With every week that passes by I am more and more proud of the things Amelia achieves, she’s 28 weeks old now and is so close to figuring out how to crawl. She’s started eating and is loving her food too. It feels like she learns something new everyday.
Then I remember, she is 28 weeks old, that means it’s been 28 weeks since I had a baby and what have I achieved? Other than successfully (so far) raising a baby, not much. I had this idea that once she was born I would lose weight, obviously you drop weight in the very first weeks as the baby and the fluid are gone but I just expected the weight to continue to go. I was led to believe that breast feeding was the miracle weight loss secret I had been dreaming of but no one told me how hungry I would be and that I would eat like a freaking horse.
I had these expectations of using these 9 months to completely transform myself, to return to work and surprise all my colleagues with this amazing post baby body, better than the one I had before I was pregnant. I thought I have nothing else to focus on other than my baby girl and myself, 9 months is plenty of time to sort it out and be a better version of me.
Well, we’re 28 weeks down the line and I’ve done exactly jack-shit towards achieving this goal. I’ve re-joined slimming world and quit after 4 weeks, I started intermittent fasting, and quit after 4 days, I’ve tried baby wearing as a form of exercise, I couldn’t walk any further after 30 minutes as she is so heavy now. I have all the dreams but none of the determination it seems.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I want to be in better shape, I want to buy nice clothes from nice shops, I want to walk upstairs without being out of breath, I want to be able to sit on the floor and play without it taking 3 stages to get back up again, I want laugh without my whole body jiggling.
It seems like I want a lot of things, I actually only really want two things – to be happy and confidant.
During my pregnancy I felt amazing, I was lucky enough not to suffer any negative symptoms which allowed me just to enjoy the experience. Most of all I loved the body confidence I suddenly felt. I’ve never had that kind of confidence and would never have been seen out in a fitted tee or ribbed high neck but with my bump I felt amazing, I felt like I could embrace all my curves for the first time.
Now, I’m trying every trick in the book to hide my wobbly, lumpy, saggy, still painful post C-section mummy pouch. I’m unhappy about everything I see in the mirror and yet I can’t get my butt in gear to do anything about it. At the beginning of the year someone started an Instagram trend of posting your months weight loss result over an image of the calendar so that you could see your progress over the course of a year. Brilliant idea right? it is if you have any success to talk of, April’s entry for me is going to read “oh, f*ck it” because that’s how well I’m doing.
Is it too late now to get my shit together? It’s too late to have that return to work dream body, it’s too late to look amazing for one of my best friend’s wedding in July (sorry doll) but it’s not too late to sort things out for the long term.
I want to be healthy, happy, fit, I want to set a good example to my daughter, I want to encourage her to eat right and be healthy, to exercise and enjoy being active but most importantly I don’t want her to grow up seeing her mother unhappy with her body image. I don’t want to be that kind of role model for her, I don’t want her to ever look in the mirror and feel the way that I do right now.
In 11 months I will turn 30, I must make a change, for myself and for my daughter.
Rachel xx
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