How many calories does blogging burn?
So, part of this no-longer-being-pregnant thing (something that still takes some getting used to... how come everyone stopped giving me their reverence and undivided attention?) is that I'm trying to lose a hefty twenty pounds. At almost two months out, the bloom is rather off the already-lost-thirty-pounds rose. I went from a nice series of four-lb-per weeks, to a string of 2-lb weeks, and now I'm leveling off at one pound per week, a velocity that doesn't make me excited about prospects for my fall wardrobe. Sure, now I can get by in the same flow-y dresses I wore all through my pregnancy, but if I get to october and I'm still wearing maternity jeans I'm going to be sorely disappointed. I OWN jeans. They're down in the basement. They're around a size 8. I miss them.
I know that breast feeding only burns 500 extra calories a day. Indeed, people share this fact with me at an alarming rate. Oh really? Only 500? Then let me take out this lard IV then. Thank you kind stranger at the gym! Anyway, that's why I've enlisted the help of weight watchers online, as well as my tried and true method of exercising my ass off. Dan has been so kind as to give me an hour and a half every day of the week to spend at the gym (including transit time) and I've availed myself of one weight-lifting class a week flanked by daily cardio all days but Sunday. When there's nothing that interests me in a spin class, I head out around the neighborhood for a run, and the 2-mile loop around the local digs makes me feel like my old self again, if only because I can pretend like it's one of my "off days" in marathon training. In reality, 2 miles is about all I can travel these days, and that's being generous... the loop is realy about 1.8. And also? I gotta get my ipod plugged in and back in rotation... It's a bit of a disconnect to picture yourself a hard-core runner when you're hopping along humming "Old McDonald" to yourself for 25 minutes.
So why the slow weight loss, you ask, despite the athletic streak? Well, for one thing, as a nursing mother weight watchers gives me 32 points a day, which is a decadent ice-cream-sunday mania for a regular dieter. Nursing mothers are apparently SUPPOSED to lose weight slower, according to medical guidelines, which I think is just doctors' way of saying "Hey, we don't get to see you every week anymore, but we'd still like to screw with you and freak you out from afar!" And yet, who am I to question guidelines that allow me a midnight snack of cookies and a beer? I mean, medicine has done a lot for the human condition.
At the current rate I'll be back in fighting trim just in time to stuff myself silly over Christmas. I had hoped to accelerate the process a bit in order to fit into SOMETHING I ALREADY OWN for Harvey's baptism, because between the maternity wear and the nursing bras, I've already spent enough money outfitting myself for parenthood. As long as I always carry the baby in front of me, I'll be fine.
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I just wanted to post a word of caution about milk supply. One of the reasons nursing mom's are supposed to lose weight slower is that fast weight loss can decrease your milk supply. I don't know how good yours is, but I had a fairly good one after my second was born but as soon as I lost those last 15 lbs my milk supply dropped and it was hard to keep up with him. So I believe there is something to the doctors warning (and I'm not one to blindly follow doctors!)