Mom Boss | Student of life

I’m the woman who gained too much weight during pregnancy. I’m the woman who worked her butt off, literally, to lose over 70 pounds in a period of five years before I became pregnant. And yes, I will confess, it was not always in the healthiest of ways. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always struggled with weight, self-image and confidence, as so many young and older women alike do. Recently, the body-positive movement has grown in popularity and for awhile, I thought I was okay with my body after I had given birth to my beautiful, healthy son. But man, I was wrong and I never knew how wrong I was until these past few weeks.

Let me rewind and start from the beginning. In the fall of 2012, I started college at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities at the heaviest weight I had been in my life. In the next five years, I became obsessed with working out and finding the best foods to fuel my body. And as I stated before, it wasn’t through the healthiest of methods all the time. I remember the spring of my freshman year I would go to the gym two or three times a day, for at least an hour and a half each time. I was completely obsessed with body image, and my grades suffered as a result. At this same time, I decided to become vegan. While I told myself it was for ethical reasons, deep down I knew it was because it was innately restrictive and would eliminate almost all of the junk foods I loved. But it was paying off, and all of the compliments I received just kept fueling my fire. This cycle of restrictive dieting and over-exercising continued well into my junior year, until I became injured while running and had to have back surgery at the ripe age of 20. I was still so obsessed with how I looked that I had cut my calories down to 700 a day. In a time where all my body needed was nutrients and fuel to heal both pre and post-operatively. And while that wasn’t the breaking point, it really should have been. Instead, after surgery when I was able to work out again, I heard about the ketogenic diet. So what do you think I did? Of course I tried it. And I lost 20 pounds in the first two months. Needless to say, I was addicted. But it further fueled my restrictive dieting pattern and further disrupted my relationship with food.

Then my husband came into my life and made me realize how stupid it was to be doing the ketogenic diet unless it was medically necessary (usually prescribed to people with seizure disorders as their bodies have different metabolisms for carbohydrates). And it kind of clicked then, but as soon as I added carbs back into my diet, guess what came back. The 20 pounds I had lost. But to be honest, at that point I didn’t care because people still complimented me on how “amazing” I looked and I think that’s almost as addicting as drugs to people who struggle with weight and body image. I felt so validated by that. It was around this point that I wanted to get more into weight lifting, and thus, my view of food also changed. I wasn’t as scared to eat what I wanted but only because I knew I could “earn it” or “work it off” in the gym with cardio and long lifting sessions. This cycle continued, until I found out I was pregnant about two or three weeks before my wedding. And the first thing that crossed my mind was that I didn’t want to get fat.

I didn’t want to get fat.

No mind the fact that women struggle to get pregnant and experience the miracle of pregnancy for years and I did so without trying. No mind the freaking epic miracle that pregnancy itself is.

Nope, I just didn’t want to gain weight or get fat.

And I have a gut feeling that I am one of many women who have this first thought.

Throughout pregnancy, my weight gain was steady. And I dreaded the weigh in at every single appointment. My husband was very involved and attended all of the appointments, but I found myself wishing he wasn’t going so he wouldn’t see the numbers on the scale go up. Because I was scared that he wouldn’t love me or find me attractive anymore if he knew how much weight I was gaining. He always reassured me that he would love me no matter my weight, but it didn’t ease much in my brain. Ask anyone who struggles with self-image and confidence and I guarantee their brain works the same way. Slowly but surely the numbers kept going up and by the time I delivered my son, it had surpassed my heaviest weight. And I cannot count or even estimates the amount of times I cried over my weight even when people told me it would fall off easily since I was breastfeeding (spoiler alert: it didn’t). I so badly wanted there to be a medical explanation, but there wasn’t. I had an easy, uncomplicated pregnancy. And my son was born a healthy 8 pounds, 6.5 ounces and 22.5 inches at 38.5 weeks. With no medical issues. I should have been thankful to my body, proud of my body for the feat it just accomplished. But nope, I hated it. I constantly spoke in negative terms of it and I would avoid mirrors and leaving my house unless it was necessary. And I truly, wholeheartedly believe this was one of the main issues that led to my postpartum depression.

Fast forward to my son’s one year birthday and I had lost about 30-40 pounds of the weight but still had a while to go before I would be happy. But of course, life had other plans and we found out we were expecting a baby girl December 2019. And where do you think my mind went yet again? The weight. I was terrified of gaining any weight at all. And while I am almost 30 weeks pregnant and haven’t gained even half as much as I did with my son, I still hate my body.

