"Pie and Lattes"

"Pilates? Oh heavens no. I thought you said pie and lattes"

Sound familiar? Unfortunately it does to me. There was a time in my life I was fit and thin and looked good. Of course at that time I was young. The young take most for granted. Had you told me that when I was young I would have said you were wrong. I probably did. I'm still (relatively) young but not 20 young. I'm old enough now to know that I should have appreciated that time instead of wasting it wanting to be… something… more. Skinnier. Prettier. Whatever. Fill in your own blank.

I got pregnant when I was 25. If I thought I had body issues before nothing could have prepared me for the new body a baby would give me. Things were different. I had gained an obscene amount of "baby" weight. Truthfully I had gained a ton of Ben & Jerry's weight. I ate like a pint a night. I wish that was an exaggeration. It's not. A pint a night. Obscene. I got what some refer to as stretch marks. Mine were more like clawed by a wild animal marks. I expected to get them on my belly, not on my thighs, hips, ass, you name it, it stretched and it showed.

Aidan's birth was traumatic and took me months to recover from physically. During these months of recovery I continued my late night affair with, yes, both Ben & Jerry. So all in all I had gained about 65 pounds during my pregnancy and then another 20 during the year after. 85 pounds. I had gained 85 pounds. My oldest son weighs about that much now and I cannot believe that I carried around enough extra weight to be lugging my son at his current weight on my back all day every day. No wonder I felt like shit! I cannot even lift Aidan now.

At some point I decided I was unhappy and unhealthy and something had to be done. I went to weight watchers. It's like AA for overeaters. I loved it. It worked for me. I was starting to lose weight and finally feel good about myself when I got pregnant with Seark. I had lost about 50 pounds so I was still 35 pounds overweight and now pregnant. I was determined to not gain a ton a weight this time like I had with my last pregnancy. I didn't. I gained 30 pounds. 30 on top of the already 35 that I hadn't lost so I was again 65 pounds overweight. Seark was born via c-section. If I thought I was in shock over what a regular pregnancy had done to my body well the post c-section belly did not hold a candle to that. After a c-section there is not really much that you can do for about 8 weeks, and even after that speaking only for myself I was very hesitant to do too much because I was afraid that I would tear something. By the time it was safe to really work out I had gained more weight and just didn't feel like it. "Pilates? Oh heavens no."

I was 30 years old and 100 pounds overweight. Yes 100 pounds overweight. I am also only 5'2". An extra 100 pounds on a frame that small might as well be 1000 pounds. So I set out on a mission to lose weight. I ate healthy. I exercised like it was nobody's business. I lost weight. A lot of it. From one October to the next I was down almost the whole 100 pounds! I looked and felt better than I had in years. Which apparently meant that I needed to get pregnant again. With this pregnancy I had worked entirely too hard to let it all go. I was determined to not repeat history and I did not. Although I will tell you there is no such thing as a pregnant girl on a diet. I did eat healthy and kept up with my new habits. I continued to exercise regularly and even ran my first 5k while I was 3 months pregnant.

Having already had a c-section I knew what to expect in terms of the healing process and how everything looks or doesn't. My skin had been stretched to the max two times before so even the new stretch marks although disappointing were not earth shattering. I honestly bounced back fairly quickly this time. I hadn't gained much and I lost most of it right off the bat. Then the winter came. We got snow and lots of it. I was stuck in the house with three kids for longer than any single person should be. To pass time we baked cookies. I ate them. We watched movies and drank hot chocolate. Exercise was walking upstairs to put the kids to bed. Oh god it was happening again. I was falling back into my old ways. That's where the beauty of hindsight comes in. If I let this pattern continue I already know what the end result will be. An unhappy me with too much work to do to get back to a happier me.

SO I didn't let it get there. I got back on track and am still working at it. Here are some things that I have learned about me. I like yoga pants way more than I like yoga. I will never be skinny. I don't need to skinny to be happy. I don't see my stretch marks as tiger stripes that I wear like a medal of honor. I do see them as something that will always represent a very remarkable time in my life. I would rather have a tattoo to commemorate that period in time (which I also have) but Mother Nature intended it this way and I'm okay with that. My belly button has been to hell and back with these three pregnancies and at this point looks sad, kind of like a frown. I'm okay with that too. I am critical of myself but in a different way I was when I was 20. When I was 20 I would look at a model in a magazine and wanted to look like her. Now I like me enough to just want to be the best version of me. I will never be perfect. I don't know anybody that is. When I meet someone who appears to be very close to perfect I find them highly suspect. I don't want people to always be suspicious of me. All kidding aside my body has done amazing things. The only way to repay it is to treat it well and in return it will show that I have done so. I'm not perfect. I like the skin I'm in and on days I'm feeling like I don't I will throw on my yoga pants because they hide lot.