Getting back my body

I just had a baby who is now three months old. I had a high risk pregnancy with major health issues that put me on bed rest and landed me in the hospital at 31 weeks until they took him at 35 weeks. He was a NICU baby but you wouldnt guess it now. My issue is went from weighing 130 pds to 180. I'm down to 165 but I am trying so hard to get back down. It is hard and rather depressing for me. I hate seeing myself in the mirror. But I am doing this for me. I want to feel and look beautiful again and I jsut dont feel that way. So I have been counting calories and since I started I have lost 3 pounds which is encouraging. I guess what I wanted to know is if there was a set guide to working this system so that you are successful. I have the willpower and the goals to do it. I just need some direction and some advice. If you have had success I would love to hear how you did it. I am 5'4" 33 yrs old have three children ranging from 9yrs-3months. I am currently only doing a small amount of cardio though prior to a upper back strain I was doing pilates. Please share your success with me. I have set my intake to be at 1350 calories a day. currently I havent met that since I am not that hungry. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing...lol. Thanks so much I look forward to hearing from you all.

Hi!

Just be careful not to lower your intake TOO much!

Restricting calories too much can slow down the metabolism.

A lot of people do not deliberately restrict either -  many people do feel ‘full’  on too few calories.

So - fullness is not always a 100% accurate  guide!

You should definitely not go under what you are currently eating,

Many people make the mistake of eating less than their usual weight loss amount - because they are not hungry, and feel that reducing their calories even more will help them lose weight faster.

Unfortunately, this will slow down the metabolism in the long run. However, under eating for one day will not cause any difference to the metabolism -  the same as over eating for one day usually will not make a difference.

Good luck - and remember that an important part of weight loss and weight maintenance is to actually make sure you are eating ENOUGH; this keeps your metabolism happy, and it works more efficiently!

Congrats on the new baby!  It sounds like you had a traumatic experience! I am a mom, nurse, and someone who has struggled with food issues!  My daughter is currently 14 months old.  I was super obsessed with being healthy during my pregnancy- I ate a ton of fruits and vegetables and continued to exercise.  I did not gain a lot of weight during my pregnancy and felt great.  I ended up having an emergency C-Section.  I am 5 ft 7 and after I had the baby I went to 116- my lowest weight ever.  I attribute this rapid weight loss to depression, anxiety, and breast-feeding (I am now back up to about 125).  Anyways, it took me a good 10 months to finally feel like my old self (through exercise, medication, and some weight gain).  I did not savor being a new mother- I was the walking dead and sometimes did not know how I could get through the day.  Picking up my baby seemed like too much effort.  I had 3 bouts of mastitis and too many cold and sinus infections to count.

Enough about me- my point is give yourself a break!  Pregnancy is difficult on your body.  You will regret, as I do now, not eating enough and stressing about your weight.  Enjoy your new baby and relax!  It took me a whole year to finally figure out that in order to be a good mom, you have to be healthy physically and mentally!  Continue your cardio, but up your calories.  Just being a mom is physically demanding and if you allow yourself to get run down, you will never lose the weight!  Good luck and hugs!

The main thing is willpower.  If you can keep your calories at 1350 then after a couple of weeks your body will adjust and will stop complaining.

Forgive me for asking, but are you breastfeeding?  It's an easy way to lose calories, but also an easy way to become calcium deficient.  So if you are then take your vitamins and watch your calcium and protien intake.

I appreciate your response. No, unfortunately, I am unable to breast feed. I am epileptic and my meds keep me from doing that. It was pretty depressing for me too at first esp. when he was in NICU and I was in hospital because it felt like the one thing I could give or do to help. But I have since gotten past that and I do what I can and we now have him home and I love him with all I have so I think he is a happy lil guy.

I'm not hungry at all anymore. Just struggling to get to 1350 calories at all really. I have been hitting between 1190-1240 a day. So I am trying but I guess as long as I am under 1350 then I am okay right? I am doing the best I can...just eat healthy stuff and no snacking on nasty junk food. Just nuts or proteins. See the deal is years ago I weighed like 200 pounds and then I lost it to get to 135. I did it on my own by cutting out white flour, sugar, starchy foods, I ate lean proteins and drank lots of water. I excercised regularly and started out with smaller portions. My problem now is having a hard time excercising due to an injury and the eating isnt really an issue. Because to be truthful I have to watch myself. I was anorexic in highschool to college freshman than I went to borderline bulemic I guess it was weird I would just not eat but when I saw my weight on a scale wasnt what I wanted I would purge myself until I felt better. But I ahvent done that in years...but the anorexia thing it comes pretty easy for me like not eating so I have to make myself eat and eat healthy food choices not bad ones. I have to coax my brain into eating and that is how I do it --its like retraining it.

