Twenty Pounds

As I mentioned in my last post, since February of this year, I have been working to drop the baby weight through various treatments such as fat reduction in Burlington, Ontario and body sculpting in Las Vegas, NV or Emsculpt Neo in Franklin, TN, while closely working with experts like weight loss services in Hattiesburg, MS. I have purposely chosen not to write about my attempted weight loss on my site, for fear that I would be embarrassed when it did not work out. I gained a LOT of weight while pregnant – roughly 60lbs, while my recommended weight gain was 10-15lbs since I was already overweight. Basically, I had a long way to go and didn’t want public knowledge of my complete and utter failure.

I started Weight Watchers in February and have slowly but surely lost about twenty pounds. (!!!) I am still a few pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, but I am just so shocked that this appears to have worked that I almost don’t care.

Weight Watchers seems to work for me because calories themselves are somewhat meaningless to me, and the numbers are too big and I never know what number I’m supposed to be hitting anyway. WW is different in that it comes up with an arbitrary number of points for you (mine is 29) and you just track what you eat, making note of the point values, and hit that number. In theory, you can also eat all of your weekly points (I have 49 available) and still lose weight, but I find that if I dip too far into my weekly points, my weight goes up instead of down.

I started out with a much higher point goal (36), because WW helpfully offers an “Are you breastfeeding?” option and I checked it when I signed up. However, even though I was (and still am!) breastfeeding, I don’t think my body needed the extra calories WW was allotting me. I joke about “lying” to WW about breastfeeding, but it’s true! I had to lie to get an accurate point goal. You can see exactly when I changed my settings, too:

(Click to enlarge)

Pre-May is when I had it set at the higher limit, and once I changed the settings I started losing about a pound per week.

I’ve slacked off a bit the past month but have managed to maintain my weight, which is a good sign. Now that I’ve started Operation: VBAC, I’m excited to kick it into gear again and really watch what I put in my mouth.

My next goal is my pre-pregnancy weight, and the goal after that will be the 10lb marker that will mean my BMI merely classifies me as “overweight” and not “obese.” My breasts are also sagging, so after breastfeeding, I might look into treatments such as breast augmentation in Hollywood, FL or breast augmentation in Tampa, FL through services that do breast augmentation surgery in Edinburg, TX and other areas.

Just so no one is confused, WW has not paid me to talk about them or anything. I have just had the good fortune to have some success on their program.

Before/after photos after the jump.

From the side, 157lbs, October 2011:

From the front, 157lbs, October 2011:

Comparison photos! This was hard, because I don’t really have any good photos of me/my body post-baby. Not on purpose, really, but I am usually the one with the camera so I’m not in a lot of photos. I picked some that kind of illustrate the round tummy and chubby cheeks that have HOPEFULLY diminished a bit. (It’s always hard to tell with yourself.)

Mostly, I am pleased that my boobs finally stick out farther than my stomach again (having such gigantic boobs and STILL having your stomach dwarf them is one of my most horrible body-image memories) and that when I really suck in, the dreaded c-section flap nearly disappears. Mine is not as bad as a lot of people’s, I think, but surgery does weird things and your skin and muscles adhere differently and you get this weird flub above your scar that’s hard to ditch.

Again, I still have quite a ways to go – my recommended weight is closer to about 120lbs – but I am very pleased with the progress I’ve made so far.

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