The other day I heard a story about postpartum weight loss. A new mother was 6 months pregnant and was nervous about getting her figure back when the baby was born. She asked her friend what will happen afterward. Her friend replied, “I heard a mother will keep 10lbs per child.”
It’s funny how these stories get started and just because we see something on social media or heard something doesn’t mean that it’s true or that it’s “normal.” Since I had 4 kids that means I should be 40lbs overweight.
Toward the end of my pregnancy with the twins, I weighed right over 200lbs. Like I stated in this post here, fitness was the last thing on my mind the last 4 years when I was pregnant with the kids. And honestly, after the twins were born I was in “survival mode.” Not only had I just had twins, but Luke was 18 months old and Elise had just turned 3. We sold and moved into our new home when the twins were 3 weeks old and Elise also had started school the week after the twins were born. On top of that, I went back to work when the twins were about 6 weeks old.
In April of 2016, I slept trained the twins when they were 8 months old. This allowed me to have more time for myself. This was finally my time to get my weight back down and work on myself! When I weighed myself in April I weighed 160lbs. Since my life is so hectic I knew that going to the gym was not an option for me. I began to do Beachbody workouts at home and watching what I ate/drank. I was in the habit of having the “excuse” of eating whatever I wanted for literally 4 years!
Making the changes below really helped me:CONTINUE READING
Last week, I read an article about a young mother who had such bad undiagnosed postpartum depression that she took her own life when her daughter was 4 months old. While this example may seem extreme, postpartum depression has different severities and so many women that are diagnosed with it can have such different symptoms. Some women feel it for a couple of weeks and some can still struggle with it for several months or well past the first year after giving birth. Postpartum depression is so difficult to speak about and acknowledge because having a baby should be the most joyful time of your life. One always hears of all the good stories and how amazing having a child is, especially on social media, but why don’t we talk about the sadness more? Is it because we don’t want to scare others? Maybe we feel like we are the ONLY ONE in the universe that feels like this.
