How I lost my baby weight...plus 10!

First, I must confess, I was a classic yo yo dieter. Prior to getting pregnant with my first child, I would fluctuate between 10 and 20 pounds over the ideal weight for my 5'4'' frame. I was 15 pounds over my ideal weight when I became pregnant with our first child. During this pregnancy, I gained around 30 pounds. However, I expected much of that weight to disappear with her birth....and it didn't. I was very surprised to find myself still 15 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight 2 months later! Wasn't breastfeeding supposed to drop pounds quickly?

So, I counted calories and walked more. However, since I was breastfeeding, I didn't want to limit my calories too much as I still had a baby to feed. For the next 4 months, I did what I could to drop the weight and it did drop...slowly. Once I stopped breastfeeding, I researched and followed a few different diet programs. Approximately two years after the birth of my daughter, I was finally at my pre-pregnancy weight.

SUCCESS! Well, sort of. I was happy to have dropped the baby weight, but still not happy with my shape. As I was researching a new program to try...we became pregnant again. This time, I gained 40 pounds! And when people say it's much harder to lose the weight the second time around...they are right!

So...how did I do it? How did I, after 3 attempts at losing my second round of baby weight and ultimately gaining weight back after each attempt, did I FINALLY drop 20 pounds of baby weight in 4 months? And, how did I continue to drop weight over the next year so that I am now within 5 pounds of my ideal weight?

To be honest, I stopped focusing on my weight! I focused on eating MORE natural foods and LESS processed foods. I focused on ways to afford natural foods on a budget. By changing my focus, I started losing weight without even thinking about it. No. Really.

While this change in focus may not sound like much, it was HUGE for me. I didn't obsess about "my diet". I obsessed about "my food" budget. Notice the words I use here. By removing the thoughts of being on a "diet" and thinking about it purely as "the food I eat" (which is how we think when we are not intensely focused on how much we weigh), I lost weight.

Here are a few other things I changed:

* I stopped buying junk food. Junk food is some of the most expensive food in the grocery stores and has little nutritional value, but lots of potential for weight gain. In making this change, I removed 90% of my temptations from my house. This was very important for my success.

* I only drank coffee I made at home. I have a Keurig machine and I prefer my coffee on the sweet side. I learned that with cream and sugar my Keurig brewed coffee was around 100 calories. That same cup at Starbucks is around 500 calories. BIG difference to my waistline AND my pocketbook.

* I started incorporating beans into our diet, which are VERY good for you (high in protein and fiber) and VERY inexpensive (especially if you buy dried beans and cook them yourself).

* I limited two things in my diet: soda and fast food. I only allow myself each of these once or twice a month. And, I started carrying healthy snacks (like energy bars or dried fruit & almonds) and a bottle of water everywhere I went so I would not be tempted to break my rule.

* I started baking homemade goodies at home. Yes, you read that right, I made it a habit to have sweets in the house - healthy sweets. I realized that my diets fail because I crave sweet foods. Even eating homemade chocolate chip cookies was healthier than eating store bought ones because homemade cookies are much lower in preservatives / chemicals and have no unnecessary ingredients (like HFCS - high fructose corn syrup). One cookie a day is much better than suppressing the craving and then gorging on an entire bag. So indulge moderately and stay happy.

One of the things I do frequently is I bake muffins - banana nut muffins, pumpkin raisin walnut muffins, zucchini carrot raisin walnut muffins - and I make them with whole wheat flour for added nourishment. My family and I love these treats, and at around 200 calories per muffin, so does my waistline.

Other than changing the types of food I ate, I also modified the way I ate throughout the day.

Each morning, I made a cup of coffee and sipped it while making my kids breakfast and taking them to school.

I ate a small breakfast each day around mid morning. It might be a bowl of cereal or a homemade muffin. Sometimes it was one of my favorite meals from The Flat Belly Diet - peanut butter on an English muffin with banana slices on top. Waiting until 9ish to have breakfast made it easy for me to not snack before lunch.

Lunch at our house was one of two things, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or leftovers. Most of the time, I ate leftovers. What I learned, purely by accident, was something that Europeans have known for years. Eat your biggest meal for lunch, not dinner. By eating a healthy and well balanced meal for lunch, I gave my body the nutrition it needed to get through the afternoon WITHOUT needing an afternoon snack. HUGE calories savings here.

We started eating dinner earlier, around 5:30 or 6pm instead of 7. This made a difference in my calorie intake because I no longer needed a snack to hold me until dinner. Dinner was always a well balanced meal - a small portion of meat or fish, some carbs (brown rice, whole wheat pasta, potatoes), about a cup of veggies, and sometimes a side of beans.

Once the kids went to bed, I had a cup of tea (either a Detox tea or a Green tea) with a few tea cookies. Interestingly enough, this ritual also started by accident, but it became a much needed addition to my day. The Detox tea was wonderful - it stopped me from retaining water, flushed my system after a not so healthy meal, and overall made me feel better. I only drank it every other day, so on the others I'd have a Green Tea to increase my antioxidant levels.

I stumbled upon all this by accident. Honestly, I cheat. I eat pizza. I have cheeseburgers and french fries. I definitely eat dark chocolate. But, I only have them once or twice a month (with the exception of the chocolate). If I crave candy, I have it - but only a small amount. And what I've noticed is I don't want more than that. My body desires the taste, not the quantity. Once I satisfy the taste, we are good!

If you are like me, doing hundreds of crunches is NOT on your to do list. While strengthening your core is important for overall physical health, it's not an enjoyable part of any workout. And, it is an exercise that does not yield much in the way of results ... by itself.

Maintaining a healthy diet combined with strength building and cardiovascular exercise IS the way to decrease that belly bulge. So, I knew I needed to add an exercise program to lose the last of my baby weight and get back in shape.

Some of the best exercise programs I have done took an hour or two every single day. I got amazing results, but being a gym rat was my life and I decided it wasn't the life I wanted.

What I did learn from all the different programs I have tried is I can get excellent results with a combination of muscle building exercises and cardio. However, I also learned that there are ways to do this that does not require me to be in the gym for hours every day. Who has that much time free time?

So, how did I find time to exercise each day?

How did I fit workouts into my already busy day? Honestly, the first thing I did was change my "definition" of working out. For me exercise was the hardest part of every weight loss plan, mainly because I thought of it as work. So, I had to change my thinking. Each time I worked out, I didn't think of it as a workout, I only thought about my goal...my reason for wanting to lose the weight.

What was my goal? What kept me motivated?

My children. My daughter loves to run. Sitting on the steps with my young son watching my husband and daughter chase each other around the yard was fun. But, being in shape to chase my daughter myself was much MORE fun. I wanted my children to run and play with me. I wanted the stamina to be able to keep up with them.

So, I started to run two or three times a week. This was HUGE for me because I have asthma and running was what always aggravated it. But, I started slow and followed a plan and I got great results. But it wasn't enough.

Running toned my legs, but it did not tone my arms. I needed something else to go with it. So, I went back to some of my old programs and reviewed some of the exercises that got me great results. I used some of the exercises from the 7 Day Belly Blast Diet and the Fit Yummy Mummy program twice a week. And I got amazing results.

Check out the 7 Day Belly Blast Diet and the Fit Yummy Mummy program! For 15 to 30 minutes a day 3 days a week, you can be in the best shape of your life!