My Post-Pregnancy Weight Loss Adventures

I am always jealous of the women who gain only the recommended 15 to 20 pounds during pregnancy, have their baby, and are back to their pre-pregnancy bodies after a week. That is definitely not me. When I am pregnant, I get HUNGRY. With my oldest, I gained a whopping 60 pounds. With my second, 50 pounds. With my third, I had a little more self-control and only gained almost 40 pounds. I definitely am not able to lose it quickly afterwards either. Maybe it’s because I’m not young anymore, but it’s something I really need to work at.

With my oldest son who is eight now, I held onto the extra weight I gained with him for more than two years after his birth. I was at a different stage of my life though at the time. I was depressed and just didn’t care as much. It wasn’t until before separating from my now ex-husband that I really put the effort into knocking that weight off. My routine that time consisted of counting calories with the My Fitness Pal app and walking 10,000 steps a day. I really made both of these things a habit. If I went over my calories for the day or didn’t reach my step goal, I was a mess. I knocked off that weight pretty quickly too and in a matter of months I got back down past my pre-pregnancy weight and to the weight I had been in my late teens!

Then, I met my now husband.

We were happy, and we ate, and both gained. It happens to the best of us. I wasn’t at my ideal weight when we got married, but was ok. I got pregnant a month after our wedding and on went the 50 pounds. After my son was born, I started counting calories again (but not really walking). I slowly lost weight, but not quickly enough. One day, I saw a post on Facebook from my university about a weight loss study and I signed up for it. It required me to go vegan and to walk daily. At the time, going vegan wasn’t hard because I was really motivated to lose the weight, and I did! I reached my pre-pregnancy weight by my 37th birthday, when my baby was 10-months-old. That was also the day I found out I was pregnant again!

And so, it all started again.

Initially, this time I didn’t gain much. I downloaded a pregnancy weight tracker app and I was regularly staying in the range of what I was supposed to gain. I was also still walking regularly. And then the pandemic messed all of that up. They closed the greenway where I walk and I was stuck in the house all day with snacks. Still though, I didn’t gain as much as with my previous pregnancies.

Again, I went back to trying to count calories and again, I wasn’t losing as quickly as I would have liked. Maybe because I’m even older now? I also didn’t have the patience to deal with the restrictions of being vegan again either. So I decided a couple of months ago to sign up for WW (previously Weight Watchers) and so far it has been quite successful! I have been also trying to stick to just protein shakes for breakfast and lunch, since nighttime is when I am hungriest and seem to consume more calories. I have also been walking about two miles or so everyday. I am currently down about 15 pounds and only four pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight! I am hoping to again reach my pre-pregnancy weight by my 38th birthday in a few days (but not get pregnant again this time!). Once I can reach that goal, I can hopefully work on getting back to my pre-meeting my husband weight!

My message to mamas struggling with post-pregnancy weight loss is this: try different things! Our bodies are constantly changing, so something that might have once worked for you, might not work as well anymore. Also, creating new healthy habits is important. It took me a couple weeks of forcing myself to go walking for it to become part of my routine and something that I wanted to do and would look forward to!