The Road to “Yummy Mummy”

I’ve never been particularly thin or athletic-built, I was always that girl with the big chest and a few extra pounds, curvy if you will. My weight has gone up and down over the years but I’ve never taken all that many steps to change it. I wasn’t fully happy with how I looked some of the time, but I can say that it wasn’t against massive efforts to combat it. 

Since having E, 11 weeks have passed. I’ve lost most of the weight I gained in pregnancy, but have a bit to go, and quite a bit of toning to do – on top of that, I had weight to lose before I got pregnant so thats piled into the picture too. The old adage of “Nine months to make the baby, nine months to lose the weight” is ringing clear but for whatever reason in my head seems to be a bit too long – I want results now, dammit. In the early days I found myself looking at a fellow Irish bloggers post partum updates and depressing myself because she was stick thin and had her baby later than I had – the weight just seemed to have evaporated, with no major gym action or crash dieting. She was in my head the epitome of “Yummy Mummy” – incredible figure, perfect skin and seeming to manage with TWO kids just fine, no stress. As unhealthy as it is to compare yourself to others, I became transfixed on it temporarily, then realised we have two completely different body types and that theres no point in trying to be something I’m not, as for the stress free parenting thats another story…

However, it does have me wanting to change for the better. Trying to get the motivation up to lose the weight has been something else – not least due to the back injury I gained during mid-pregnancy which is pretty severe, and limits what I can and cannot do. I fear my days of the rowing machine are behind me (probably for the better), but I need to find a suitable substitute. I’m afraid of the 30 day shred, but haven’t ruled it out yet. I’ve got a gym membership with work which I realised last week is not suspended during maternity leave, so now all I needed was a reason to get up and go, and leave E for a bit to “indulge” in some me time and work my ass off.

So I’ve signed up for the Cork City Womens Mini Marathon. And now that I’ve written it here, I’m accountable to do it, come hell or high water barring something major happening. Its a four mile race, I’ve put myself down as a jogger, which doesn’t seem like a major thing but from my current fitness standpoint it will be an achievement. I’m choosing to view this as a start rather than an end, hopefully.  This can be the start of my road into my old jeans, maybe even a size smaller, though if I make it into my old ones at this point I will be jumping for joy.

Bring on the shin splints and blisters, and the new fitter me…. any suggestions or tips with this one will be much appreciated.