Losing baby-weight in the land of chocolate and cheese...

decisionmaker

New member
AWell hello there! It's been a while... about six months, in fact! How do I know this? Well, I was posting in my previous diary, 'losing weight in the land of chocolate and cheese' (I'm living in Switzerland, by the way), right up to the birth of my little boy, who is now six months old. I had a really successful weight loss journey on this forum before, where I got down to 80.7kg before I got pregnant, which gave me a BMI of 23.7 (I'm 184cm / 6 feet tall).

Here I was then (actually, this is me at 6 weeks pregnant and 82kg):



I had a hard pregnancy, with a lot of pain, a lot of bed rest, a lot of pain (did I say that already?) and a lot of feeling like there was nothing to do but sit on the couch, watch tv or read, and try ever-so-hard to not snack all the time. So although I tried very hard to not gain much weight, I ended up gaining a lot. I was not allowed to walk even to the train station, 200m away. I had to take the bus that one stop. My gynaecologist said this often happens with people in my position, who lost a lot of weight before a baby - it just jumps right back on very quickly! For me, by the end of the first trimester, I was pretty much back where I had started, when all the books say that you shouldn't put on any weight at that time. I was pretty grumpy about that, because I was still eating very healthily and doing everything right for my bubby, but those kilos just kept creeping higher and higher.

So for six months now, my weight has been never lower than 96kg, and never higher than 98kg. Pretty bloody stable. But I don't like that... I'd love to be eighty point something again, but for the moment I'm just striving to be eighty-something point something. Something weird has happened to my brain: I have always had such bad body image issues, and yet since having my little boy, I don't look at myself and hate what I see, or see myself as monstrously huge or anything like I used to. Instead, I see evidence of my boy - my 'baby pouch',my boobs, my pockets of fat that my body decided to store in case my boy needed it when he was growing in there. So I don't hate my weight at the moment, I don't hate my body. Which is amazing for me. But, I want to be healthy again. I want my knees to stop hurting, I want to be able to run without feeling jiggly, I want my jeans to fit! :) And I want my boy to see me as a role model when it comes to food. So no crash diets, no cutting out things, just being healthy and making healthy decisions. Remembering that things like fresh mango is actually yummier than biscuits.

Now. Despite all that, I still looked at a recent sporting photo of myself with a great shudder. So that horrible photo (oh god, please know that I would never have chosen such a uniform!) will be my before photo. I will take a proper one in front of the mirror later on too, so I can track my body changes accurately.

Starting weight: 96.8kg
Starting photo: (I don't need to point out where I am.)


Looking forward to it, guys! Happiness and health to all fellow readers!
 
Welcome back!


Berlin, Zurich, NYC, China, the vast deserts of Western Australia, Edmongary. We should make a quick shift and turn this into a travel photography board. For my contribution we can just watch road runner cartoons. Little John can even post scenery pictures from Connecticut though he might have to drive out of state to find some. :biggrin:


Congrats on the birth of your child and good luck shedding the baby weight.
 
AThanks for the quick stop-by, MrVee! Now... 'Edmongary' = some kind of strange mix between calgary and edmonton? Curious! And thanks for the congrats on my boy - he's a superbaby! :D Not that I'm biased.

___

DAY 1
Breakfast:
-Leftover wholemeal waffle (hubby makes them on sundays - so yummy! Wholemeal flour, oats, grated carrot and zucchini, wheat germ, milk, eggs, olive oil and baking powder) with tinned apricots.
- Coffee with skim milk

Snack:
- Handful of blueberries with natural yoghurt
- coffee with skim milk

Lunch:
- wholemeal pasta with a tin of tuna and chopped veg (zucchini, capsicum, peas and corn) and a spoon of mayonnaise

Snack:
- 1/2 papaya (plus a few leftover spoons of Ruben's pureed broccoli)

Dinner:
- spinach risotto made with brown rice, a tofu steak (I'm not vego, but these are yummy!) and a tomato mozarella salad.
- glass of white wine.

EXERCISE:
20 minute walk... should be more... but just wasn't. :blush5:
 
Hey, I'll have you know there is plenty of lovely scenery in my little state! Right now happens to be an ugly time of year, so I can't prove it, but I'll dazzle you all in the spring! Or maybe when we get some snow.


Anyway, welcome back, DM! Glad to see you've got a good personal outlook, and congrats on the uber-baby. I have one of those, too - a goofy little girl who's an endless supply of energy. Last night she was running laps between her room and her lazy father for the sole purpose of opening and closing a cheap plastic egg. 15 minutes of this while I played Words With Friends in my half-asleep mode, and she's sick, so figure that out.
 
Originally Posted by decisionmaker

Thanks for the quick stop-by, MrVee! Now... 'Edmongary' = some kind of strange mix between calgary and edmonton? Curious!

Yeah one of our regulars has 'Alberta' as their location and I'm making assumptions.
 
ALittle John - thanks for the welcome back, and you made me laugh with talk of your uber-girl! Oh the things I have to look forward to.
Ijustwannabefit - Yay you're here too! Thanks for the congrats :)

Well I'll need to edit last night's food... which sadly isn't a surprise. I think my biggest habit I need to break is eating after dinner. I thought I was done, but I wasn't. I also had three squares of lindt hazelnut chocolate (oh dear I just wrote that in German and had to change it... I'm integrating!) and some tinned pears. Could have been the whole block, I suppose, but it's a habit I need to break.


DAY 2 (so far... need to grab the computer opportunity while the little bean is napping!):

Breakfast
- slice of wholemeal seed bread with cream cheese spread, stole all of Ruben's pureed apple that he wasn't interested in (yummm!), 1 tinned pear, black coffee

Snack
- zip

Lunch
- slice of leek pie with a big mixed salad, lemongrass tea, milk coffee.

