I said I wasn't gonna let this place become a "weight-loss" blog.
I said it, and I lied.
Because the act of figuring the points and chronicling every bite that goes in to my mouth is consuming (heh...consuming) , and I didn't have a super long attention span to begin with.
As of my weigh-in last night, I am down 5.8 pounds. While this is great and all, I don't quite know what to do with my excitement. I'm not sure how I want to go about celebrating my losses, because.... on the one hand, I'm working hard for it. On the other hand, I don't want the Chaos Girls to get some skewed picture in their minds about how "yukky" fat is and all the blahblahblah that comes with body image.
I intend to lose every ounce that I can before I get pregnant. How do I talk this up? What do I say in front of the girls that will convey to a one/three/five year old that mama is working hard and achieving goals (because I am proud of myself)... without planting seeds of pain for later in life? Without adding to the stigma and body-shame that our culture and media so gleefully heaps upon girls?
So far I have kept it on the down-low (not that hard... it's been two whole weeks, whoopee), but if it takes me a while longer to get pregs, and it could easily take months, I could be at this for a while. Months of Weight Watchers will mean going down a size or two... noticeably smaller. Smaller enough that a kid might eventually notice. There will also be after the future, theoretical pregnancy. There will also be my whole freaking life... The body, she will not let her layers of comfort and insulation go quietly into the night, this will be a fight that will become noticeable in many ways.
Why am I stressing about something that has not even happened? Well, it's what I do. It's what I do best! I am the mama.
So. My best idea is to find an athletic goal to work toward. Something to point all my excitement and sense of pride at. Something that I can do, or do quantifiably better when I am shrunken down. A thing that I can say that I am working toward, rather than a certain size of pants... it's what I would want for my girls. It should be what I want for me.
I admire but do not envy marathoners, triathletes, and endurance sport folks. Is cool what they do, but I don't really think it's the bag for me. What I admire and envy are the women who can fight. No small surprize that two of my biggest bloggirl crushes are MamaD and Elizasmom, I don't just love them and their brains... I love what they can do. They are queens of Tae Kwon Do and Karate respectively and I thinks that's the bomb-diggity, yo!
"Oooooo-oo, I wanna be like You-oooo!
I wanna WALK like you TALK like you, tooo-ooo!
You see it's TRUE-oooo
A mom like ME-eeee
Can learn BE
Baaa-aaad A@@ TOOO-oooo!"
(sung to the tune Human Too, from the Jungle Book)
But then, everything gets oogied up with this last kid that I am trying for; the whole unknowable factor of the timing combined with the known factor of just how truly vile pregnancy makes me feel. Wuff! Plus the obvious: no weightloss during pregnancy, ya twidjit! But there is no question of postponing this pregnancy. Not for me, and I'll tell you why.
Only not today. Tomorrow.
I gotta get on the laundry. Poor Dadguy lodged a formal complaint last night, as he scraped the two baskets worth of clean, unfolded clothing off the bed for the ten ka-spillionth time, just so's he could sleep. Gotta take some pity on the man, although, truth be known... it's been weeks since he has run out of clean underpants. Huzzah to me!
9 comments:
I think if you don't make it a big deal verbally, your girls will never remember it, and may not notice any physical changes. I never noticed stuff like that when I was a kid.
While you're reminding your girls how pretty and wonderful they are, remind them how pretty and wonderful YOU are. Exact words may not be remembered, but overall atmosphere will.
Awww shucks, you're too sweet!
And wooooo, 5.8 pounds. I think that's great!
I know what you mean about it becoming kind of all-consuming. Just the water-drinking business alone seized up a huge part of my brain.
Anyway, I think it's a GREAT idea to frame it the way you're getting at, i.e. in terms of getting fit and active, as opposed to getting thin. If your girls remark on your weight in a way that makes you worry about future body-shame issues, I would put it in those terms - you're working hard at getting better at (insert chosen sport here) and that means your body changes.
Of course I think karate is a great idea, and the nice thing about how most martial arts have a system where you earn different-color belts is that if your girls get too focused on the weight for your comfort, you can redirect them toward looking at how you are earning those belts.
Plus! I found that the emphasis on posture and the approach toward moving in a particular way really helped me deal with the way pregnancy affected my skeletal/muscular system. I did karate until 8 months — there were some things I bowed out of because of safety issues (no sparring!) but a lot of the techniques are easy to do by yourself.
There! That's my book for today. Stopping now...
I think the athelitic goal is a Kick A idea. What a way to work towards goal without negative side effects.
I agree with Sarah K. that while it's all consuming to you, the girlies might just be oblivious to it all.
And I agree with you about putting an athletic spin on it. Or maybe you could just emphasize to them what you're doing is to make you healthy and to make you feel good.
We have a saying at my house: Love is having clean underwear. It says nothing about where that underwear might be located. :)
I get this post. I get it.
One of my biggest memories of my mother during my childhood was her constant weight loss/gain. I honestly don't recall things she may have said and as for exercise, she walked. What I was very aware of was that she was unhappy. And looking back now I know that almost had everything to do with her marriage and her motivation to lose weight had everything to do with my father and nothing to do with herself. Blah!
I know that your girls will not get the wrong idea from you. That they will see that you are making healthy choices and working towards goals. (like a black belt Weeee!) They will know that you are doing this for you and not to make anyone else happy.
I also know how you feel about being on the verge of pregnancy and wondering how this will affect this journey. I just began a fitness certification course at the YMCA and I'm wondering if I should be bothering because what if I am pregnant before I finish and I am so busy throwing up that I won't be able to concentrate on the course??! But, who knows what will happen and all we can do is plug along forward. Right?
Yes. It's official. We are trying.
P.S. I think you are DA BOMB too!
xo
Wow - 5.8? Whooooo hooooo!
I love the idea of becoming more athletic - perhaps if the girls question why you are eating differently - say you are eating healthier!
Mr I has fits about the sock basket- paired up socks are so overrated...
oh baby - I concur. You don't need to say anything, you show them. They know what you are doing. Good for you!
And uh, the key to any athletic/weight loss/workout program is do what you love, love what you do - so go for it!
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