While our Y was here I hit another small goal!  40 pounds gone since July.  If you want to get technical, I’ve actually lost 60 pounds since Emmie was born (okay more around 70).  Here’s some pictures to give you a visual!

So, I wanted to address a couple of myths that I’ve heard over the years.

1.  It’s easy to lose weight when you are chasing after small children all day.
Um, yeah.  Ya’ll saw that before picture right?!  Just because I have small children does not mean I am burning off the excess amount of calories and fat my body has stored.  Proper nutrition is so key in losing weight.  When I first started Weight Watchers, I had lots of points left over at the end of the day and would have to force myself to eat appropriate foods to get enough points (and calories) to end the day well.  I gradually learned that skipping a meal on a regular basis because I was tending to a baby was actually detrimental to losing weight (especially since I would fill up those hunger pains with junk food or sugar).  Losing weight and eating well takes planning and forethought and won’t just “happen” because I have a lot of kids.  I’ve also learned recently that as you age your metabolism slows down.  Another reason for the mummy tummy that has stuck around and expanded over the course of my toddler years.

2.  I would just wait until I was done having kids.  It’ll be easier then.
Nope.  Since we aren’t sure if we are done having kids and I waited until then…well, I would have been grotesquely obese.  Not a place I want to be or go to.  I have been carrying around the extra weight from seven pregnancies (I had gall bladder surgery a month after Zoe was born…that and no foods for three days got me down to my pre-pregnancy size really quickly).  Let’s just all think about that picture.  My ob gives a nine month grace period…he says, “It takes nine months to put that weight on.  Give yourself nine months to get it off.”  Unfortunately, for six post-babies, I believed the lie that I should just wait until I was done having kids.  So, I fully expected it to take me a year to get off all the excess weight that I have been carrying from each pregnancy.  I’m so ecstatic that it has only taken me six months to get down to the pre-pregnancy weight I was at with Josiah and Liam.  I need to be healthy to have healthy pregnancies and adding extra weight with each pregnancy is not the way to do that.

Now to lose the next fifteen to be at a wonderful healthy weight!

I’ve harbored a secret these past few months.   Well, not really a secret.  I just haven’t updated the blog about it.  You see, since July I have been working hard to lose weight.  Really hard.  I joined Weight Watchers Online and started exercising about every 5 to 6 days a week.  Lots of sweat.  Lots of counting and it’s all resulted in this:

 At the start.  I was 10 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight before I got pregnant with Emmie.  Fifty-five pounds from an ultimate goal that Mark and I both agreed was healthy.

 This was my weight for two years and my weight before Malachi.  I totally understand now why people asked if I was pregnant.

 Ten pounds down and my first goal!  I felt so much better and had so much more energy.  I continued to work and shortly after this picture, I said goodbye to my size 14 pants and now…

I’m in size 12 pants and can “squeeze” into my 10s (but those pair are probably about seven or eight  years old and need to be updated). My top, ya’ll.  It’s a medium. I haven’t worn a medium in a loooong time.  I can wear my wedding band now.  My real one that Mark slipped on my finger over 14 years ago.  It fits after over six years.  This is a total of 30 pounds lost since July.  I still have 25 more pounds to my end goal.  For once, it seems obtainable.

Here’s how I’m doing it:

I’m still doing Weight Watchers although I know my points limit and don’t track as religiously as I did when I first started.  I’m losing anywhere from one to three pounds a week.  I used 42 Days to Fit by Brandy Ferguson for three months.  I stuck with the Weight Watchers points system but followed the books exercise schedule.  In October, I kicked it up a notch using Beach Body Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Trainer.  We purchased this after I watched the infomercial one to many times while nursing a newborn Ceili Rain.  So, no extra purchases were made.  I don’t do just 10 minutes though.  Last month I did two ten minute work outs and now I’m trying to get in the 10 minute abs workout three times a week and then do two other ten minute workouts five to six days a week.  I’ll try and post my ideal workout schedule soon.

I’ve got a good post coming.  I want to share a couple of myths and excuses I fell prey to and that people still comment on.  This isn’t easy, people.  It’s hard work to lose weight.  Especially weight I’ve been carrying and adding to for the past ten years.  I’m excited that not only I can see a difference but others can too.  I still get the occasional rude, “Oh, when are you due?”  But instead of being disappointed and drowning myself in ice cream I pipe up and tell people how much weight I’ve lost, how many kids I have and how their comment is just more motivation to keep going.  They are still embarrassed but at least it keeps me going.