****This contest is now closed*****
I cringe at my reflection these days and I avoid having my picture taken at all costs. I know that I should just relax and not listen to my body image issues screaming in my head, but I cannot.
In my view, I am fat and I am hating every single minute of it.
I know that I will lose some weight once the baby is born, but there is still a long road ahead. And please don’t start talking about how breastfeeding just “melts the weight” off because it does not do that for my body!
I just got the book Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?: The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby
Aside from offering great tips on dealing with hormones, breastfeeding, and those offhand comments from strangers, this book helps to remind me that NOW is the time to be grateful, not hateful, of my body.
Yes, I have packed on some extra junk in my trunk, but I am also creating a little boy. I have a baby in my belly and my negative attitude cannot be healthy for him, even in utero. So what if my ass is now the size of a barn? I should just thank my lucky stars that he is healthy!
This is one of my favorite passages from the book:
- Thank your body for accomplishing such a remarkable feat.
- Remind yourself that you brought your child into the world with the body that you have, not the body you wish you could have.
- Accept your labor and delivery for whatever it was or wasn’t. Stand solid in the knowledge that you are amazing because you did your best.
- Treat yourself with kindness and compassion as your body heals and you adjust to your new life.
- Be a mother–beautiful, imperfect, and always learning.
I printed this list and now carry it in my purse. It is so difficult not to compare myself to all the media images of new mothers who lose their baby weight in a matter of minutes (Nicole Richie? Heidi Klum?) but the reality is that I do not have access to their lives.
The book interviews Ramona Braganza, a personal trainer to celebrity moms such as Jessica Alba and Halle Berry. Her program is called “3-2-1 Baby Bulge be Gone” and basically involves 45-90 minutes of intense exercise at least 5 days per week, starting at two weeks and no later than FOUR weeks after giving birth.
I don’t know about you, but there was no way my body was ready for intense exercise at just 2 weeks post birth. (most doctors recommend at least six weeks for full recovery).
One chapter that hit hard with me was the one about breaking the cycle. It’s one thing to hate your own body, but do you really want to hand that trait down to your child(ren)? The book reminds me to be mindful of my words and actions around my children. When I tell my kids that mommy can’t play with them or be in the picture because she is too fat it is not fair to them. They are completely oblivious to my size and just want mommy to be happy.
Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?
So this mommy is going to do her best to love her baby-building body more and stop being a hater!
Want to win your own copy of Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?: The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby
Share yours! The winner will be chosen at random on Saturday, October 24th at 9pm EST.
photo credit: knittinging
{ 25 comments }
I dunno Lisa… the book sounded great until that part about the mandate for intense exercise 2 weeks after birth. Sort of waters down that message of accepting your body. I say continue to “Treat yourself with kindness and compassion as your body heals and you adjust to your new life.” Then start exercising when you’re ready. My mastitis woes are a testament to this!
Kara from Mama Sweat´s last blog ..Good Goal. Sit. Stay.
Great reminder to treat yourself with kindness. I gained lots of weight with both pregnancies (50 lbs), and I didn’t feel great about the weight gain. And it was very hard to lose the weight the second time around.
My “baby” just turned 2, and I was just thinking I would give anything to relive that special time, “imperfect” body and all. Having a baby is truly a miracle and we have to celebrate, honor, & love our bodies every day. Our bodies are truly AMAZING!!!!
I guess I was struck by all the “You are HUGE” comments. Yes, I was huge, but don’t people ever think before they say these words…
Andrea@WellnessNotes´s last blog ..Enjoying Life
@Kara from Mama Sweat:
Kara: I need to edit my post and make it clear that the book emphasizes the intense pressure on celebs to get back in “pre-baby” shape right away and how we should NOT compare our bodies to theirs. That chapter emphasizes how new moms should spend time enjoying their newborn, not working out every single day for hours at a time. Which is a fantastic message that sometimes we forget!
Looks like a good book Lisa! I’m here for ya girl
You know, you always looks awesome…and I think you look GREAT…and NO, I’m not just saying that! You always feel much bigger than you look when you are pregnant. Aaaaaand, yes…you are creating a little cutie pie so it’s all worth it!
