Sink ORR Swim: The Chronicles of Parenthood: Losing the Weight

It truly is the most wonderful thing to be a mother! Unfortunately, along with the blessing comes 9 months of gradual weight gain that is, for some of us, difficult to get off! I gained far more than the average or "suggested" weight gain of 25-35 pounds, I actually doubled it at gaining 65 pounds in my pregnancy with Kenwood weighing in at 207lbs the day I went in for delivery. Holy Moly! I have NEVER had a serious problem with my weight so I was never too concerned when I was pregnant, hoping that my metabolism would snap right back into place afterwards. Well, my metabolism did NOT snap back into place! In fact, I felt like it didn't change at all from my pregnancy! I was just storing and storing and storing the food I ate into fat. I have been extremely self-concious the past 14 months because of my weight. And being by far the heaviest I have EVER been and I vow to myself to never hit that mark again!

If you've read some of my past blogs, I blogged about the Biggest Loser competition we are doing in my family. If you haven't heard about it, here's a recap-each member of my family entered a $50 entry fee. Starting January 5th and ending April 5th the person with the highest percentage of weight loss wins the whole pot of money!! Thats like $450! Then, 2nd place at least gets their $50 back. It's motivating, to say the least. That is a lot of money! And a lot of bragging rights in the fam! (which is priceless!). So, Dillon and I have taken this competition very seriously. For me, the seriousness of the weight loss was more along the lines of my self confidence than the winning. If Dillon and I want to have more children, which we do, I have to get down to my goal weight first. It doesn't make a lot of sense to some people, but if I can change my habits NOW I feel like they will continue through my 2nd pregnancy (when it comes to that) and I won't let myself gain as much weight next time around.

I am feeling so much better about myself these days! On January 5th, 2010 I weighed in at 171.0lbs. As of today, I have officially lost 21.0 lbs! Do you have ANY idea how good that feels?!! My goal weight is 135lbs(about 5lbs less than I was on my wedding day), and I have another month and a half to get there! So, please keep me motivated and accountable!

Alot of people of commented on my and Dillon's weight loss (he's lost 35lbs) and want to know what exactly we are doing.

Here is what I'm doing:

Eat no more than 1200 calories/day--just calories, I don't worry about sodium, fat content, etc.

Exercise if you want to or when you need to--which I don't...but if I eat more than 1200 calories, I force myself to burn off what I went over. Dillon works out, so he can eat more.

Weigh yourself everyday at the same time (I weigh when I wake up..it's the lightest I am all day!) on a scale that weighs to the .0 -- you'll be amazed by the satisfaction you get just losing .2lbs!

Log your calorie intake and calorie burn. I suggest www.sparkpeople.com they have an iphone app thats free too so you can log your calories as you eat them!

We do give ourselves "cheat" days on occasion--we feel like if we didn't eat what we WANT on occasion, this diet thing would burn out REAL fast! We can't be TOO strict on ourselves, or it wont work. Actually, more times than not we LOSE weight on our cheat days!

Hope this answers alot of questions for everyone! Here are some pics of us throughout our relationship...look at that weight change! O MY!

This is Christmas 2004....