Welcome!!! You have come to the right place.

I have 2 kids (6 and 3) and when I got pregnant with #1 I was 141. I got down before trying to get preg. with #2 but before I got preg. I was at 156. So that is my story in a nutshell. I completely know how you feel. My biggest addvice is not to take as long to change your mindset as I did. Know that there are no magic pill, herb, food, excercise that will do it for you. You have to have your mind in the right place. (off my soap box now)

A few question.
Are you nursing?
Are you staying at home or are you working?
Do you have equiptment available to you?

If you are nursing it is very important NOT to eat too little. You need something like and extra 500 cal per day. Usually people will try for between 1200 - 1400 cal. (if nursing you add 500 to that).

I am by no means an expert on this but this is a great place to get advice and motivation. If you need a buddy let me know. I am always looking for someone to hold me accoutable as well.

Also try and remember that it will take time. Just getting your hormones back after having a baby takes a long time. It did get a bit harder with each child for me.

I LOVE food!! After #1 I tried the slim fast thing and was sooooo miserable. I need to eat and eat real food. I also tried Atkins and that is how I lost after #1 but as soon as I stopped so I could start planning for #2 I gained it all back and then some. What I am doing now is I have a big breakfast (2 whole eggs, 2 wheat toast with butter). Then for lunch and dinner I have a Lean Cuisine or some low cal frozen meal. I hate counting my own calories so this way it is just done for me. With those 3 meals I eat about 800-900 calories. To fill in the rest of the calories that I need for the day (remember it is not good to go below 1200 cal per day) I have about 1-2 cups of steamed broccoli or other veggie (very filling)with my lunch and dinner and then between my meals if I need a little something I will have an apple, raw veggies and dip, 100 cal pack of cookies (for a treat). The biggest thing is you have to see this as a lifestyle change. If you deprive yourself you will want that thing so bad that you will just cheat, feel bad, and say forget it.

If you haven't noticed I tend to babble so I hope this is making sense and helping! You can do this!! Remember, slow and steady wins the race!

As far as excersize, just start slow. Anything is better than nothing. If you are having issues that make excersize hard you might want to check out the excersize forum.

KRISSIE ~ how about just walking for now IN SPURTS of 5-10 minutes at a time working up to 20-30 minutes or as possible. That wouldn't be so hard on your ankle, and you could bundle up well and take your baby for a walk.

Swimming is also good for someone with injuries; do you have a YWCA or similar place that you could go to, as you can go to the Mommy & Baby sessions (baby will learn to swim too). During the winter, you could get some WALK OFF THE POUNDS DVDS. You can go at your own pace and do them indoors on not-so-nice days.

You can also do upper body aerobics sitting on a chair and hand weights to strengthen your arms. Rowing might be a possible choice for down the road (I just do the arm action for now becuz of a bum knee). Can you get a brace or wrap to put on your ankle to give it extra support while you walk? Often you can get them at drug stores for a lot less money too.

I agree with Adaem: make sure you get enuff food while your body heals from having the baby. Eat lean meats and lots of veggies and fruit; and don't forget to have a bit of dairy (all food groups is best). Many people have good success with CALORIE COUNTING, but don't starve yourself. Good advice from ADAEM about this. You can use FITDAY.COM or DAILYPLATE.COM to keep track of your CALORIES. Keep track by writing down everything you eat each day.

ROSEBUD

Congrats on your baby! I too had trouble after my baby. I gained 45 pounds from pregnancy, I got back to pre-pregnancy weight after about 1 year. Most of it came off with breastfeeding and the rest came off through dieting and exercise but hardly went to the gym at that time. I was always so paranoid with my baby. I did exercises in the living room while he was napping. Low impact QUIET exercises like yoga and pilates. You can get a really really nice workout from these..sometimes they're so challenging you feel more winded than doing aerobic exercises. I like the pilates video with Ana Caban.


I also forgot to mention that I definitely noticed a change in the amount of food I needed in order to maintain my weight after my baby. It's like my body just needed less to function normally. I went from eating about 2000-2100 calories a day (pre-baby) to eating about 1500-1600 a day (post baby) to maintain. I'm doing exercises to try to increase my maintenance calories since I like food. =)

YOu have to give your body time to heal after your pregnancy. All your joints are soft and you could do damage to yourself if you don't take extreme care. As far as the breast feeding, it is sad that you couldn't get beyond 2 weeks. Two weeks is when breast feeding gets rapidly easier. The pain goes away, your milk is more stable, etc... I am not trying to make you feel bad. I stopped breast feeding with my first son because of the pain and I had no support from anyone to tell me what to expect or to get over that hump.

I found breastfeeding to be the absolute greatest thing in the world for my weightloss. No joke, I had all the baby weight off (about 30 lbs) in 35 days. Sometimes I wish DD would still breastfeed! (Not really, she's 19 months and has some serious teeth).

But, aside from that...as some have mentioned, swimming is a great way to lose weight without stressing your ankle. You might also try biking if the ankle flexion of pedaling doesn't bother you (a recumbent bike might help here).

One incredibly underrated bit of exercise? A rowing machine. Even if you don't have a gym membership, you can usually pick up a rowing machine quite cheap. It is so old-school, uncool and unsexy, but it WORKS. You get good cardio AND you work those large back muscles-- and bigger muscles means more calories burned.