Hiya Burseygirl

We are the same age and I was 184 pounds when I had my baby girl 22 months ago. I lost the first 20 pounds easily (baby/water weight) but didn't start to consciously do something about my weight until bubs was 6 months old. It has actually taken me about 15 months to get to my goal weight of 123, but I chose to do it slow (approx .6-1 pound a week) so as to not make it so hard on myself and more sustainable long term. I found that if I looked at each week like another .5- 1 pound lost/or even nothing gained back (good to allow yourself a break too I think) I was happier...rather than thinking about any kind of timeframe constraint. I can say that although I've had a few downers here and there, I have honestly enjoyed the little successes every week and enjoyed the journey for the most part. The knowledge that I have taken back control over my diet and have established better healthier lifelong eating habits for myself and my family is very empowering!

Congrats on your weight loss so far! I agree with the poster who said to not be too hard on yourself. Having a small baby to take care of and everything you have gone through in your pregnancy has been enough to worry about that's for sure! Give yourself a great big pat on the back, you deserve it and you are doing great so far!

I keyed in your stats and got maintanence calories of 1980, so as long as you eat less than this amount, you will lose weight! Most people aim for about a deficit of about 500 calories a day - equating to 3000 cals a week = 1 pound loss, so that would be 1380 cals for you based on your height and current weight. SO yeah...you're cals calculations seem bang on!

One thing that I found worked really well for me was zigzagging my calories out - e.g 1150 one day, 1500 the next, 1200, 1300, 1200 to average out to 1350 a week. The idea with this is that the body will not learn to adapt to the same amount of lowered calories given day in day out, and respond by kicking into a survival mode (brought on by constant weight loss) by lowering your metabolism to conserve energy - also known as a plateau. So by zigzagging...you are keeping your body guessing I guess...lol. I also liked zigzagging because some days I feel like eating more, other days I'm not so hungry...might not work for everyone, but does for me.

My other piece of advice would be make sure you don't eat less than you are meant to when averaging your calories out over a week. When my cal deficit was around 1350, I spent a couple of months losing weight eating under this amount (thinking maybe this will spend up my weight loss right?) at around the 1200-1250 mark.

After a few months I actually hit a plateau at 140 pounds.

After over a  month of nothing happening,  I decided to give myself a break and upped my calories 100-200 more a day to around 1350-1400. Would you believe.....the weight actually started falling off again! And it did so consistently 1 pound a week for bout the next 12 pounds to put me within 5 pounds of my goal weight!

I then decided to keep eating around 1400-1500 cals (even though my deficit was now set at 1250) and continued to lose about .5-.7 pounds a week and made my goal weight without any real hassle!

So don't necessarily think lower calories is best, ironically I found I was actually eating too little at one point - even when the CC calculator dropped my calorie burn in line with my weight loss. Activity levels make an exact calorie target number hard to guage because it is difficult to know how much energy an individual burns across a day when engaged in various levels of activity, so I truly recommend playing around with your calorie amounts until you feel you are getting the maximum weight loss as well as eating enough to get you through the day.

The tools on CC are also great...esp the food logging. Best of all are all the great tidbits of advice, support and encouragement you will get from all the great people on here through the forums.

Best of luck on your weight loss journey!

Thanks for the encoragement. Its been a roller coaster for me that is for sure.

I guess the hardest part for me is looking in the mirror and wondering where the woman that I once was has gone to. I know it sounds silly but I dont feel like the same person when I am this big. I was able to work out everyday but do to an injury my pilates had to be put on hiatus for awhile and I wasnt so bummed because I had my cardio on my treadmill still. However, my tachycardia started in now too and I have developed a bit of an issue that requires my cardiologists approval before I continue to work out. So for now I do my walking while cleaning house, carrying laundry (ligh loads upstairs) and taking care of my family and home. It is not what I want to do but to keep myself healthy for now it is what I do. Unfortunately, my meds keep me a bit tired so I have to really push myself and sometimes I lose the battle and end up sleeping some during the day. Maybe I am a bit hard on myself but I want to be who I was before I got pregnant and I am not afraid to admit I am determined and a bit obsessed about getting there. LOL.