Jamie
A Forest Frolic´s last blog ..A Sweet Sneak Peek & a Discount…
There’s a GREAT website called “The Shape of a Mother” that shows real women during and post-pregnancy. They take up-close photos of stretchmarks, loose skin, etc. and show that THIS is what pregnancy REALLY looks like! Not stick figures with tiny little bumps!
My husband said the best thing during my first pregnancy: I was complaining about the size of my butt, and he said “Honey, if your butt stayed small, you’d fall forward every time you stood up!” It made me laugh, and it let me know that he thought I was beautiful, even when I thought I resembled a small planet.
I remember reading one of those fitness mags that said new moms shouldn’t nap while the baby naps, they should work out, instead!
Obviously that writer did not have kids. Personally, I think that when you have just CREATED AN ENTIRELY NEW PERSON FROM SCRATCH, and that person is keeping you awake all hours of the day and night, you are entitled to take a nap AND take some time off from working out to let your body recover.
I gained a moderate amount of weight when I was pregnant the first time. This time it looks like the same. I chaulk it up to working out, which you know all about.
I have a weirdly long torso, so my baby bump grows up and up and doesn’t pop until the last few months. I definately look pregnant, but it’s not that cute round bump that other ladies have.
So, with my first baby a lady at the library came up to me and said “What’s wrong with your baby? Are you having a midget?” (her words not mine). Nice, right?
Being pregnant is tough stuff! Those hormones are just crazy, and if that’s not bad enough people don’t seem to think about what they’re saying at all! I had a guy at work ask if I was having twins because I was soooo huge. When I replied no, he just continued to go on and on about how the doctor must be wrong and he’d never seen anyone so big. The kicker is though, I really wasn’t that big. My total weight gain was 26 pounds, which is pretty normal. Yet, it made me feel really bad.
Katie´s last blog ..5 days to go time
As a fitness professional who teaches prenatal fitness and struggles with body image issues, it is hard to maintain what is “suppose to be cute and fit” during a pregnancy when the body has a mind of its own…I was always wondering how others viewed me in the health club and I too avoided many pictures during and after my pregnancy…I am hoping it will be different as I enter my second trimester for number two. Five months after my daughter was born, we were visiting my inlaws for Xmas…my husband’s gma who was 99yrs old at the time looked at me and said, boy you must have gained a lot of weight when you were pregnant…needless to say, it did not help my image of trying to lose that baby weight…
HealthyJasmine´s last blog ..Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2009: The mother-daughter link in breast cancer
@Alyssa:
Alyssa, i agree! Creating an entirely new person from scratch deserves some rest!
@Hiit Mama:
what a crazy comment! I would have not been able to hold back and said something mean to her. People just don’t THINK before they speak sometimes!
@Katie:
Katie-men should just NOT be allowed to make any comments to pregnant women at all! Good luck this weekend!
@HealthyJasmine:
yes, it’s especially hard as a fitness instructor. Members think that you will bounce back to pre-baby weight in a week or so and seem to forget that we are human too!
Oh Lisa! I can so relate to this post! And it’s so funny – I just finished reading this book yesterday. I too really liked it and the message it is putting out there. When I was done though I felt like I need MORE! I want to hear more from people like them and less from People magazine about Jessica Alba’s fabulous post-baby body. Just tonight I had a freak-out over my weight. So thank you for the reminder to be proud of my body for the little girl I’m nurturing and to leave the weight drama to those people whose paychecks depend on it (and thank heavens I’m not one of them!)
charlotte´s last blog ..Is Hygiene Overrated?
I really understand your point of view. During my first pregnancy, I kept on thinking for the whole nine months that I wanted my own body back. I did not enjoy being pregnant and wanted that baby out of there as quickly as possible.
Oh, how I was wrong!! When my daughter was born, all I wanted was put her back in there again. The crying, the sleepless nights, the feeding, the neverending worries, no time for myself at all!! Even though I was back at my weight within two months, it took me five years to get over the fact that I’m a mum now and that my baby is more important to me than my body.
Now, I’m pregnant for the second time and due in four weeks. I’m huge! Even gained more weight than during the first pregnancy. But I appreciate it so much more.
