During my first pregnancy, I literally ate for two. It wasn't difficult to do. Everyone seemed to encourage it. During office parties, people would stand aside and say, "Make way for the buntis. Let her go first." My husband indulged my cravings (only drawing the line when I insisted on banana-cue on a Good Friday, with no vendors in sight). I didn't have to watch what I was wearing because my expanding belly was a great excuse. Heck, I could finally wear my tight fighting spandex blouse because people would just say, "Oh, she's just pregnant." While my OB Gyne tsk-tsked and shook her head over my weight gain, everyone forgave me because I was pregnant (and thus, could not be denied lest I reported that I was being starved). I'll not share anymore how much weight I gained. Suffice it to say, it was a significant amount.
Belly Fat and Pregnancy Weight Gain
I encountered the gargantuan task of trying to lose my pregnancy weight after I gave birth. While I never had better skin right after I gave birth, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror below the chin level. How could I have gotten myself into this? Why wasn't I thinking? I could always blame the hormones. The fact was: I seriously needed to lose weight.
The thing is: I don't like to exercise. I like reading, writing, painting... even working. But I just can't go to the gym. However, I was at breaking point when six months after I gave birth, the guy behind the Starbucks counter asked me whether I wanted my cafe latte to be decaf. "Why?" I asked. "Well, ma'am, because you're pregnant." I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. That was it!
A Long and Winding Road to Postnatal Weight Loss
I told myself that I wouldn't get pregnant again unless I lost most of the weight. That was a very difficult promise. But what did it take?
My husband introduced me to a simple concept: short exercise periods + a "listening to my body" non-diet program. It's a bit complicated to explain (and he does it so much better than I do) but it involved finding out what my heart rate was during a rest period (i.e. not exercising), calculating it against my age and finding the ideal heart rate I should have while exercising. According to my hubby, exercising too much is also detrimental to weight loss. I had to find the right balance. Believe me, I wanted to die during those first few weeks. I did some stair stepping at first. It sounds easy, right? You just go up a step and then down and then up again. But after five minutes, it's torture! I had to do the exercise for 15-20 minutes and then measure my heart rate. If it was below par, then that means I wasn't going to burn the fat. If I was above the recommended heart rate, I had to modify it because I would be stressing out my body too much. There's really no short cut to it. I had to do the work.
Finally, Listening to My Body
My favorite part was the "listening to my body" non-diet program. The rule is simple: "Don't eat when you're not hungry and stop eating when you're full." This is actually hard to follow. I discovered that because I had programmed myself to eat at certain times of the day, I just went ahead and ate without feeling whether I was hungry. So, that's what I trained myself to do. I paid more attention to my hunger. I also realized that I had a tendency to finish all the food on my plate because that was what I was trained to do since I was a kid. So, now, I had to eat slowly and figure out whether I was full. It was actually fun to do because I could observe myself and my habits more closely. I also realized that I ate because I wanted to reward myself (and not because I was hungry). Whenever I felt bad or felt deprived...I would stuff it down with some good dessert or comfort food. Once I saw that for myself, I realized that I didn't have to do it and I could do something else more productive than eating. I also didn't beat myself up if, occasionally, I craved a burger or a cup of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I didn't have to deny myself either.
Pregnant Again
I'm glad I went on that program because last March, I finally conceived again. And now that I'm pregnant, I realize that nutrition is more important than simply not starving myself. I can do myself and my baby a favor by just being healthy. According to Pregnancy.About.com, a pregnant woman can expect to gain around three to five pounds in the first trimester (three if you're overweight and five if you're underweight) while the rest of the weight gain is evenly distributed across the last two trimesters at a pound a week. So, I'm still tracking pretty well so far. The important thing to remember is: you need to commit to your postnatal weight loss program first and then take it a day at a time.
Read More About Pregnancy Weight Gain:
Average Weight Gain in Pregnancy
A Guide to Planning Pregnancy Meals
What about you? Did you gain too much weight on your last pregnancy? What did you do to lose the weight?
Image from Flickr.com/webchicken.
