Tags
anorexia nervosa, baby, eating disorder, fitness, gym, health, post baby body, post pregnancy fitness, pregnancy, running, workout
Before I got pregnant I was very skinny and very fit. I used to either run for 40 minutes after work each night, swim or go to the gym for at least an hour.
I tried to keep up my fitness in pregnancy which wasn’t easy as I had severe morning sickness until the second trimester during which I had to abandon all exercise. At that point I had stopped running for almost 2 months so I was advised not to carry on with it during pregnancy. I went swimming instead and enrolled in pregnancy yoga all which kept me quite fit until about six weeks before giving birth at which point I felt just awful, big and tired all the time and I abandoned all exercise.
Still people generally told me that I still looked “tiny” and would just look as before after giving birth. Well, they were wrong. As so many women I was in big shock finding that the day after giving birth I looked like they had forgotten another baby in there.
Of course it takes the uterus about 6 weeks to shrink and with the help of breastfeeding, I looked a lot better after a couple of weeks.
Two weeks after giving birth I still had about 8 kilos more then before I got pregnant and optimistically I thought I could get rid of them easily.
Well, wrong again. At 6 weeks I stopped breastfeeding and in spite of taking up exercise at this point (frustratingly the doctors advised me to start low key exercise at six weeks and leave running until three months post partum due to my c section) and trying to cut my calories, the kilos wouldn’t budge.
Having also suffered from serious eating disorders in the past, I felt VERY unhappy in my own body and very frustrated about the state of it, having made myself believe I could shed this weight so easily.
Other mummy friends comforted me and said they had had the same experience and that it takes nine months to get back into shape.
After a holiday back home in which I used every free minute to exercise, I got serious coming back a couple of weeks ago.
I have been to the gym almost every night for about 90 minutes. In these sessions I train my running as I want to run a 10k for charity in October and I also work all my other body parts and muscles on machines and on the mat, with and without dumbbells. I have found some great free exercise apps on my Ipod which have helped me immensely.
I have cut down my calorie intake, mainly I cut out sweets and fat (cheese) and apart from that eat three healthy meals a day, for example weetabix and fruit for breakfast, soup or an egg sandwich for lunch and some pasta or vegg and fishcake for dinner.
And finally the kilos are coming down rapidly. In the last month I have lost 5 kilos and only have three to go now until I have my pre pregnancy weight.
Even though I still have a little way to go, three and a half months after the birth of my daughter I am feeling so much healthier and happier again.
I find following sites quite helpful and inspirational:
http://www.womenshealthandfitness.com.au/