Another big lesson for me throughout the baby journey has been accepting and working with my body. I want to share how I dealt with body changes from pregnancy to now. The 2 main things I want to highlight are:

1. Going through the physical body changes really forced me to work on my self-conscious beliefs of my body and learn to accept that I am enough despite any self-perceived ‘flaws’ (something I’m still working on)
2. Through hard work and discipline, over 1 year on, I have managed to lose my baby weight + more (apart from my boobs as I’m still breastfeeding) – I would say I’m slimmer than before I got pregnant (although not as much as when I was a teenager haha). So, it IS possible to get your body back and better than it was before

Please note that I respect how personal this whole body stuff is. This post is not intended to push others to follow my steps or shame those who don’t hold the same beliefs and attitudes. I just want to share my experience for anyone who may go through something similar or is looking for any ‘tips’. When I was pregnant, it would have benefited me to read something like this so I hope this helps you:

Pregnancy

Before falling pregnant, I liked to keep fit and was slim. I’m a believer that having a strong body and mind helps you in all aspects of your life. However, I was quite self-conscious of not having a super flat stomach and would focus on that a lot.

As soon as I fell pregnant, one of the first things I thought about was how my body would change. I always had the impression that after having a baby, apart from those mum celebrities who have access to personal trainers, dieticians and nannies, for us everyday mums, our bodies wouldn’t be the same after birth and we would be ‘worse off’ with stretch marks, excess belly fat etc.

However, I felt so grateful to be pregnant and be able to experience parenthood, so one of the first decisions I made as a new mum-to-be was that I was going to enjoy my pregnancy and would not worry about weight gain/body changes – I would try to keep fit and healthy and post-labour, work to get my body back (if possible).

Making that clear mental decision really helped as I stopped focusing on each small body change and instead chose to marvel at the magic of pregnancy: how our body knows what to do and changes in all sorts of ways to create a human being. I also found that using meditation and yoga during this time really helped my mental state in accepting and dealing with these changes. For example, I got PUPPP scars towards the end of my pregnancy from scratching, but instead of being super negative about this, instead decided to think: oh well good battle scars to remind me of a challenge that I managed to survive through.

I did gain ‘excess weight’ as I started to eat more than I needed to, but after I found out that I had gestational diabetes, was forced to scale back which really helped in managing the weight gain (so blessing in disguise). I didn’t weigh myself much so I’m not sure how much weight I gained, but I would say probably around 12-15kg all up. Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely times where I would think/compare myself to before pregnancy and feel concerned. But I did my best to choose a more positive approach and be kind to myself. One thing that was interesting to note was that I stopped caring about my stomach size (obviously it was going to get bigger) and it was so mentally relieving not to think about it – that highlighted to me how much of a drain being negative on yourself can be.

Postpartum

Straight after giving birth, my stomach did not go back to before – I looked like I was around 25 weeks pregnant. I didn’t really care how my body would be like as I was too focused on Bub and recovering. I did notice how over the few weeks after giving birth, my body seemed to completely ‘relax’ and I had a lot of excess back and stomach fat that didn’t seem to be there before giving birth.

My appetite increased dramatically as I built up my milk supply and I ate A LOT (probably equivalent to 2-3 times what I would usually eat haha). This combined with being at home did not help and I reckon I gained weight (especially as I didn’t have to worry about my gestational diabetes anymore).

In the first 6 weeks, we’re advised not to exercise strenuously as your body is recovering. Instead, I did some very gentle recommended ‘exercises’ such as pelvic floor lifts mainly to help my body recover and be able to carry my baby. It was so interesting as my body felt like it had relaxed so much that any muscle strength I had was gone and my body was just a flabby, milk-making machine. Wanting to be kind to my body, but also wanting to strengthen myself as I felt so weak, I enrolled into a month of yoga classes – I found one of those introductory deals with Light Space Yoga ($24 for a month with unlimited classes!). Yoga would not only help me physically, but also mentally survive those first few exhausting weeks of parenthood.

The classes were fantastic, but I could see how I was definitely heavier/flabbier and couldn’t fit well into my exercise gear. I also started weighing myself and looking at my body in the mirror after showers – although I appreciated how much my body had gone through, I was unhappy with my shape. It felt like I had to start my fitness journey again and start from scratch.

After 2 months, I felt more physically strong and tried to combine some light running + HIIT. This was ok, but I didn’t feel ‘comfortable’ and it felt forced and not something I really enjoyed. A few mum friends shared that they found the weight really started to come off after 6 months (maybe because breastfeeding becomes more settled and established then?). I’m fortunate to have good friends and family to talk to and I came to the conclusion that this was an opportunity to work on my self-confidence and that I would continue to put in the work to get my body back to strong, but that this would take time (nothing good comes easy). I also realised that it was time for me to open up and try new ways rather than what I did before I got pregnant.

From around 5 months postpartum to today, these are the changes I made:

• I started doing Kayla Itsines’ BBG program – I’d had this around before pregnancy, but never gave it a go. I saw the success of others who followed the program and thought I’d give it a try. This program really suits how I like to exercise and I’ve experienced great results
• I read ‘The Adrenal Reset Diet’ by Alan Christianson – I got back into reading whilst on parental leave and decided to expand my knowledge and read a variety of different books – this was a random library book that I picked up.
• This isn’t so much a diet, but a way of ‘smart’ eating – the principle behind it is to cycle your carbohydrate intake. What I love about it is that you still eat (no starvation required) – you have 1 golf ball size of carbs for breakfast, 2 golf ball sizes at lunch and 3 at night (golf ball = approx. ¼ cup) – aka you increase your carb intake throughout the day. There are certain things that he suggests you cut back on like dairy and bread, but I love the focus on eating lots of ‘real food’. I don’t follow it perfectly and still eat junk food like ice cream, chocolate, Maccas etc but I do it every now and then because life is all about balance 😀

• Mentally: to build my self-confidence, I continued to meditate to practice being present (I use the 1 Giant Mind app which is free). On a daily basis, I put my hand on my heart and say ‘I am enough’ a few times (if you’re interested, Google Marisa Peer – I am enough). When I find my mind thinking about past things or what to do next (which is usually when I start to get stressed), I stop myself and remember to ‘be present’) (thank you LC for these tips :))

My lifestyle is now:

• Following the adrenal reset diet and cycling my carbs and eating real food, but having guilty pleasures every now and then to keep me in balance
• Exercise: doing Kayla’s BBG program: 3 x 28 min HIIT equivalent workouts (high intensity) + going for walks on the remaining days
• Meditation, ‘I am enough’ sayings & practicing being present

Through the above, I found that I’ve lost a lot of weight (when I last weighed myself about a year postpartum, I was lighter than before I got pregnant) and feel strong physically and mentally. This helps my self-confidence at work and at home. However, I’m not perfect and this journey of self-love still continues.

I’m really grateful that I have supportive family who can help watch Bub so I can do the above. I’m also thankful to myself for putting in the hard work and discipline to better myself (part of the self-love = thanking yourself :)). Most of all, I’m grateful that having a baby forced me to work on myself and overall become a better person.

Lessons learned:

• You are enough despite your body shape – tell yourself that daily! Making the mental decision to accept your body & love it for what it can do goes a long way
• You just had a baby, it’s true what they say: it took 9 months for your body to grow and create your precious Bub and it will take at least that long to get it back to before so as hard as it is, be patient
• If you put in the work, you will get your body back to better than before – your body is not the same as before you had a baby – it’s actually better!