Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Here we go!

I decided to catch up with myself and start losing weight again. I hit a rough spot when I got pregnant with my third child after I had lost all my weight (from the previous posts). I didn't feel good, I didn't feel like I could exercise because my body had slowed down. If you don't know me very well, I have hypothyroidism, which is basically the thyroid hormone system. If its low, your body slows down, you're tired all the time, your muscles are slow, and you have no appetite. If its really bad, your skin is pale, you gain a ton of weight and you sleep, a lot. When a woman is pregnant and has hypothyroidism, the whole body can slow down until it is corrected with medication. This happened to me when I got pregnant. It was hard for me to do anything except I wanted to eat all the time because I was hungry and I didn't want to be sick, like with morning sickness, so eating helped me to not feel as nauseous. Luckily my thyroid levels weren't too low at this point but I definitely didn't want to exercise. At the end of my pregnancy, I had gained back all my weight, plus some, which essentially added up to 50lbs. I've never, ever in my life gained this much weight. I wasn't very happy about it because I knew that after the baby was born, I'd have to lose it all over again, which, wasn't such a bad thing but this time I'd have to learn how to do it with breastfeeding and finding the time to exercise. While breastfeeding, I still continued to eat a ton, until I was full, which is the ideal anyway. I however wasn't eating much of what I was actually supposed to be eating. My baby wasn't gaining the weight that she should have been with just my milk, and I hardly felt good at all. This has taught me the great lesson of eating correctly in general, not just during pregnancy, and not just while breastfeeding, but all the time. The changes I've made have been drinking more water, at least a gallon a day, eating veggies more often, eating more fruit, and instead of snacking on sugar all day, setting myself to breakfast, a small healthy snack that would be a fiberone bar, or some fruit, then lunch, then another snack which would for me be like celery with peanut butter and raisins, and then dinner. I drink a glass of water before my meal, make sure I have the correct serving size so I'm not overfilling myself and then drink more water after I eat. One of the things I've tried my hardest not to do is eat after 7:00pm, and if I do, it's a popsicle that doesn't leave fat on my body and its a refreshing dessert that is only about 70 calories. We love the outshine popsicles the best because they are frozen fruit and juice (depending on the kind you get) but I would choose these over ice cream any day! I'm on my way to a newer healthier me. I'm determined to get myself back down to the weight I want to be because that's when I was the healthiest and felt the best I've ever felt.