How I lost my baby weight

I do have to say, it feels pretty good to be able to fit into your pre-pregnancy clothes without doing any kind of dieting or exercising. I tried on some pants that I haven’t been able to wear in what seems like 2 years and they fit- they even had a little extra room! We don’t own a scale and simply go by how our clothes fit us. The other day I was at my dad’s and weighed myself for the first time in months and I was shocked at what I saw! 118lbs?? The last time I was 118lbs I was going into high school! I beyond any doubt thank my whole, unprocessed food diet for this weight.

Before I got pregnant with Andrew I weighed 125lbs. When I was pregnant with Andrew, I got all the way up to 164lbs- I gained a total of 39lbs! Of course a lot of it was baby weight (especially since my little chunker was 9lbs at birth) but a lot of it also was due to the fact that I ate pretty much whatever I wanted. It’s funny how when you’re pregnant every one tells you, “Well you’re eating for 2 so eat more” or “You can eat whatever you want, you’ll bounce back, no problem.” What sad, sorry pieces of advice people give. People should encourage pregnant women to eat the right things because after all they are the only source of nourishment for their unborn child!

Now looking back, I wish I could have changed my whole diet because I ate a lot of sweets and a lot of processed and refined foods. I drank no raw dairy and nothing was ever organic and I definitely didn’t take any kind of fermented cod liver oil. It’s safe to say if Scott and I were to ever have another baby, there would be many changes mainly including diet, exercise, and what type of doctor we’d see. Fortunately, we were very lucky because Andrew came out extremely healthy and strong despite all the crap things I ate.

Once I had Andrew I thought I was going to lose the weight quick and I thought since I was breast feeding I’d lose it even quicker. What a bad expectation I had for myself! I’m not one of those women that are gifted with the ability to drop weight quick and have always had to watch what I ate- I guess you could say it’s in the genes. Scott would always remind me that it took 9 months to gain the weight so it would probably take just as long to lose it. I just wanted immediate results but moms know that when you have a new baby there is hardly any “mommy time” so it can be difficult to get away to exercise- especially when you’re exhausted all the time!

I thought the answer to losing weight was to eat low-fat food, exercise and watch the calories… I mean that’s the American way isn’t it? Unfortunately we’ve kind of got it all wrong. A calorie isn’t just a calorie and low-fat food is terrible for you! Everyone these days are so caught up on different types of diets, nutrition plans, and counting every piece of food they put in their mouth. This way of dieting is so restricting, boring and stressful so most (but not all) of the time, people can’t stick with it! They end up going back to their normal ways, gaining the weight right back and becoming disappointed in themselves.

So how did I lose my weight? It was quite simple.. here is what I did-

Things I cut out of our diet-

• boxed or processed foods and snacks
• pre-made pasta sauce
• bottled salad dressing
• fast food (I hardly ate it to begin with)
• soda (I gave up soda about 6 years ago)
• fruit juices
• foods that had high fructose corn syrup
• extremely minimal refined flours
• extremely minimal pasta intake
• breakfast cereals
• eating anything with soybean oil, canola oil or any refined vegetable oil (this includes the not so obvious stuff like when they are hidden in the ingredient labels of processed food)
• extremely minimal sweets
• anything that has “natural flavors” in the ingredient label
• eating anything labeled low-fat or fat-free
• rarely eat out
• processed, packaged deli meat

Foods & habits you will find on a daily basis in our household-

• read every single label I picked up at the store, carefully. Anything I was unsure about, I put it back
• lots of whole, full fat raw milk and cheese
• raw full fat cream for coffee
• fresh vegetables (organic and local when possible)
• fresh fruits (minimal because of the sugar but organic and local when possible)
• coconut oil
• homemade salad dressing
• homemade mayo
• cod liver oil
• unrefined salts
• raw, soaked, and dehydrated nuts (pecans, almonds)
• pastured meat- we eat the fat on the meat!
• pastured eggs
• uncured, nitrate/nitrite free bacon (mmmm.. so good)
• use organic butter and raw butter
• homemade chicken stock
• choose to cook at home
• wild fish and seafood when we can
• bread with very simple ingredient labels

As you can see my diet is a very simple and easy diet to stick to- eat food that go bad quickly and it eat before it goes bad. Cook from home and from scratch, be aware of ingredient lists and don’t buy any pre-packaged foods (or at least keep it to a very minimum). We love our saturated fats because they do our brain and heart good. This is a traditional type diet that has been used for many years and has been proven to be the right way to eat. Plus, if you stick to this kind of diet, you can indulge in something not-so-good-for-you every once in a while without feeling bad (if you even feel like you want to indulge anymore).

Last but not least, exercising can undeniably play an important part of your weight loss if you want your body to be nice and tight. I feel amazing that I have lost all this weight but I am definitely nowhere near as tone as I used to be. I do my best to go for walks and stay active as I can. I know I could add some simple sit ups and lunges in my day to tone up a little but I don’t (Hmm.. I definitely need to get on that). If you don’t see yourself in the gym every day or can’t be, then try and go for a walk. Park further from the store so you can get some extra steps in.

Anything and everything helps but I believe if you can just change the way you eat, you will see results and not fall back into your old ways.

Until next time,
Loriel - Healthy Roots, Happy Soul