I’ve gotta be honest with you guys:
sometime between December 18th and January 7th,
I went up a whole size in pants.
Yep.
I went to put on the jeans
that I’d been comfortably wearing
for the past six months,
and, while they COULD button
they were a little more snug than they’d been.
And a little too snug for comfort.
And you know what I did?
I took those pants off
grabbed the next size up
put them on
and went about my day.
And I didn’t think about the pants.
I didn’t wonder why I’d gone up a size in pants.
I didn’t think about the Christmas treats I’d enjoyed
and the many huge meals I’d eaten
and wonder if they contributed
to the tightness of my pants.
I honestly didn’t care.
I didn’t step on the scale
to see how much weight I gained.
Heck, even now I still haven’t stepped on the scale.
Because it doesn’t matter.
Six years ago,
going up a size in pants would have had me all upset.
But now, I didn’t freak out.
I didn’t really even think much of it.
In fact, I had pretty much put it out of my mind completely
until I saw some posts on Social Media.
In a two week period,
I saw seven different women just in the people I follow ALONE
(which, let’s be honest here, I only follow like 100 people)
post something along the lines of
“It’s time to start working off the baby weight!”
or
“Blasting the baby weight with this killer workout!”
or
“Time to erase the weight from pregnancy!”
SOMETHING showing that they were in the process
of trying to lose their baby weight.
Guys. SEVEN women.
In a two-week period.
Insisting that they need to lose the baby weight.
And before anybody gets defensive here,
I have nothing against these women.
I know each of them personally and they are all wonderful.
They are amazing mothers and they put a lot of good into the world.
And I am honestly very comfortable with my own body right now.
Some days I see my body and I don’t love how it LOOKS
but I always love my body for what it DOES.
And even on the days when I’d like a flatter stomach
or a bigger chest
or more muscular arms,
I can look at my body and appreciate all that it has done
for me and for our family.
And that to me, is a win.
And so the posts about losing the baby weight
didn’t hit a cord with 31-year-old Ashley
who appreciates her own body
and recognizes that it is amazing.
But I think about 20-year-old Ashley
who had just given birth to her first baby
and who felt this pressure to be “skinny” again.
And as a little clarification –
my husband does NOT comment on my weight.
He never has.
And he likely never will.
The only time he comments on my body AT ALL
is to tell me how pretty he finds me
and he does that in ALL stages
that my body goes through.
And so the pressure that I felt to be skinny again
didn’t come from my husband.
But I wanted to be skinny.
And I was willing to do whatever it took to be skinny.
Run five miles a day and hardly eat anything?
Sure, if it means I can be skinny.
So that’s what I did.
And guess what?
My breastmilk dried up.
But I didn’t stop even when my body was showing signs
that I wasn’t taking care of it.
Because I wanted to be skinny.
I hung on to clothes that were too small
because I wanted to fit back into them.
I NEEDED to fit back into them.
I think of 25-year-old Ashley
who had just given birth
to her third child
and who wanted to be skinny again
but also wanted to breastfeed.
Who started running A LOT
but was also eating everything in sight
to try to keep her milk supply.
And she did.
She breastfed for a full year.
But mentally she was suffering.
She had severe post-partum depression.
She wasn’t quite suicidal,
but she was almost there.
She wondered if the world would be better off
if she just wasn’t in it anymore.
And what made it worse?
Ashley hated her body.
She worked hard to “lose the baby weight”
but it still just didn’t look the way she wanted it to.
Because what 25-year-old Ashley didn’t realize
is that she had something called
Diastasis Recti (separation of the ab muscles)
which everyone gets while pregnant
and sometimes doesn’t go back to normal
after you give birth.
And sometimes the gap can give you
what I’ve heard referred to as the
“mom pooch”
or the
“mummy tummy.”
So I was running 30 miles a week,
and yet, I still had a mom pooch.
And that didn’t make sense to me.
How could I weigh so little
and still have a mom-tummy!?
I still held on to the small clothes.
They didn’t fit – some of them never would again –
and they would serve as the constant reminder
that I wasn’t skinny enough.
