Losing Weight During Motherhood

Me summer 2012

Let me pre-face this blog by saying: There is no way EVER to cheat your way to being thin. There's no pill, shake, etc to get thin. It's all hard work and eating well. Period.

When I got pregnant with my first child, I was 19 years old and 140 pounds. I spent the next 6 years either pregnant or breastfeeding. I had bad morning sickness early in the pregnancy and the late pregnancy made me immobile because of my pelvis problem. I didn't want to count calories during that period of my life because I didn't want to make myself even more miserable. 

To help me exercise moderately, we bought a treadmill after our 3rd child; even against the advice of all family members that we would regret it later. We figured, paying $70 a month for a gym membership and gas costs would end up costing more in the long run compared to just buying an $800 treadmill. Of course, finding a used one is a great idea because people by them all the time new, thinking they will use them, then don't and sell them in amazing condition. By the way, my husband and I never regretted that purchase. In fact, a friend offered us a second treadmill and we jumped on it so we can now run side by side. 

Fast forward to when I walked out of the hospital after my 4th child... At my post-partum checkup I weighed in at 200 pounds. Breastfeeding went fairly well with Rowen (my 4th child) even after my normal struggle point of 4 months. So I decided I wasn't going to limit food or exercise heavily; I wasn't going to jeopardize my milk supply. Weight loss had to weight until I was done breastfeeding. I was able to ween Rowen right at 12 months old. Then I hit it hard core. 

I had people ask me after I lost my wight why I finally decided it was a time for a change. I had to explain to them that I didn't have unhealthy habits and I have always been active, but my immobile pregnancies took a toll on me. 

The idea of losing weight was difficult because my husband runs 13 miles a day (it's his commute method) and my kids are on the smaller side, so everybody but me needed healthy, high calorie meals. My frustration: how do I make healthy high calorie food for my kids, and low calorie and fat foods for me? I came up with some great ideas that helped me on that front:

*I bought a Costco size bag of salmon fillets because they're vaccume sealed individually. I thawed those and I throw those under the broiler for a few minutes while I'm serving up my kid's dinner. 

*Then I make my own rice mixture in a 5 gallon bucket of brown basmati rice, long grain brown rice, black rice and quinoa. Then I make large batches of it then freeze individual service sizes in ziplock bags. 

*Then I got lots of fresh and frozen vegetables that I could quickly steam in the ziplock steam bags. Viola! I can make a complete separate meal for my family and make a quick healthy meal for myself. 

*Other times, I made a complete rice/meat/veggie dish and just froze the individual serving sizes. Take out and microwave for a few minutes and insta-dinner!

*Healthy soups can be made by the pot-full and freeze in canning jars. My favorites include Doc's Chili (recipe is from The Biggest Loser) and Spinach Lentil Soup

*At the beginning of the week, I made 5-7 pre-made salads with the dressing pre-measured included. Then if I was running out the door, I just slipped on in the diaper bag. 

*I tracked all my food on the app called MY FITNESS PAL. It's a free app that is AMAZING. It calculates how many calories you should eat. The best part is it uses the camera to scan the barcode off of food packages. Then you adjust the portions you ate. Let's say you buy a can of Chunky soup. Simply scan the barcode on the soup with the camera on your smartphone. The nutrition info will pop up. Say you only ate 1/2 the can, you just adjust the serving size and add it. At the end of the day you can see where you go over: fat, sugar, sodium, etc. 

Working out was hard to fit into my schedule. I had a 1 year old, 2 year old, 4 year old and a 5 year old. The treadmills saved my life. I trie at one point to go to the gym. It never failed I would get there and put my kids into child care. 15 minutes later and the workers came and got me telling me my kids were crying. Then I wasted the time and cost of gas to get there. So, doing it all at home was simple and affordable. I'm not a morning person, so my goal was to work out during nap time. My younger two would take naps and my 4 year old would have quiet time. If I couldn't get the workout in in that time, I had no excuse not to do it after my kids went to bed. 1 hour on the treadmill in addition to a 20 minute fitness video shed the pounds super fast. A lot of times I was so tired to work out, but honestly the hardest part was getting the running shoes on. My workout videos included Denise Austin, and several of the Biggest Loser workout videos. I did those in my living room. We put our computer up with a cheap sound system so we could entertain ourselves while running/walking. We would stream tv episodes while walking. Also, my recommendation is to keep the workout area super chilly (around 50 degrees). You'll be cold the first bit, but as you pore sweat 15 minutes into the workout, you won't feel chilly at all. 

Me in the summer of 2011hiking Mt. Rainier. 

Left: late Summer of 2011         Right:April 2012

My OLD snow pants

Now, I am a healthy 150 pounds. I went from a size 16 after I had Rowen to now a size 8. Amazing! In the last 6 months, I've taken in an overweight teenager and have transformed him to 60 pounds lighter by teaching him the same thing!