Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Damn skinny bitches

That's a mean title. The woman I'm thinking of is actually a very nice gal.

But she just had a baby, like a month ago, and I saw her today clearly wearing her prepregnancy jeans, with a cute little t-shirt tucked in. TUCKED IN. And she looked fabulous.

Here's where I get whiney. Why do some women look like THAT after having a baby, and fifteen months later I'm still carrying around at least 20lbs that I shouldn't have gained in the first place? COME ON. I tried so hard not to gain too much weight while I was pg last time, but apparently that's impossible for me. I gained over 50lbs both times, despite doing much better the second time of staying active and eating well. WTF? Seriously, what do I have to do to not gain a gazillion pounds when I'm pregnant?

And although I gained a lot of weight, for a long time I didn't worry too much about it. After all, I had great success losing weight before my last pregnancy. I was down in the low 130s, which is a pretty good range for me. I looked damn good, if I do say so myself. So I figured, I know how to lose weight, I can do it again.

Apparently I'm doing something wrong.

I actually weigh about 10lbs more than I did at the beginning of the year. Stupid blog posts. I wrote down my weight in an early post this year, and yep - I weighed 148.8 I think, and now I'm rocking about 156-157. And I have been for MONTHS. I keep trying to do what I did when I lost weight before, but apparently I'm not getting it right.

No, I'm not logging every bite of food that goes in my mouth, which I did before. I'd hoped that keeping rough track of my calories per meal would suffice. If I'm aiming for 1600 calories per day and I spread it out over my three meals and couple snacks, that should work out right? I guess not. Either that or I'm going over too often and not really realizing it. The whole, oh this one day won't hurt, or this one treat isn't a big deal. The food log takes care of that, if I do it accurately, so maybe that's where I'm missing the boat.

I'm frustrated that I have to be nothing less than perfect to lose even an ounce of weight. Thank you PCOS for that one. It's hard to be perfect when you're busy with two small children and have a husband who is notorious for bringing home little treats, desserts and pizza for dinner. And I rarely do anything but give in.

I'm feeling a weight loss time crunch. We want to try for another baby next year; and if I know my husband, he'll be chomping at the bit about the time the New Year's Eve ball drops. But I don't really want to get pregnant at this weight. I don't even know if I could, given the love affair my hormones have with my fat cells. I wasn't this heavy when I got pg with David, although in all fairness, my body composition must be better because I looked heavier then. But still. If I get pg at this weight and gain what is apparently my requisite 50lbs, I'm going to be huge. And it will be that much harder, and more depressing, when I go to lose weight again.

Yet I'm in this constant mental battle with myself over whether I should go balls to the wall and really cinch up my diet in order to drop the pounds, knowing I have just enough time to lose the weight I need before I go and get knocked up and gain it all back; or just live with it, try to lose a little, be a fatty preggo and deal with it all at once when all is said and done and my babymaking days are over.

I guess my biggest problem is just committing to it. It's hard and takes such mental discipline to do what I have to do to lose weight. I don't care what any diet book says - I have to be hungry most of the time in order to drop a pound. High protein, low protein, high carb, low carb, paleolithic, prehistoric, liquid, solid, whatever - there isn't a diet out there that would simultaneously keep me full and drop the fat. And that means I have to be committed to it day in and day out, and right now, that's harder than I thought it would be.

It's so hard to be motivated to lose weight when I feel like I'm just going to gain it all back again as soon as I hit my goal.

Oh, but this is assuming I can actually get pregnant in a reasonable amount of time again, and here's where I have to chuckle to myself. I'm one for two in the infertility department (one took 2 1/2 years, the other took one month), so I'm not too sure what to expect there. But I know I can't take anything for granted, and the logical part of me realizes losing weight now is an important step to insuring that I don't have to ride the infertility roller coaster again. Weight loss played an important role both times, so I know it's a big deal.

So why can't I just do what I need to do?

And why do I have to be around cute women who look freakishly good after having a baby?

Ok, evil green jealousy monster, you can leave now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

((Hugs))

I can't imagine how hard it must be to be so close and have the last little bit so hard to get off, or the knowledge that when it does come off, it's coming back quickly. If there is a way to separate thoughts of one from the other, I'd suggest it, but I know that's near impossible.

My weight is a huge source of angst for me right now. Shortly after Joseph's birth I lost all of my pregnancy weight and I was so proud of myself. BUT. I have fluctuated like crazy in between, sometimes seeing surprising and somewhat random losses, then even more surprising and random gains.

At one point I weighed less than my prepregnancy weight (which, granted, was still a far cry from goal weight) and now I'm into the weight I was at early pregnancy. Add in the fact I look even heavier than that because I have no muscle tone from being told not to work out during all this recovery (and having no energy anyway). Add in one belly stretching surgery and I look like crap.

That was an incredibly long way of saying I'm sorry, I know how bad it sucks and I hope you get those hormones kicked into shape soon.

Speaking of that, what met dose are you on?

Claire said...

I'm actually not on met now. I've only been on it when TTC. If I can do without it, I'd rather and in between pregnancies I was fine (lost weight without it, etc.). In fact, when I was TTC/pregnant with G, I had to cut my dose in half because my old dose was too high. But anyway, not taking it at this point.

Anonymous said...

I can definitely understand wanting to do without it if you can, for sure. I mainly asked because even if the hormones look ok, cycles are regular, etc one of the bigger miracles of met is how it changes the way a cyster metabolizes (if they don't sabotage themselves or forget to take it...or both...without pointing any fingers at myself, of course).