercise: Running and heavy weightlifting
  • Diet: Eating in an 8-hour-window, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., no calorie counting, aim for lots of protein, good fats, and vegetables.
  • Lost 4 pounds
• 15 months
  • Exercise: Running and heavy weightlifting
  • Diet: Eating in an 8-hour-window, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., no calorie counting, aim for lots of protein, good fats, and vegetables
  • Lost 4 pounds

And I’m still going. At almost 18 months postpartum, I’ve returned to my pre-pregnancy weight–and I’ve lost an additional 2 pounds.

If you’re thinking about intermittent fasting, I will say that the first week is probably the hardest. I was extraordinarily hungry until I would eat at 10:00 a.m. But drinking water helped. After a week or so, my body had re-adjusted to a new normal and it’s not nearly so hard to make it to 10 a.m. now, several months later, as it was then.

Not only did I lose weight, but I think that the fasting helped to reset everything in my body.

Read: PMSing and periods have been pretty tame and I haven’t really been sick at all–even though my petri-dish children have given me plenty of chances to travel into the depths with them.

Furthermore, allowing myself to feel hunger for a period of time helped me realize that I was still thinking about hunger from a pregnant mindset. During pregnancy, hunger = nausea. And when I was pregnant, if I allowed myself to go hungry, I paid for it with wanting to throw up.

But not anymore. Now, I can feel hunger again, without the nausea.

More than anything, I’m just thrilled to be back at my old weight, wearing my old clothes, feeling like my old self. It definitely didn’t come easy.

So if you’re out there, trying to lose the baby weight, I’m with ya, girl. It sucks. It really sucks.

My advice to you when you first get into (or back into) exercising: Embrace humility.

No one looks great exercising when they’re first starting out.

And it’s not about “looking hot” anyway, right? You’re over that, right? You just had a baby come out of you. Remember how crazy that was?

Tell yourself you’ve been through harder things then this.

High five to you for hangin’ in there.

I think you’re amazing.

41 weeks, 3 days: Totally done.

Two days postpartum (No Kate Middleton here. I think she has some special line in her genetic code?)

4 days postpartum

Two weeks postpartum

2 months postpartum: Beginning of exercise, still in maternity clothes 

6 months postpartum: Down to my old yoga pants.

15 months postpartum: Wearing my old jeans. Jeans, I say!