Changes

Today I'm 3 weeks post-partum, and I find myself needing to get reacquainted with my body. Seriously, I'm changing on a daily basis these days. It's so weird!

First, I must have told you all a time or 10 that I didn't gain any weight with E's pregnancy. In fact, my final weight (at my last appointment, anyway) had me down 1.5 pounds from pre-pregnancy. I assumed that meant I could expect to see the scale dip 10-15 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight once E was born and things started to normalize.

Instead, as of this morning, I am down a whopping 34 pounds! I know a lot of it is fluid loss, but it's still pretty exciting to get on the scale in the morning and see numbers I haven't seen in at least 3 years. It's definitely keeping me motivated to avoid going back to my previous bad food habits, though I will admit that I'm not being perfect (how could I be, when it's Cadbury Mini Egg season?) It's also a little difficult because I seem to be ravenous a lot of the time, but I'm determined not to gain weight again like I did after M was born. I'm looking at these 34 pounds as a gift to spur my larger weight-loss efforts, and I don't want to just squander that gift.

Second, I find myself rather more well-endowed than I used to be. This shouldn't really be surprising, since most women's chests get larger when they're pregnant or nursing; but it's never happened to me before. When I was skinny, I was barely an A cup. As I got fatter, I went up to a B, and that's where I stayed through all of my pregnancies and through 2 years of nursing M. Now, however, I'm a full C, bordering on D. And I kind of like it. I hope it sticks around for a while.

All in all, things are going pretty well for me, self-esteem wise. Make no mistake, I'm still fat (it'll take me another 70 pounds to get comfortably into the healthy BMI range), but I'm skinnier than I've been in years. Plus, with my new rack, the rest of me actually looks a little thinner. For the first time in years, I feel like a healthy-ish weight is within my grasp. I'm clinging to that belief as I try to maintain this momentum.

And in the meantime, I've banned Mini Eggs from the house. I just can't be trusted not to eat an entire bag in a day.