[chubby bunny]

Hi, I'm Bunny and I'm new to posting, but I am very intrigued. I'm hoping to find some friends and support here...I'm so excited to start! So here's my story...

I was always thin and athletic. I got a full ride scholarship to play volleyball in college, and then I coached a college team. I even auditioned to model for Abercrombie. I loved working out and looking good. (My husband liked me that way, too!) Somehow that all fell apart.

So I got married about a year and a half ago. At that time, I weighed somewhere around 135 lbs. (Of course I thought I was huge then! ) Shortly after the wedding, I became really complacent (okay, lazy) and stopped focusing on working out. Then I started a job that landed me behind a desk 45 hours a week, so I was tired, lazy, and when I was at work I was bored, so I munched ALL DAY LONG. I started gaining weight slowly, but I felt like I still looked okay.

Then hubby and I got our wish...I was pregnant! At my first OB appointment I weighed in at 156 lbs. So I had slowly gained about 20 lbs over those first 8 months of marriage.

Anyway, during my pregnancy I didn't do too much exercising and I did do a lot of eating. Mainly delivery for lunch at the office and carry out for dinner at home. The day I delivered our beautiful little boy I weighed 199 lbs!

So the first few weeks postpartum were awesome...I dropped 20 lbs without even trying! But then a few weeks later, after a trip to the gym, my husband decided he wanted to drop 20 lbs, and that we should challenge each other as motivation. We both got on the scale and he weighed 185, while I weighed 175 lbs! Hubby had no idea that I had gotten up to nearly 200 lbs by the end of my pregnancy. So the reality sunk in, and I got serious.

Now that my baby is almost 4 months old, I am using our elliptical machine regularly and trying to eat as healthily as possible. I try to work out 5 times per week, and I am able to burn 500 calories in about 45 minutes. I'm also exclusively breastfeeding, which I've heard burns about 500 calories a day, so I hope to burn about 1000 calories per day if that's true. It's been working pretty well so far.

So what I am really looking for now is some other mommies that are in similar situtations...ones who kind of "let themselves go" before getting pregnant and are now struggling to get back to their pre-baby, beautiful bodies. I'd love for us to support each other!

[Mami]

Congrats Bunny and welcome! When was your baby born and what did you have? I have a similar story: I had gained about 10 pounds pre-baby and then gained 60 pounds while pregnant..within 2 weeks I lost 32 pounds (including the baby LOL)..but things really stalled from there until I put major effort into losing weight. Been fighting this weight since last June, but hoping to reach my goal by the end of June 2007. PS I just got an elliptical as well.

[ennay]

Here is a thread for nursing mommies:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=108739

My son is 6 months and my dd is 3 years.

I was 194 when I delivered both babies. I didnt start my ticker until I started consciously trying to lose weight when the "free weight loss" had stalled and started creeping back up

[Mami]

My DD is 9 1/2 months old. I was 198 when delivering but like ennay, I started my ticker when that "real" baby weight stopped just falling off without me even trying. That brought me from 198 to 167 in about 2 weeks. Those were some wonderful days..I was loving hopping on that scale and EVERY SINGLE morning there was a 1 to 3 pound drop.

The funny thing is, so many women on here must be like..yawn.."been there, done that" yet to us its this big thing in our lives with our new babies and fat bellies and stuff. LOL.

What plan are you following bunny? I'm doing calorie and calorie deficit counting. I calculate my calories eaten and burned everyday to get my deficit. This approach has been surprisingly accurate: when my chart says I have a total deficit of around 3500, sure enough I end up losing a pound around that time (though its not scientific to the actual day, more like that week). This way, even when my scale fluctuates upwards, I know I'm still achieving a deficit and after 12 weeks of tracking this and the weight always coming down, I'm not as upset by the fluctuations.

ennay, your little one is adorable and your older daughter is absolutely gorgeous. Cant wait to see YOUR before and afters!

[almostheaven]

I was 132 when I got pregnant the first time. Like you, I thought I was overweight then. Low self-esteem all my life. After my daughter was born, I went through a divorce. Didn't exercise, didn't do much of nothing. Too much depression. I slowly crept up. My first diet, I weighed 160. My second diet...180. And on up.

My current hubby helped me tremendously with my self-esteem and I decided to do a diet for life this time...a healthy eating and exercise regimine. No more rabbit food diets, just eat right. I lost the weight slowly. I was 5 pounds from goal, 40 years old, healthier than I'd ever been and...ruh roh...I was pregnant again. I have a 22 year old daughter and 16 mo. old son. LOL!

This time though, I knew what it took. I continued exercising and eating right throughout the pregnancy and after. I've stalled out and just been maintaining mostly, probably because I'm not unhappy with the size I am right now. But I do still want to reach that goal eventually.

I've never done this as a working mother. I did work. But now I'm an SAHM. While working, not yet a mother, I would exercise every evening right after work, or exercise on my lunch hour or a bit in the morning and just before bed...wherever I could fit it in. As an SAHP, I can exercise just about anytime. While he's playing or napping. Or I take him with me in the jogging stroller to the park.

[chubby bunny]

Good morning, girls...

Claudia: Thanks for the welcome! We had a little boy December 19th, so he is almost 4 months old. You're right, it was so great hopping on the scale each morning and seeing the the numbers going down (for the first time in 9 months--LOL) when all I was doing was eating and sleeping with DS. It was really encouraging (albeit deceiving) that I could lose that much weight so easily.

I'm not using any sort of structured calorie counting/deficeit/burning etc plan as of right now, mainly because I am still exploring this site and all it has to offer. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction? I keep track of the calories I burn, but really have no concept of what I actually consume on a daily basis.

Way to go on the elliptical, they are really the best. I wish we could have gotten a really nice PreCor one like they have at the gym, but DH couldn't rationalize it, so our NordicTrack one will have to do

Ennay: thanks for the link to the breastfeeding forum! Some of those posts were a big help. And I agree, Samantha and Alex are just beautiful!

I think I will revise my ticker, since I started it at my delivery weight. A more accurate one would start about 8 weeks later, at about 175...I'll go do that now!