Learn to love your new body ❤
I had a memory pop up on my facebook feed the other day of a photo of me from 6 years ago, i was probably at the peak of my fitness goals, feeling good, looking good. To be honest though at the same time I was always looking at my body and seeing where I could improve.
3 years later i was pregnant with my first. I had a really easy pregnancy, no morning sickness or other issues. Only thing was no matter what i did i put on weight. 30kgs to be exact with 10 of that being solely fluid (man i blew up like a beach ball lol). But I was happy and i didnt stress about my weight gain during pregnancy as I was happy to be growing this little human inside me.
The labour went well, I lost the 10kgs of fluid soon after the birth of our little girl and life was a sleep deprived blur for the first couple of months. Once we started getting into a routine, I started wanting to get back into exercise and trying to shift the weight. So many people told me I'd loose it quickly because I was breastfeeding (they were wrong). The weight didnt shift and the negative comments in my brain started to continually reply through. I hated my body and never weighed myself and rarely looked at myself in the mirror.
Slowly I started to educate myself on tne postnatal body and what nappens during and after pregnancy. I started understanding and seeing I was not the only one feeling like this, but also seeing women give away the power of those self hating comments and embracing thier new bodies instead of mourning the old one.
Your body grew a child and brought it into the world. Your body nourished the child (even if for a short time) and produced milk completely tailored to their needs at the time. Now your body needs to heal and replenish itself after so long looking after someone else. When it is ready the weight may shift or it may not but we need to be able to look at ourselves and be content or even better happy with what we have been tranformed into.
It took me awhile but I can now look at myself in the mirror and go OK, no I haven't lost the 'baby' weight yet but you know what, I am proud of what my body has achieved. It grew a baby for 9mths, pushed it out, breastfed for 22mths and NOW i am pregnant with number 2 and I love my body.
I haven't put on as much weight as the first, it's like my body knows its weight threshold and I have put weight on alot more slowly than the first.
Mindset is so powerful and can be such a big part of IF we ever loose weight or not. Don't push your body to breaking point after a pregancy to loose weight. Nourish it, move it and treat your body with respect and it will happen when your body is ready. It takes 2 years for your body to recover from pregnancy so don't rush the process as it can be more harmful in the long term.
The womens body is a wonderful, magical and beautiful thing. It does some amazing tnings as well so treat it kindly and you will love yourself again in time ❤.
