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.”

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.

We left Thursday after I got off work, so at midnight we had made it about halfway and decided to get a hotel room and continue the drive in the morning. (We’ve powered through it once, but that was pre-baby and it wasn’t very fun that time around either.) The only two rooms the stupid hotel had left were both smoking, so we chose the king-size bed and turned the air purifier on high and opened the window all the way. Fortunately, the pillows/bedding smelled fine so I was able to sleep okay and not freak out about third-hand smoke harming my baby (or either of us).

(Edited to add: Also, THANK YOU to those of you who chimed in on my most recent post. You were all very helpful. I am pretty sure I can see two tiny teeth coming in now that weren’t visible before, so *ding ding ding* teething seems to have been the answer. He is still occasionally sad at feedings but NOTHING like what he was doing before, so we seem to be past the worst of it for now. I heart the internet.)

Some photos from the trip below:

Wesley pilots the rocketship swing outside my parents’ house.

We had noticed he was nearly there, but that weekend he really started sitting by himself. He still needs a pillow around him in case he falls, but he’s usually very steady.

We’ve noticed Wesley seems to be afraid of beards, and Grandpa Ed was no exception. He warms up eventually but he is not a fan of beards right away.

Wesley got to play with his cousin Riley and only got injured once. (Lost his balance while sitting and fell face-first into a toy steering wheel. Brother should have caught him but didn’t/missed; I managed to catch the whole thing on video on accident because he wasn’t falling when I hit record. Mother of the year, for sure.)

Wesley is a week older than Roan, but you’d never know it. That kid is a TANK. Roan cracks me up.

Hi-kid is always so much fun to visit and clearly gets a kick out of hanging out with Wesley.

Wesley and Grammie Angie:

Wesley and Grandpa Ronnie:

Wesley and Uncle Landen:

We went to a local toy store, looked at lots of awesome things and walked out with a Skwish toy for Wesley. He loves it!

Later, we drove to the coast to hang out at Cannon Beach for a while. Wesley had on a super-hip outfit:

Then he napped for something like three hours while I carried him around in our new Ergo carrier. While he was asleep, we visited another toy store and my mom bought him a squeezy ball and a book with baby sign language (we want to start teaching him signs). He loooooves the squeezy ball! It’s easy for him to grab and hang on to, and it’s chewy and has lots of places for him to poke his tongue into. Case in point:

It was a super-fun weekend and I’m so glad they got to come and visit! It’s great that they could hang out with Wesley again now that he is more interactive – my brother had never met him and my parents last saw him at 7 weeks old!

He is learning to grab for toys now, which makes him infinitely more interesting to hang out with. He can hang on to the toy and wave it around and sometimes he tries to bring it to his mouth.

He kind of tries laughing sometimes, but often in the process he gets confused halfway through and starts coughing, which sometimes makes him cry. Laughing is hard.

I find him irresistably cute and often try to munch on his cheeks. (Wouldn’t you?)

He is also learning that he can make noises! Mostly it’s “ahh-ooo” or this weird inward-suction of air “WHEEP” noise.

He’s great on public transit and doesn’t irritate other passengers. Hilariously, more people have offered me a seat in the last WEEK with him than they did the entire duration of my pregnancy. (Although, as I had suspected, I think a lot of people just didn’t realize I was pregnant. My favorite transit driver EVER saw me with Wesley and when I got on asked, “Heh, so… wait. When did that happen?!?” and when I said the end of March, he was like, “Oh wow! I… I didn’t even realize!” SO HAH. I was right. Perhaps the whole of Portland are not jerks and are instead just oblivious.)

He also really likes being in the wrap. That’s how we usually transport him; obviously if we’re taking the car he’s in his carseat, but I’m struggling to envision a situation in which it would be easier to have him in a stroller versus the wrap. Maybe for an extended walk, so it doesn’t wreck my back or something, but usually it’s easier to just throw on the wrap and go.

People always ask me how he’s sleeping or “Hah, so are you getting any sleep?” and I usually answer that we’re not doing too bad. I mean, he doesn’t sleep through the night or anything, but he usually wakes up at 11, 1:30, and 3:30am to eat and goes right back to sleep. I think part of this is because we’re co-sleeping (shhh…) so neither one of us really wakes up fully when he eats and I don’t have to jostle him around too much or take him from his warm bed to a cold, hard chair or anything.

We’re having lots of fun with baby Wesley. He’s waking up from a nap now and needs to be fed, so off I go!

I’m really conflicted about this. Let me start by saying that I love my job. I really do – the people are awesome, the company culture is young and fun and laid-back, and I enjoy the work that I do. I just have a very, very hard time handing someone a fistful of money and my infant child and saying, “Well, see you later! I’ve met you once! Hope you take good care of him!” while I go off to sit in an office all day.

I just feel so bad for him, you know? Like one morning, I’m just going to be GONE and he will be with people he doesn’t know, eating from a bottle all day instead of snuggling with me, napping in unfamiliar places… and he won’t have any idea WHY I’m not there or what’s going on.

And I don’t really “put him down for a nap” – he falls asleep when he falls asleep and I’m usually holding him, and he’ll occasionally consent to being transferred to his swing or carseat for the duration but not very often. How is he going to nap at all if they plunk him in a crib by himself and expect him to sleep like that? They certainly can’t snuggle him for all his naps!

I think what gets me is that I don’t feel like I have a choice in the matter. We have to pay rent and my student loans and our bills, and we need health insurance. So here we are.

How am I going to leave this sweet little face all day?