And then I think about
myself after giving birth
to my fourth and fifth babies.
I already knew I was prone to
post-partum depression.
But I was not willing
to let myself be miserable
like I’d allowed myself to be
And I realized
that one of the big things that I’d struggled with
after having baby three…
was my weight.
But it wasn’t really my weight I’d struggled with.
It was my THOUGHTS about my weight.
It was the PRESSURE
and the STRUGGLE
to be cute and skinny
and look like I’d never had any kids
(and… again, I’d had THREE!).
And so, while in my fourth pregnancy,
I made two distinct decisions:
1. I was going to buy clothes that fit.
Even if some of the clothes only fit for a week,
I was determined to always have clothes that fit me.
2. I was not going to exercise to lose weight
after having the baby.
If I FELT like exercising because I had energy
or because it sounded fun
or because I was invited to an exercise class
or because I just wanted some extra endorphins
or because I just felt like going out and running a couple miles…
then I would allow myself that luxury.
But the purpose of ANY exercise
would NOT be to lose the baby weight.
And you know what?
They were some of the best decisions I ever made.
You know what feels really, REALLY good?
Wearing clothes that fit.
So what if I was five sizes above my pre-pregnancy weight?
I didn’t care because I had jeans that fit.
I wasn’t trying to squeeze into clothing that felt bad
and probably looked even worse.
As for my decision not to try to lose the baby weight –
I did end up exercising quite a bit after my fifth baby.
But it never felt like I was exercising
to lose weight.
I loved feeling my body get stronger
as I upped my weights during my workouts.
I loved how energized I felt when I was consistently
getting a good sweat in and building those muscles.
And I loved the mental health benefits that came
from regularly working out.
Did my body change?
Sure.
Did I lose some of the baby weight?
Of course.
Did I ever make it back down to my pre-pregnancy weight?
Nope!
Ten years ago if you told me that I’d be 26 pounds heavier now
than I was before I had kids,
I probably would have panicked and decided to stop at one baby.
Because my weight mattered so much to me then.
But it just doesn’t now.
There are so many things I would rather use my brain energy on
than worrying about “losing the baby weight.”
I want to focus on being healthy
so that I can continue to do things that I love.
I want to focus on my mental health
and caring for my amazing brain.
I want to focus on my spiritual health
and do things to build my relationship with my Savior.
I want to focus my energies on my incredible kids;
on making our home a safe place for them;
and on making memories with them that they’ll remember
when they have families of their own.
And I’m not saying you can’t do ALL OF THOSE THINGS
and ALSO lose the baby weight.
You absolutely can.
But!
What if we stop making it a rule
that we need to lose weight after having a baby?
What if we drop the expectation that we need our bodies to snap back?
What if when we see a new mother,
instead of commenting on how skinny she looks (or doesn’t look),
we comment on what a beautiful person she is
– inside and out –
and how proud we are of her for the things she’s doing?
What if instead of posting our workout
with the caption
“Working to lose that baby weight!”
we caption it with
“Getting stronger every day!”
What if we are KIND to ourselves?
What if we acknowledge our amazing bodies
and thank our amazing bodies!?
What if we do ALL of those things?
As someone who has been trying to practice these “what-ifs”
I can tell you that how we think about our bodies
(particularly during the fourth trimester)
has a huge impact on how we feel about ourselves.
And therefore, it has a huge impact on how we feel
about other people.
At the end of the day,
we are all in the same imaginary boat –
we’re all trying to find ourselves
and we’re all learning to love ourselves.
As they say in High School Musical:
“We’re all in this together.”
Do you like how I conclude my very deep thoughts
with a snarky reference to the greatest film of our generation?
Just kidding.
That would be Lord of the Rings.
But I digress.
Truth be told,
I’m really struggling to know how to end this post.
And I could just shut up now
but I think you might enjoy seeing the struggle.
I’ll just end with this:
Be kind to others.
Be kind to yourself.
Eat those Oreos
because YOLO.
You’re awesome. You got this. YOU’RE DOING AN AMAZING JOB.
Tell yourself that every single day.
Because it’s true.
’til next time…
Ash