How I lost the baby weight + more!

I’ve had a lot of people asking me lately what I’ve been doing to lose weight, so I thought I’d take to the blog again and do a post on my “body after baby” journey.

First I want to say to any new mothers out there reading this, please don’t feel like you should compare yourself to my progress. This is my journey, and everybody (every BODY) is different. Some people bounce back after one week (ahem, my sister-in-law lol), and for others it takes 6 months or even a year to get back to anything close to their pre-pregnancy weight. And for some moms, they are perfectly content with their bodies after a baby and don’t feel the need to try to lose any weight!

I had some morning sickness in the first few weeks of my pregnancy, so I wasn’t running or eating healthy at all. After that, I never really found the motivation to get back into running or exercising, and eating whatever I wanted was way too much fun! haha So that was my pregnancy. I ended up gaining a lot of weight, but since I don’t know how much I weighed before I got pregnant, I’m not sure exactly how much I gained. But that’s not really important…

After Jack was born, I obviously was just trying to survive, so we ate whatever was easiest. We frequently ate fast food and drank a lot of soda and sweet tea. This went on for about the first 5 months of Jack’s life. It was right after New Years (typical haha) when Chad and I decided to freakin’ get it together and get healthy!

We started with baby steps. The first few weeks, we decided to cut out all fast food and drink only water. You guys, I lost 7 lbs that first week and Chad lost 10 lbs! It’s amazing what drinking water can do for you. After that, it was actually pretty easy for me to fall back into good habits since I had been fairly healthy before my pregnancy. Since starting this process, I’ve lost 40 lbs!

I’m feeling great but still have some goals in mind as far as my post-baby health is concerned. So with all this said, I wanted to lay out the things I’ve done to help me lose the weight. I’m going to do bullet points so that it’s easy to follow.

• Drink only water

Coffee and unsweetened teas are fine also. Every day, I try to drink at least 100 oz of water. I have a 32 oz Bubba mug that I use for my water, and I try to drink 4 of them a day which comes out to 128 oz. I’ve read before that people tend to drink more if they drink through a straw. So if you’re having trouble drinking water, try getting a fun cup or bottle that has a straw! I have so many water bottles (Chad makes fun of me) because I can’t resist buying a fun new one every now and then.

• Meal plan/meal prep like a boss

Every weekend, I loosely plan our meals for the week. I usually grocery shop on Saturday or Sunday, and then use Sunday afternoon/evening to cook and prep my lunches for the week. Now that I have a baby to get ready in the mornings, having my lunches pre-made is the only way to make sure I continue to eat healthy. Here are some examples of foods I eat for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Dinners change a lot, but I usually follow a “meat, veggie, and carb/starch” plan.

Breakfast: Oatmeal made with almond milk, berries, chia seeds, and sometimes peanut butter (make sure it’s all natural with no added sugar!). Greek yogurt (I like Oikos triple zero because it has the lowest sugar content I’ve seen). Occasionally I’ll have eggs with cheese and spinach. And I just recently jumped on the chia pudding train. Chia pudding is weird but so good if you can handle the texture of the chia seeds. You can google chia pudding and find a ton of different recipes, but the general recipe I follow is 2 tbs of chia seeds and 1/2 cup of almond milk. Then you can add whatever sweetener and mix-ins you want!

Lunch: This one gets boring because I pretty much eat the same thing for lunch every single day lol Each day I will have about 3 oz of chicken breast, a green veggie (green beans, brussels sprouts, or sugar snap peas), and sweet potatoes. I prep all of this at the beginning of the week. If I ever slip up and don’t have time to meal prep, I will fix tuna (mixed with avocado instead of mayo) and have an easy veggie like baby carrots, and I’ll throw in a string cheese. Then, I’ll make sure to prep Monday evening.

Snacks: I’m a hard core snacker. I love snacks! My morning schedule doesn’t really allow for a snack in between breakfast and lunch, but if I have to have a snack, I will do something easy like string cheese. I end up having the same snack every afternoon, and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet! I always have an apple (I like Gala) and almonds. It’s a good mix of carbs, fat, and protein. Once I get home from work, I usually grab another snack. My go-to snack after work is some kind of bar. I like protein bars, but you really have to find a good one that doesn’t have a ton of sugar or unnecessary ingredients. My favorites are Quest Bars! But, you can only get them certain places like GNC and some random grocery stores. I also like MuscleTech protein bars which you can get at Walmart. If I don’t have any protein bars on hand, I go for Lara Bars. They are made of very few ingredients, and everything is REAL food. They are high in sugar, but there is no added sugar. It all comes naturally from dates or other fruits that are in the bars. I like to eat Lara Bars after dinner if I’m craving something sweet.

•  Stay away from processed foods

I try really hard to eat mostly whole foods. When I grocery shop, I rarely go down the middle aisles except for a few things. I get most of my groceries from the outside of the store and spend most of my time in the produce section. When I do venture to those middle aisles for something, I always check the ingredients list and don’t pay as much attention to the calories. I look for ingredients that I can pronounce!

• Watch out for added sugar!

You’d be so surprised at how many products have added sugar. Always look at the ingredients list to see if any sugar (or sugar-like ingredient) has been added. All of those boxed “diet” foods have tons of added sugar. Foods that are “fat-free” have added sugar to make up for the taste lost with the fat.

• Give yourself splurges!

One of my splurges comes from coffee creamer. It’s just something I’m not willing to give up! haha But I do make sure to buy sugar-free. Yes, there’s still artificial ingredients in it, but like I said, I’m not giving that once up just yet! I also have a few splurges over the weekends. Chad and I love getting pizza and fries from Stephano’s. We put Jack to bed, turn on Netflix, and pig out! On Sunday’s, we always eat lunch at my parents’ house. Usually Mom cooks healthy foods anyway, but occasionally we have no-so-healthy lunches, which is no big deal. Chad and I also have a tradition of Mexican food on Sunday nights while we watch Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, or whatever we’re watching on Netflix at the time. So for me, the weekends are very relaxed when it comes to food.

• Exercise

Find something that you love to do, even if it’s just a brisk walk! I ran before I got pregnant, so I knew I wanted to get back to that again. I slowly started back running about 4 weeks into my weight-loss journey. I also love resistance/strength training, so I started adding in some at home workouts to my routine. I find them on Pinterest, YouTube, or OnDemand tv. We don’t have a gym membership anymore, but even if we did, I know I wouldn’t make it to the gym. So running and working out at home is what works for me for now!

 

This has been a LONG post, so I’m going to wrap it up!. I plan to keep moving right along with my weight-loss journey. I’m pretty close to my goal weight, but I’ve got a lot of fitness goals that I’m working towards, like faster 5k times, running more half marathons, and going back to cross-fit. I may be back with more updates as I reach my goals!

Thanks for reading! 🙂