A few weeks ago, I decided to bite the bullet and try on some jeans.  You know, the old pre-pregnancy jeans with the daunting, tiny waists.  And guess what?  They fit!  And not squeezing-into-them-like-a-sausage fit, but a good, comfortable, these-are-the-right-size kind of fit.  So, I decided to get hooked up to the physio-graph to see what my body composition was doing.  And guess what?  My body composition has improved just a tad over what I measured pre-preganancy!

Now let me just share with you that this summer, whether I belonged in a bikini or not, I decided I would sport one just to movivate myself to get my body back to a place where I felt comfortable in one.  And all summer long, I’ve been getting compliments on how good I look in a bikini, especially given the small infant sitting in the stroller beside me.  But you know the head games we play, well at least I do.  “They’re just being nice.”  No matter what compliments I received, it took me getting to be where I felt comfortable to get that good old self-confidence back.  And the self-confidence is an amazing thing.  It can absolutely change your day and your outlook.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  Start your day off with not being able to fit into your favorite outfit and watch the doom and gloom of it all slowly trickle into the rest of your day.  It seems kind of shallow, but is it really?  Isn’t it important that we feel good about ourselves? 

Granted, I started this effort mid-March and now here in July, I am switching back to maintenance mode.  By no means am I posting Biggest Loser type stats here, but I also didn’t take a vacation from my life for months to focus on my weight loss.  I did what I could, prioritized it by working it into my schedule, ate sensibly for the most part but also lived life and indulged occasionally.  In the beginning, I tried to force myself to do something I knew I absolutely despised - cardio on a machine.  And about midway through, I decided I needed to stop torturing myself and get my heart rate up doing something that I enjoyed.  So I switched my cardio to singles tennis a couple of times a week.  And maybe it’s coincidence, but that’s when the weight really started coming off.  When I stopped thinking about it and just started doing.  Surely there is something you like doing that involves some kind of cardiac benefit?  Think outside the box and the machines for a moment and I’m sure you’ll come up with something.

 So what is my biggest piece of advice for those trying to lose weight?  Make your goals reasonable.  Don’t give up just because you miss a milestone.  Let it inspire you to work a little harder to meet or exceed the next one.  It will happen.  Maybe not on your ideal timeline (which for me, originally was Heidi Klum-like 6 weeks post-partum results!), but it’s a given if you stick with it, it will happen.

 This time last year, I was just finding out I was pregnant.  A year later, I am enjoying lots of pool time with the kids.  This feeling of accomplishment is priceless.  It took a lot of hard work, but trust me when I tell you it’s life-changing.  

So now that it’s mission accomplished for me, I’m signing off of this blog, at least as a personal journal.  I am going to retire this one and re-start a blog with a different purpose.  We’re going to use the new one to feature client successes, events, fitness tips, and more, so stay tuned for details!�

A couple of weeks ago, it was measurement time again.  I know you’re going to look at these numbers and see them decreasing, but overall be unimpressed.  Well, at least I was. 

Since the last measurement, I had lost about a pound a week.  It’s progress, but it’s not as quickly as I had hoped.  You should have just heard some of the smack I was talking when I was preggo about how I would snap back into shape in 2 months!   Reality set in for sure.  I really was shooting for closer to 2 pounds more week.  And although I lost lots of inches, I still was not even close to getting into any of my “normal size” jeans.  I was doing everything I should have been on the exercise front - plenty of cardio and strength training.  So that left my eating habits to be revisited.  I know how to eat well when I’m just in maintenance phase, but do I really know what I’m doing when it comes to trying to lose weight?  Everyone knows you need to eat fewer calories than you’re burning for the day, but I’ve never known how to do that without getting so hungry that my right arm looked appetizing!  For the past couple of times in my life when I had a weight loss challenge ahead, changing eating habits meant doing South Beach.  And with all this exercising, I knew I needed the carbs to get me through, so that was out of the question.  And not to mention I promised no fad diets to help me along on this journey.  So last time when I wrote, I did some different things with my eating, but I was still getting a little too hungry for comfort, which was probably leading to overeating.

