Baby fat on the mommy....well....that's not so cute! As a mother of two...and post pregnant going on 4 months...this has been on my mind, or my hips rather! In an age where the magazines are plastered with skinnies and all the women's magazines have a new wonder diet, it's hard to think truthfully about my weight. But here are my thoughts.
First of all, if you are the kind of girl who looks better than before you had your baby, when you walk out of the hospital with your newborn, it's not encouraging to us girls that have to work at getting the weight off to hear about how quickly you lost it. I will work on being happy for you, you can work on keeping it on the DL about how fast your metabolism must be.
Second, it's not my job to be model-like but it is my job to take care of what God has given me...that includes my weight. I read a facebook post a girl had put up quoting Jessica Alba and how her post pregnancy diet was to basically starve herself. I don't know if Jessica Alba really said or did that or not but I know that it's my job to be healthy and feed my infant. I can't starve myself and expect to nurse for long...besides I could never starve myself. Some ways that I have decided to live healthily are to 1) Reserve eating sweets for special occasions, like parties. 2) Exercise 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week 3) Remember that food is fun(I really like to cook and bake) but that it is energy so what I consume must be used or turned into fat for later. This is helpful for me to remember when I really want to eat that sweet something. It's just poor stewardship to eat more than what my body needs. 4) Learn what is in your food. I was randomly looking at the nutrition facts for a cake that was sitting on the counter(by the way there is another person in the house that buys most of the sweets and I don't have any control over that...it's not Joshua!) and the serving was 1/16 of the cake and it was something close to 400 calories!!!!! WOW! The only useful thing that I could think of that I would be getting from that would be a grain serving...maybe! So it has helped me to just think more about what I am eating. 5) Eat things that are good for you and find things that will fill you up. It takes a lot more cookies to make you feel full as opposed to, say, an apple or carrots, and it's pretty obvious what's better for my body!
Third, as I want very much to get back to wearing smaller clothes and not feeling like a frump-o-la at times I have to remember (a lady at church has graciously reminded me of this) that it took 9 months for your body to make a baby so it's ok for it to take a while to go back to normal. That is so good for me to remember. As with most things in life the things that you have to wait for are usually worth that wait. So I can give myself a break while at the same time pushing myself to persevere in much of what I wrote in #2 because I guess like most people the weight is not going to fall off of me.
Fourth, much of these thoughts come from a very helpful book that I just read, "Loving the Little Years". Let me just say that this book was SO encouraging and convicting at the same time. I would recommend it for any mom with little kids. I would say don't read it before you have kids though...it might scare you off! Anyway the author talks about being joyful because your body is used and maybe even scared because you have had kids. I had never thought of this before, but that should be my response. I can be joyful in the fact that the reason that I have gross stretch marks on my tummy and that I weigh more than my husband is because of the HUGE, WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN MY WEIGHT BLESSING THAT IS MY SON AND DAUGHTER!!! This thought is at cultural odds. Our culture tells us to worry about number one and anything that we give of ourselves better be repaid to us because that's fair and we shouldn't have to suffer. Christ calls us to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others (He calls us to do this in many ways) and one way he calls mothers to do this is to give up (for a season) being your ideal weight. Put that on a magazine cover and see how many copies you will sell!
I thought I had a lot more...maybe I do but it's getting late and I didn't take a nap today...it was too nice outside to stay in while the kids slept! I guess the only other thing I've thought about is to set goals. So for me. 1) Run a 5K in Sept. 2) Run a 5K in Dec. 3) Only eat sweets for special occasions. 4) Get back to pre pregnancy weight by the new year. 5) Remind myself often that while this is important it doesn't need to be consuming and there are more important things in life.