Snack
- small bowl leftover brown rice and spinach risotto

Dinner (planned)
- Thai yellow curry (veggo) with basmati rice.

EXERCISE:
20 minute walk
1 hour yoga
 
I've found that working dessert into my diet plan is a must. Apparently there's some research to suggest that the body naturally craves sugar after a large meal. One tip I saw was about a half hour after dinner, take a small piece of chocolate (like a Hershey's kiss or non-American equivalent) and suck on it like a lollipop or hard candy until it dissolves. Coating your mouth with chocolate will make it seem like a choco-binge but will actually be very few calories.


That's not what I do though (so I'm not sure it works), I just set aside 140 calories and usually have that in chocolate covered almonds (about 25g). At my weight I can probably afford a few more calories budgeted to dessert, but even at less weight 90 calories of something sweet and yummy shouldn't be too hard to fit in. If giving yourself 90 prevents you from eating 300 later, it's well worth it.
 
I know how it feels to be stuck with baby weight... it can just seem like the scale will never move. Glad your back and good luck with it!


I like MrVee's advice about a small dessert to tame after dinner cravings. I was just thinking I need to integrate something small to keep me satisfied and on track.
 
AMrVee - you are totally right. When I was successful before, I'd often have a pretty decent-sized scoop of lemon sorbet (80cal) after dinner and that would do the trick. Need to find a winter alternative... which is obviously dark chocolate ;) And I don't see anything of bad taste... so you must have done an excellent editing job ;)

Rainyforest - Thanks for visiting! Well I'm hoping that the scales will move at some point... they haven't moved yet, but I haven't tried yet. So we'll see.

Everything is on track for this evening, except I also had the last two spoons of Ruben's avocado (yum! Oh how I love baby food!) and I had half a beer with my curry. No desire for anything else. Yet.

Thanks for all the visits so early on, guys! You rock! I'll try to visit your diaries soon when I can!
 
You'll have fun with him, in spite of the frustrations.


One thing I found works is to include Cora in some of my exercise. I haven't been doing much lately I can include her in, but she likes hikes, and when she's done walking I just carry her on my shoulders (her added weight is still less than what I weighed this time last year).
 
ALuzDaFuzz - Thanks for the welcome! I'm from Perth myself :)

LittleJohn - Yeah, I live up six flights of stairs with no elevator, so having to carry my almost-ten-kilo bean all the time, with all the gear he also requires, is quite the workout in itself! But yes, I often think about how heavy he is in relation to how much I want to lose... makes me realise how much easier things would feel if I was ten kilos less!

DAY 3 - Wednesdays are pretty much always going to be diary-free days for me, I think. Ruben and I are out at baby swimming and then stop by a friend's place for lunch on the way home, and then hike home for about 6km, and then I have about an hour and a half before I leave him with his Daddy and I go and play netball for two hours. BIG DAY and I'm always totally STUFFED!

Breakfast
- small wholemeal roll with a scraping of cream cheese,
- bowl of blueberries,
- milk coffee

Lunch
- leftover Thai veggie curry (I brought leftovers to my friend's place for lunch) with rice
- Milk coffee and a small biscuit

Snack
- low fat raspberry yoghurt and a slice of papaya

Dinner
- Leftover brown rice and spinach risotto with 1/4 cup cottage cheese.

EXERCISE
- Baby swimming (=30minutes of lifting babies)
- 1.5hr walk (hilly! I live in Switzerland!)
- 2 hours netball = 1 hour fitness training, 45 minutes game, 15 minutes warm-up / warm down.
 
Really?? I just moved away from Perth about a year ago! I lived there for a couple of years, from Bunbury originally! I'm in the Pilbara now, it's awful.
 
AHaha. "It's awful." Says it all. :) Poor thing! My sister lives up there and just looooves it. Weirdo. Good luck with the impending summer!
 
ADAY 4 - not a good one. A friend came over with chestnut chocolate cake... she gave me the recipe, and as far as cake goes, it's bloody good! Just eggs, chocolate, pureed chestnuts and 1tbsp butter for the whole cake! No flour or anything either... weird, but it was great...

Breakfast
- bowl of blueberries, slice of seed bread with cream cheese, milk coffee

Snack
- raspberry yoghurt

Lunch
- wholemeal pasta and veggies with tuna and a tbsp mayo

Snack
- Herbal tea with Chocolate chestnut cake.

Dinner
- Pizza... it was that kind of evening...

In fact, today is a crappy day. So I have to focus on not eating crappy again.
 
Well if you didn't get into too much obsessive snacking, you probably didn't do as bad as it might seem. Swiss pizza, not sure whether that would be good or bad. :confused:
 
Hi Joh, Lovely to have you back in here. I have been a bit slack in the posting department lately so will be better from now on. Your netball & those stairs do sound like good work-outs. It's excellent that you are not being negative about your body & this could be a turning point in your life. I made the unintentional mistake of passing on my negative self-image to our younger son & it is something I will always regret. You're a smart, low-fat, healthy cookie Joh & a great example to your little man xoxo Cate.
 
AGreat to see your comeback! You will get rid of your baby kilos for sure.. All it needs is time and patience. :) Show me way cos Im reaching my 100kg SOON and in march Im starting this chapter in my life too.
I havent really enjoyed this pregnancy either. :/ Feeling quit heavy and clumsy. Feels like forever when I weighed 83kg and felt skinny! And sure Im scared I will never look the same or can do it...
But I have 3,5 months to go with this pregnancy still! So cant jump ahead things..

I will be reading your journey hun! Take care xo
 
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