Lucky for me, Regan had just completed training on our new nutrition program.  Yes, I know this sounds like I am leading into a commercial, but please trust that I am brutally honest.  I can never sell anything that I don’t believe in or know that customers would come back telling me they’ve wasted their time or money.  I’m too thin-skinned to handle that.  So just hear me out!

She hooked me up to the Physio-Graph, which is a device that gives you an accurate body composition measurement.  From that, we learned my basal-metabolic rate, which tells me how many calories I’m burning per day doing nothing but “being.”  So then I knew how many calories I needed to eat each day to lose.  But how to do this without feeling like I was starving myself?  The nutrition program then spit out a meal frequency plan, and a list of many foods that were okay for me to have, in exactly the quantities I needed for weight loss success!  I looked at some sample meal plans, and my excitement quickly fizzled as I though starvation was again on the horizon for me.  And while the first day adjustment was a bit tough, as time went on I found myself having to force myself to eat all the food!  While my favorite day of the week is still cheat day (you get one per week on the program), the others are certainly doable and can be applied whether you’re eating out or in.  The program’s foundation is accountability (logging all of your food and regular Physio-Graphs to measure progress.)    And the best part of all is that it’s providing you with an education on how to change your eating habits for life.  So there’s no lifetime membership required…. do it once and you’ll have the tools you need to succeed indefinitely.

 In my two weeks on the nutrition program, I’m down 4 additional pounds.  So that leaves me with 6 or 7 more to lose, but more importantly, my “normal” size jeans are just on the brink of fitting again!  (you know…. where they just barely zip but leave you paralyzed from the hips down with little or no circulation.)  With a summer vacation coming up mid-June, my new goal is to be back to my pre-pregnancy self by then.  It’s achievable and to think it will have taken 4 months total to get my old bod back after pregnancy (in which no opportunity for indulgence was spared!)….  I guess that’s not too shabby.  Especially considering I know I’ve done it the right way and the pounds won’t come creeping back once I switch to maintenance mode.

Well, I’m happy to report the pounds are finally starting to come off!  That and the warm weather are really driving my motivation to lose the remaining 10 or so pounds!  I promised I’d share my new ways of eating with you, so here are the things that have been key to my success so far: 

1. Eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day.  I am eating every 3 hours and have noticed that this has eliminated the mid-afternoon urge to snack on everything in sight.  I really like the recipes on www.body-for-life.com.They seem to be well-balanced.  This small meal thing also keeps my energy level consistent throughout the day.  No more sluggish mid-afternoons.

2. Making sure each meal has enough protein.  It takes lot of work to add muscle to my frame and I like to blame it on genetics.  But I am making an honest effort to be sure I get enough protein.  I start meal planning by choosing a protein, and building my meal around it.  Being a carb junkie in the past, I suspect I wasn’t doing all that I could to increase the muscle mass in my body.  The increase in protein has also helped to decrease my crazy appetite.

3. Looking at what foods I should “include” for the day instead of exclude.  It seems that when I take this approach, I don’t feel so deprived.  I look at each meal and ask myself what do I need to include in it to be sure it is equally balanced and that I’ve had enough fruits/veggies for the day.  Naturally, cookies and other treats don’t fit into things that I “need” daily, so the cravings for them don’t pop up as often. 

4. Before this weight loss effort, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve packed a lunch in the past year.  But I know that if I’m prepared, I have a better likelihood for success.  Otherwise, I get stuck at my desk until I’m starving and compensate by eating the most easily accessible foods and entirely too much of them.  So, I’m brown bagging it on most days.

Things are going really well on the exercise front since the tennis season is back in full swing and I’m able to fit in a few strength training sessions a week while the baby watches peacefully (let’s see how long that lasts!)  I came across a great website, though, for others looking for exercise buddies.  It’s www.SeeMommyRun.com.  Mothers post their desired walk/run times, days, speeds, and locations, and you can join in on a group that fits your needs.  Put the baby in a stroller and you’re ready to roll!

