Third Baby Postpartum Weight Loss Progress

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It’s time for a postpartum weight loss update!  I’m not quite at my pre-pregnancy weight yet, but I’m really close, just 5 lbs to go, woohoo!  I’ll be super stoked if I can do it by Baby A’s first birthday, I think it’ll happen with no problem.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know the pregnancy weight loss is a particular time of excitement for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love being pregnant; I have super easy, lovely, amazing, sparkling pregnancies and adore my gigantic baby bump.  However, as a former bikini competitor and one-day-far-in-the-future aspiring figure competitor, losing the weight and fitting back into some of my clothes is pretty awesome, too.  Just taking it one step at a time, and step one is losing all the baby weight!

Like last time, I started by doing my *free!* postpartum weight loss program, which you can find in the “fitness” category above or by clicking here for the first post.  It’s easy and fun and definitely works.  I started when I was one month postpartum and ended at four months.  I didn’t see much change in the scale at all for the first month, which was super frustrating.  But I kept with it, despite the frustration, and by month 2 I was really surprised at how much better I was from a physical standpoint.  I could do regular pushups, not on my knees, and the burpees were fantastic.  I tried to remind myself that visible weight loss would start to happen if I just kept at it and to instead focus on being proud of the strength and cardiovascular gains I was having.  But to be perfectly honest, it only really started to be enjoyable once the scale started to reflect my effort.  That happened about half way through month 2.

You’re probably wondering how much weight I actually lost.  Well…that’s a bit tricky to tell you.  I didn’t weigh myself even one time during the pregnancy, I just had no use for that information.  The last time I remembered weighing myself was right before going to Las Vegas on our digital scale.  When I was in labor, my midwife wanted to know my weight so we found an old, dusty, red needle scale and got my “before” number.  I figured I should keep on using a non-digital scale, so I used a different red needle scale to track my progress at home during the program.  On the final day, as pictured in the middle “after” picture, I was so proud to have reached just 5 lbs shy of my pre-pregnancy weight, what I thought was a 22 lb weight loss.  Fantastic!  But then I weighed myself on my old digital scale from before Las Vegas…

…it was 9 lbs higher than the red needle scale.  NINE POUNDS!!??!!  I thought I was almost back at my pre-pregnancy weight and turns out, nope, not even close, I still had 14 lbs to go.  Sigh.  That was completely devastating, not gonna lie.  I threw out the red needle scale and just continued on with the digital scale.  For the next three months, I worked on a strength program that had me lifting progressively heavier and heavier weights, I was lifting crazy heavy amounts and it was so different than anything I’ve ever done.  The weight continued to come off.   And now, at 8 months postpartum, I’m finally 5 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight!  For real this time!  That’s the “after” picture on the right.

I made a quick video to check in and tell you a little about how I’m feeling, just click the picture:

So, how much weight did I lose?  I just don’t know.  Was the red needle scale my actual pregnancy weight, or would it have been 9 lbs heavier than my digital scale, too?  Did I lose 22 lbs, or did I actually lose 31 lbs?  It doesn’t actually matter, really it doesn’t.  I can see by the pictures and the fit of my clothing that I’m getting closer and closer to where I used to be, so who cares about the number!

But, lesson learned: if you’re going to measure you’re progress with weight, use the same darn scale every time!

I wanted to wait to post this weight loss update until I had actually lost the weight I had thought I lost.  It took a little longer than I had hoped, but that’s just life.  I am always dedicated and motivated to stick to the workouts, I really enjoy exercising and try everything in my power not to miss it.  Sticking to the clean eating has been more challenging.  Having a newborn along with a preschooler and a toddler is hard enough without the added pressure of trying to eat well and exercise daily.  It can be really difficult to put in the effort to make myself something healthy when I could just eat whatever is fast and convenient, if I even get a chance to eat at all.  And, well, the weekly cheat meal happened a little more often than once a week.  So, as a result, the weight loss has been slower.  And you know what?  Oh well!

I am giving myself 4 more months to lose those last 5 pounds so that I am at my digital scale pre-pregnancy weight by the time Baby A turns 1.  I’m adding cardio back in and really trying my best to stick to the clean eating.  The fire is lit and I’ve got this in the bag.  Wish me luck!

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