My body? I’ll worry about that in a few months…
Suzanne´s last blog ..The truth about motherhood
Ha! Ha! I can’t believe the “your chest looks huge” comment, especially from a male friend. The crazy comment I received was “You must be having a girl because your rear end is getting wider”….Ummmm, yeah, I totally thought of this aquaintance the day after delivering A BOY. Anyway…..
The book looks great!
Jess in Nebraska
Hi! Can I enter the drawing even though I’m not pregnant yet? My husband and I are getting close to starting to try to get pregnant and I am working hard to let go of my body image issues, especially in how they relate to having kids. Winning the book would be awesome. Please include me in the drawing, if possible. Thanks!
Does the book come with a private babysitter so that mom can actually do the 45 to 90 minutes of intense exercise?
I’m so glad I’m not alone. Thank you for this reminder. I am definitely having body image issues with this pregnancy. I think it’s because I remember how huge I was with my first and am dreading what’s to come. And I’m only 17 weeks along
The weirdest comment I had while pregnant was more annoying than weird. Someone asked if I was having twins at 7 months. I wasn’t THAT big!
Wow did I need to hear that. I actually have twins and have spent the last ten months now trying to lose the 15 pounds I gained during my pregnancy. I wanted to lose it by their first birthday — which, sadly, came and went, and I HATE all of the pictures with me in them. Isn’t that sad? I actually avoid the camera because I don’t want to look at pics of me and see that I STILL haven’t been able to lose my prego weight. I know, I know – I had twins, right? But I have had a really hard time loving this body. So thanks for the reminder that it IS lovable and fabulous and gave me these two precious babies of mine who fill my life with a vast mix of joy, tears, aggravation, and laughter every day.
That said, I have kind of zoned out on the pregnancy, it was a busy time for my husband and I all around. But I do remember a comment from my husband after he got back from two weeks of AT for the National Guard (I had closed on and moved into our condo and completely gutted it and re-painted all the walls and replaced most of the appliances while he was gone to turn around and put the flooring in and move within a week after he got back). The first thing he said to me after he gave me a huge hug was, “Wow – you are really huge! I think you went from being six months pregnant to nine months pregnant in the last two weeks!” I guess all the up and down and working on so many things pushed those babies right OUT! Hahahahahaha!
Melinda´s last blog ..Snack Attack!!!!
A few weeks ago, at 20 weeks pregnant sporting a definite baby bump, a girl at the gym told me that abs were made in the kitchen and I would make a lot more progress if I watched what I ate.
…
…
…
“Um, thanks. I’ll remember that after I have the baby.”
I finished my workout and came home and cried for two days.
KUrunner´s last blog ..Workout – 10.16
I’ve always loved being pregnant, even though I stress over my weight throughout. I know it will come off with hard work after baby comes
I often get looks of sympathy when I tell people I am not due until next year (ie, January). It’s baby #2, I’m supposed to be bigger this time around, right?!?!?
Rachel´s last blog ..Dealing With Stress
Great post and one that we all need to consider. Loving our bodies no matter the shape would do wonder for our self-esteem. AND doing something as easy as walking 30 minutes a day would give us the energy and stress-relief we need. Now if only I too could do all that. :0)
Modbev´s last blog ..Baby feet
the book sounds great! I have always been pretty heavy when ever I have gotten pregnant and it’s a struggle at times to love your pregnancy body [especially if you weren't loving it to much before hand]. I’ll have to check out that book.
Also, about that celebrity work out thing…. Celebrities are PAID to look their best. It’s what there job demands. So they hire babysitters and trainers and all that to get back in shape. I say, for us non-celebrity moms if you can get a nice walk in a few times a week during the first 6 weeks after giving birth, you should be proud. Especially if you have more then one child.
This Military Mama´s last blog ..Sneak Peek!
Thanks for the book review – sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out. And you’re right about body image. I used to HATE stretch marks, but now I consider them my badge of motherhood and smile at them. They say, “Look what you did!!!”
MoDLin´s last blog ..How long does it take to get pregnant after stopping birth control?
@Rachel:
Congrats Rachel you are the winner! Please email me your mailing address so you can get your prize. Thanks for reading!
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