So I’ve been working out consistently for two weeks now.  I’m doing all the things I think I should be – starting out at a moderate level by doing a couple of strength training sessions per week, three to four days of cardio, and eating well-balanced meals.  I got on the scale, expecting to see the fruit of my labor by some pounds melting away, yet there was NO change.  NONE.  Now any sane person would consider that my body is going through some major hormonal changes what with just having giving birth six weeks ago, and recently stopping nursing.  So, why can I not accept that my body will part with these pesky pounds in due time if I keep at it? 

Because I, like the rest of our society, have been programmed to expect instant gratification.  And even though I know the facts—that anything I do resulting in rapid weight loss will not provide permanent results, I am still tempted by the quick fix. Everyday, we’re inundated with quick-fix messages related to weight loss and every other emotional topic you can think of.  I educate myself on the science behind weight loss often, but not enough to counteract all the false claims that are floating around.  Every time I stand in the line at the grocery store, I catch a glance at the magazine headlines because it’s probably as far as I’ll get these days into reading them.  On my last visit, these are the headlines that caught my eye:

“Three Fats that Make You Skinny”

“Fat Free and Fabulous”

“The Get-Slim 14 Day Diet”

And certainly, all of us can admit that a headline entitled “Lose weight through hard work and commitment” is not nearly as glamorous or as appealing as any of the above. 

So, instead of giving up, I’m going to crank it up a notch.  I’m not going to do it by depriving myself of the fuel I need.  I think I have the food part under control.  And I know I promised you I’d tell you what I was doing on the eating side of things in this post, but somehow I just don’t think you’d be too convinced that it’s working when I have nothing to show for it.  So I’ll wait until next time, when hopefully I have some results to share beyond increased energy and fewer cravings and feelings of hunger (I see your ears perking up!)  For now, I am going to aim to get four to five days of intense cardio in, and take the strength training up to three days per week and see what happens.  Because when it comes down to it, we all get a little desperate when it comes to something as emotional as weight loss.  But those of us who are educated to understand what really works know better than to give into to our desperation. 

Well, at the 2 week Dr. appointment, I did get clearance to exercise, but to start very lightly, i.e., walking.  Since exercise that doesn’t result in breaking a sweat is not really my thing (what’s the point!), and since chasing my toddler probably qualifies as something similar, I didn’t start with any particular exercise regimen.  Nor did I change my poor eating habits I indulged in the whole pregnancy.  Bad, bad Elaina. 

Now here we are at 4 weeks postpartum, and a couple of days ago, I woke up with a new resolve to kick start this weight loss effort.  Maybe it just took a whole month of wearing elastic waistband maternity pants on my no-longer-pregnant body to get to this point.  Or maybe I’m an all or nothing kind of gal– if I can’t do it full throttle, why bother?  Regardless of what got me here, I’m glad I’m feeling it.  So, first thing’s first, I had to do the dreaded measurements.  I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the numbers, but knew it would keep me committed to staying on task.  I’m showing my current measurements compared with the last ones taken February 2007. 

YIKES!  Lots of work to be done but I know I can do it.  I am going to focus mostly on the getting the body fat down, and well, of course, the weight, but I am going to TRY not to be such a stickler about the number on the scale.  I’d like to try to add more muscle to my frame this time around.  I think I did enough strength training last time to make that happen, but I didn’t get enough protein.  Next time, I’ll tell you how I’m eating differently and some great websites I found to help me with my cause.

After days and days of waiting that seemed like weeks and weeks, Mckenzie finally decided to make her entrance on Valentine’s Day.  I’m still trying to decide whether that’s cute or corny, but after all the waiting, she could have come on any old day and I wouldn’t have protested!  And, best of all, I am proud to say that I went through with the unmedicated waterbirth as planned.  I won’t go into all the details, but I will tell you that I will not recommend to anyone that they spend their final days of pregnancy entertaining themselves by TIVO-ing all the screaming laborers (and husbands, in some cases!) on Birth Story to chuckle at their expense.  Turns out I got a little vocal myself in the final moments.  But at any rate, I did it, exactly as planned and although I wasn’t very happy about my decision at the time, I was loving it starting the very day after.  I felt like my old, non-pregnant self almost immediately.   So sianara bedrest, sitz baths, cold packs, and Costco-sized bottles of Tylenol!  You’re a thing of the postpartum past.  I’m ready to exercise and get rid of this weight.  Well, that is, once the Doc gives me the green light at my appointment next week.  Here’s to hoping…