I will try your zig zag approach...so let me get this you kind of alternate your calorie intake but you still stay under your burn amount right? I am not sure I am understanding. I am interested though. Because Lord knows at 30 your metabolism has a mind all its own.

If you would be interested I would love to have you as a friend online here...I could use the support esp from someone who is kind of been there...gives me an idea that it isnt impossible. Thanks for responding.

Added ya! Hey... you can do it. I never would of thought I could do it, but I actually did, and it still kinda baffles me that I did it...but honestly once I got into the swing of it, it wasn't really as hard as I thought. Yeah those plateaus can be a royal pain in the a@@, but zigzagging calories  or even going to maintanence for a week or more can really help....and if you need any advice around these, feel free to message me anytime!

  Like I said, it took awhile cos I decided to avoid failure by not getting my hopes up about meeting big goals by a certain time frame. While I did set mini goals along the way, I didn't always reach them, but I would eventually a few weeks to a month later...the main thing was to just not give up and to not make a big deal out of "fallin off the wagon". After all, sometimes you do just need to give yourself a break as well and eating over your calories for a week here and there can actually make it easier to lose weight again once you go back to deficit calories. Just concentrate on the whole 1 pound a week loss (deficit of 500 = 3500 cals a week) and take it a day at a time. Baby Steps is definately the way to go in the beginning!

Zigzagging just means that you take your total calorie deficit amount for the week and literally eat different amounts each day so long as they add up to the the total for the week.

e.g in your case 1350 cals a day x 7 = 9450 cals for the week

To demonstrate further how zigzagging can work really well,  I'll just give you an example of how I figured out one that worked with my lifestyle, work, activity levels etc

Day 1 (Monday) I work and my job requires a moderate amount of heavy lifting and being up and down on my feet. I literally felt like on work days 1350 or less cals would have been far too little for me as I would be fainting from hunger by the end of my work day, so I would aim for around 1550 cals on this day.

Day 2 (Tuesday) Work again, so cals around the same - 1550.

Day 3 (Weds) At home with precious daughter, some light house work or a trip to playgroup or to the grocery store extent of physical activity, so can afford to get away with lower calories without starving, so say 1100

Day 4 (Thurs) Ditto so say 1200

Day 5 (Fri) Ditto so 1200 again

Day 6 (Sat) The weekend has started. I tend to be tempted to eat more with hubby being at home and might want the odd drink or snack with visitors etc so say 1600

Day 7 (Sun) Hubby is still home and tempting me into eating food - probably because he's always snacking on chips and chocolate etc, so I will probably just have a small helping of chocolate and a small handful of potatoe chips and opt for a healthier dinner. Roasts are great for this, being Sunday roast day and all, because a handful of meat, some roast veg and a bit of gravy is really filling, yet not too high in calories! So, total cals of say 1320.

Adding up all these amounts would give a total of 9450 for the week. 9450 divided by 7 = 1350 cals on average a day, my target calorie deficit of 500 under maintanence.

So yeah, plan your week, plan your meals in advance, play around with the food calculators to get an idea about foods that are high in calories (avoid or limit) and those that are low (eat more). You will probably be surprised by what foods you thought were low are actually quite high (for me it was cereal servings are not what they appear and nuts although good for you are really high too), and that low calorie food doesn't necessarily mean you have to eat like a rabbit on salad and vegies all the time or feel like you haven't even eaten. I can give you one example.....eggs. They are fantastic. If you like them, eat them a couple of times a week. They are high in protein so make you full for longer and there is only around 60-80 cals in one unfried egg. I often have an egg or two for breakfast twice a week and this works great for keeping me from getting hungry. Another example would be fat free ham -another fav of my mine. 50 grams is only about 45 cals. Chicken and fish are like this too. 100 grams is equal to around 100 cals much the same. Of course portion control also comes into the equation, because this then allows you to still eat the nasty foods you love from time to time. For me this would be anything with cheese, fast food hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza mmmm. If you like pizza, look out for a supermarket variety that has a lower calorie crust because this is generally where a lot of calories are hidden in food - Carbs tend to be higher than saturated fats like those found in meat and dairy or in pizzas case the toppings! 

Anyway hope some of this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. I'm no expert, but I have done it and if I don't know an answer to something I like to seek out the answers myself anyway. I find nutrition a very interesting subject now that I seem to have lived it!

:)