I hate the fact that I’m not comfortable in anything and that I never feel beautiful anymore. I hate the fact that I’m so disgusted with myself that I refuse to take photos or even look in mirrors as I pass them. And I have tried talking to family and a few friends, but they really don’t understand. Until you have left your house and felt people’s eyes on you, judging you for your weight, you won’t understand. Until you have people being surprised when you tell them you’re seven months pregnant, you won’t understand. Until you have complete strangers coming up to you in public and at the gym, offering solutions on how you can lose the weight when you didn’t ask, you won’t understand. Until you have strangers in your messages telling you how unhealthy you must be since you are overweight (even when I just had my health appraisal and everything is in optimal levels), you won’t understand. Until you have faced this internal struggle, you won’t understand. And I don’t want you to understand. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, because it has affected every single aspect of my life, from relationships to social aspects.

My biggest struggle over these past 30 weeks has been trying to accept my body and appreciate it. I don’t have to love it every day, but I should be thankful for all it has done for me. I am able to move, to walk, to exercise and it has grown and nourished almost two other humans in the past two-ish years. But I am trying to become more accepting of it because this is something I never want my daughter or son to endure. I want them to grow up with a healthy self-image, and a healthy relationship with food. And the only way to do that is through being a role model for them. And to be honest, I have no clue how to do that. But I do know that I have to try.

So yes, I am the plus size mom. I am the woman who receives unwarranted judgements and am probably the cause of many whispered conversations. But please know, even with all the negativity you can throw plus sized women’s (and men’s) way, they have probably thrown that negativity plus more on themselves. So you can stare, whisper and tell me the secret to losing it all, but please know everything you are saying, are all things I have said to myself multiple times over, and you’re probably saying it in nicer ways than I ever have and ever will.

Let’s be honest here, I did not expect to love my body immediately after giving birth. Heck, I haven’t heard of anyone loving their body within the first few weeks of giving birth, but I did not realize how my perception of my body would change.

To start, I’ve never had a great relationship with my body. I grew up on the (much) chubbier side and didn’t slim down until well into college. Fast forward to 2016 and I finally had a body I didn’t mind seeing as a reflection. I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t pick it apart with every glance in the mirror.

I had grown accustomed to that body: how to nourish it, how to dress it, how to exercise it. Fast forward to early August 2017 and I found out that I was pregnant. My first worry was about the changes my body would go through in order to grow a mini human. Trust me, I know how idiotic that worry is because as long as baby and momma are healthy – why does it matter? But, in my brain, I had worked so hard for so long to get down to my goal weight and I was about to a good chunk of weight back and I didn’t know how my psyche would handle it. It was a rough nine months, no matter what I did, exercsie or diet, I continued to put on an excessive amount of weight. And for awhile, I hated it until my husband was able to reality check me with the fact that I was growing a beautiful, perfectly healthy baby boy and that was all that matters. He was right. The female body is a majestic thing. It withstands hormone shifts, emotional whiplash, nourishes a baby from the moment of conception, and stretches to it’s absolute maximum so that the baby can grow the way it needs to. However, my mind couldn’t grasp that concept and hold on to it. I’d always be okay until the next weigh in at the doctors office.

I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy 22.5 inch and 8 lb 6.5 oz baby boy early in the morning on April 5th, 2018. In that moment, I was in awe of what my body had created and the amount of weight I had gained completely vanished from my mind…until I was a few weeks post partum and still looked about 7 months pregnant. In fact, my husband and I went to an award ceremony banquet and a lady asked me if I knew what I was having and when I was due. I was at a loss for words and politely excused myself to the bathroom where I broke down. In that moment, I hated my body. I hated the thing that had given me my greatest blessing and source of joy. These past few weeks have been hard. My summer wardrobe from last year doesn’t fit me anymore and I hate wearing maternity clothes because I don’t have my round, non-flubby baby bump anymore. I don’t know how to nourish this body, I don’t know how to dress it, and I certainly don’t know how to exercise with it. In fact, we had people over for a barbecue in 95 degree weather and I spent the whole day in an extremely baggy sweatshirt and leggings because I was so uncomfortable with myself.

Lord bless my husband because he tries so hard to make me see the beauty he sees in me and remind me that it took nine months to create this body so I can’t expect to shed it off in a matter of a few weeks. And he’s so right. The entirety of my body changed: from the chemical level to the physiological level to the physical level…It’s been eight weeks since I received the great gift of becoming a mother, and I’m nowhere near where I want to be in terms of body “goals”, but I’m working on getting there. I’m working on accepting this new, saggier and looser, stretch-mark covered body that literally created life.

So for all of you new mommas out there who are struggling with the same thing: you aren’t alone. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to happen overnight, but eventually, we will get to where we want to be.