Anyone who knows me well knows about my low pain threshold and well to be honest, my low tolerance for all things irritating, inconvenient, etc. I am all about the easy way out, the quick fix…. I’m the shortcut queen. I mean, that’s probably how I ended up with a personal trainer in the first place. My solo trips to the gym were always planned to be 2 hour-long intense sessions, but always ended up as a 15 minute jaunt on the elliptical (never enough to actually break a sweat) followed by a round or two on some resistance equipment set at weights that my body could easily handle. I wasn’t challenging myself. Once I started with a personal trainer, I morphed into a whole different person, wanting to push my body to its limit to see exactly what it’s capable of.So it’s no surprise that with the last childbirth, I asked for, strike that, demanded, the epidural the moment I arrived to the hospital. I mean, why struggle through something as horrific as expelling a nine-pound baby when I had the option of numbing myself to the whole experience? Once the baby came, I wondered what all the fuss was about. But in the days and weeks following the delivery, after the pain meds wore off, I started to feel it. An “it” that no amount of pain-numbing spray, ice packs, or Tylenol could touch. I wanted to know why no one told me the recovery was the hardest part!  Apparently that’s the price you pay for your lower half not being physically present at the delivery.

I am writing this as I prepare for the birth of my second child.  As you may or may not know, Studio One to One essentially got its start because of my first pregnancy and the havoc it wreaked on my body.  Regan and I met in a trainer/client relationship, as she helped me reclaim the pre-baby body I once knew.  Actually, she helped me shape my body into an even better version than the pre-baby one I once knew.  So I am pretty anxious to get back on track once the baby arrives to do it all over again!  I am excited to tell you that I am going to share this journey with you.  My objective is to be completely open and honest with you about all of the obstacles I face along the way.  And I hope to share some proud milestones and accomplishments, too!

I have to admit, I have a definite advantage.  My job puts me in front of some of the best personal trainers every single day.  But, it is still going to take hard work, determination, and discipline.  It’s just as easy to prioritize taking care of the business or my family before I take care of myself, but I plan to carve time out of each day to put myself first.  Some might call it being selfish, but I have found that when you take care of yourself, you’re able to put your best foot forward to everyone else around you.

 So, here’s what I’m up against!  As of today, I am about a week and  a half from due date and have gained a little over 30 lbs. with this pregnancy.  The weight gain is the result of a delicate balance between an out-of-control appetite and lots of strength training and exercise!  I will say that this pregnancy has treated me much better than the last due to my focus on exercise.  Last time, my efforts could best be described as halfhearted, but this time around I got serious!  I fit 2-3 supervised strength training sessions in per week, and played singles and doubles tennis as long as my unbalanced body would allow.  On that note, I will say that if you’re working out during pregnancy, the single most important thing you can do (aside from getting Doctor approval!) is to listen to your own body.  It will tell you, loud and clear, when you’re doing too much.  I found that with tennis, this happened at about 7 months of pregnancy, and with strength training, I lasted until my 37^th week.  I’m sure it’s different for everyone.  Overall, I’ve enjoyed great energy throughout this pregnancy, compared with feeling sluggish and lazy during the last where I was not nearly as active.

In closing, I’ll share a few disclaimers.  First, I’m not a personal trainer!  I got into this business as a personal training client, and that’s how I will always see myself.  I might have a better basic understanding of the fundamentals than your average joe, but I am still eager to learn from the incredibly knowledgeable trainers around me.  Next, I am not planning on using any gimmicks to help me along in my weight loss.  We all know there are tons out there, and admittedly they are at times tempting with their outrageous claims, but I know that in the end it there is no magic bullet and it comes down to addressing the basics.  And finally, my number one goal is to be as completely open and honest as possible in order to provide others who might be struggling with weight loss with something to relate to.