This has been a long journey but I am glad to be back to my old physical self. :-) Forget reading People or In Touch where Heidi Klum is on the runway after 2 months of giving birth and her fourth kid. It's doesn't happen to us. Also stop listening to those who says they lost more weight after giving birth and weight even less than before. That definitely was NOT me.
Here are my 10 lessons learned.
- Breastfeeding helps - to reshape my body back. I didn't lose much weight during breastfeeding but I could see that my body was shrinking back nonetheless
- Don't try to get on a diet during breastfeeding - it affected my milk and didn't make me feel good. I made two failed attempts of a week each and decide to just focus on breastfeeding. I breastfeed for 10 months.
- Bikram Yoga is a gentle way to get back in shape - When Isabel was 3 months old, I started Birkram yoga again after realizing I couldn't do even half of a sit up. I waited until Isabel is 3 months old since I had a C section and it takes awhile to heal. Now I still do Yoga 2 times a week. Very good for my sanity too
- Incorporate Cardio after 6 months - Doing only one kind of exercise - Bikram Yoga -allowed me to cheat and so I added Cardio at 9 months. I probably could have done it at 6 months. I started dance classes, cardio kick boxing, or running. It definitely gave my energy a boast.
- Be Patient and Don't be hard on myself - being anxious about losing weight doesn't help. While pregnant and breastfeeding, I developed a habit of snacking at night around 11pm since I was hungry a lot. That habit was hard to kick. It took me about six months after breastfeeding to stop it. I was hard on myself for a little bit but the more I resisted in snacking, the more I thought about it, and the more I couldn't sleep until I snacked. you get the idea.
- Believing goes a long way and South Beach diet works for me - Prior to pregnancy, I lost about 10 pounds 5 years ago when I changed my diet to a modified south beach. So once I felt more energetic, I tried again the modified south beach diet at around 15 month. I lost about 5 pounds in 6 weeks. The fact I knew it worked for me before help me stay positive. Now that's is my regular diet and I feel great and energetic.
- Reward myself - dieting is never fun so I rewarded myself in two ways. 1) I paid a lot more for lunch to get good low carb food like steak, lamb chop, and sushi. that made the diet fun and I look forward to eating the food that is good for me. 2) Shopping spree incentive - I didn't shop much in the last two years since I didn't plan to keep the same weight, but I was looking forward to shopping again once I got my shape back.
- Starving myself did not help - after 4 weeks of low carb, I thought if I did low carb some more, I will lose even more weight. WRONG. My body started storing all the food and I was low energy. It actually made me gain a pound or two back. So after initial low carb, it's good to add carb back to give myself energy to work out.
- Girls' trip always help - I went to Cancun with girlfriend Dawn for 4 days. Ate whatever I wanted but danced 4 hours a night and lost 3 more pounds. I was in a pretty happy mood too.
- Lastly but not the least, I had great support - my husband always complimented me regardless of how big I was and that made me feel good. He definitely also noticed when I lost weight in the last 4 months. That helps a lot. Also having Agnes around to take care of baby gave me time to work out 3-4 times a week.
- Lei
