Postpartum Body (4mths PP)

Some days I feel like a shell of a person, sometimes I feel like all I am doing is feeding, pumping, eating, and hydrating. The first 2 months of PP, my body felt strange, and it didn’t feel like mine and like it belonged to someone else aka my baby girl.

And sometimes I don’t even know what to do with it even though I have been taking care of it my whole life.

To put things into perspective, I had a fairly easy pregnancy. I took every weight gain, every belly bump as it is, and it was amazing. But of course, I am only human and sometimes, it still gets to me about how big I was getting, but I try my best to truly embrace it for all that it is.

My mind, body, vessel, and soul were shared with Freya for the past 10 months. Now that she has join us earth side, I had to readjust overnight, and it was honestly hard. But meeting the miracle that was growing inside of me every morning that was in you for the past 10 months never gets old.

The 4^th trimester, I cannot be happier, more tired, more lost, and more confused all at once. Oh the postpartum hormones.

I mentioned in one of my IG stories the other day, if I should talk about how our bodies continue to change after pregnancy. Specifically, how my body has changed after pregnancy. We read about it on the internet all the time, but I thought if I write about my experience, it would be more relatable, and the crowd agreed.

I think what hindered me from writing about ‘my postpartum body’ was that in my mind, the word ‘change’ came with negative annotation. It evoked the sense of inconsistency and lack of perfection. Which sounds ridiculous when said out loud because clients come to me for change, to change their physique to change their fitness game, their mindset etc.

Some changes may not always be pretty but remember it is temporary and you carried life in you for more than half a year and you are a magical powerful female.

Right after giving birth, my bump did not magically disappear overnight. For 6 weeks straight I still had a small bump even though there was no baby in there anymore. It is normal and sometimes it sucks but eventually I didn’t look pregnant anymore carrying my baby girl. Also, if it helps! Don’t toss out your pregnancy jeans just yet!

Postpartum hair loss:

I have never dropped this much hair in my life. To be fair, I was mentally prepared for it even before becoming pregnant.  Many moms even told me about it but no one can really prepare you for the emotional turmoil that comes with it when you see your hairbrush filled with half your head on it (ok, I am exaggerating, but you know what I mean). I am religious about taking my biotin, collagen, omega-3s and eating my protein every day to ensure I am getting enough fatty acids for maximum hair growth. I wish I was eating as much protein pre-pregnancy but some days my appetite has been all over the place. Don’t be surprised to be craving more carbohydrates postpartum too because breastfeeding and you need the extra calories to feed.

My waistline.

To be transparent, I competed in bodybuilding just before I fell pregnant, I measured my waist: hips ratio on the regular. When I was at my leanest, it was 23.5:34 inches. I also weigh myself pretty much every week for check-ins for my coach. So I am very aware of how much my waistline was expanding during pregnancy. Although I didn’t mind it because she was growing inside of me, some days were harder than others. Right after birth I measured my waistline for the hell of it and I was 30:38 inches. Right now, my waistline is hovering around 26 inches. I wish I can tell you that dropping those pesky inches will be easy, but it wouldn’t be. To do it healthily it would take time, the right nutrition, lots of water and sleep.

However, I don’t really care if I my waist do not go below 26 inches, if I feel and look confident in my skin no matter what stage of life I am at. I am ok with it. We are not our weight or our measurements.

Hips don’t lie.

Your hips change postpartum. It is true. Your hips have expanded during pregnancy and during childbirth in preparation for the arrival of your baby. When my hips were 38 inches and none of my clothes fit. All I could think of was… will I ever feel like myself again. In short, yes you will. It takes time but you will. My hips are sitting around 36 inches at the moment, and I am way curvier than I was before. My husband loves it. He thinks it makes me look womanlier and when I am wearing a nice fitting skirt. Oooo.. it makes my booty pop. Not going to lie, there are still moments when I pull out an old bikini and it does not hang the same and it gets to me. But once again, we woman are way more than our physical being. We are caretakers, warriors and fierce individuals who have little humans looking up at us now. We are not our weight or our measurements.

Postpartum skin.

I was lucky to not have any stretch marks during pregnancy, but I wasn’t soo lucky in the melasma and dark spots department. I was religious in applying sunscreen every single day no matter what time of the day it was but when the level of estrogen and progesterone hormones in your body increases. Some of the dark patches may fade after pregnancy as hormonal levels decrease although some may be permanent.

I am going to a skincare specialist to see if I can get my dark spots lighter, but these are some pesky changes I definitely go through postpartum.

Carrie Bradshaw will be mad.

I am going to keep this short. People told me your feet gets bigger during pregnancy and sometimes it stays bigger. It is true. I used to be a size 4 now I am definitely a comfortable size 5. Well damn. Time to get more shoes! Bigger shoes!

Mama Strong:

Today my excess weight still sits around the mid-section postpartum, and it sucks and there is really nothing you can do about it unless you are thinking about surgically removing it. It is just going to take time for the midsection to shrink with really smart nutritional planning, training/ work out plan etc.

I am sitting at 4 months postpartum and still there are days that I am absolutely gutted that I am no where I want to be (physically). I am getting stronger every time I hit the gym, I am feeling more and more re-energized every time I nourish my body and I am seeing the weight come off, but it still gets to me. I am down 8kg postpartum but damn the weight just sits differently these days.

We need to give ourselves a little grace. We women can be soo hard on ourselves and it is sometimes soo unnecessary. We are more than the way we look. Soo much more.

Postpartum to me is not just about the 4^th trimester. It is also about adapting to life with a newborn, adjusting to motherhood, adjusting to being a mom, a wife, a daughter, and a friend.

I appreciate and love the well-roundedness of what health and wellness mean because it is more than what we eat and physically do with our body. Its also the way we think. There are so many different things that go into living a well life.

Movement was something that I didn’t grow up focused on.

So, I think really want to instill that to my daughter even when she is this little. Keeping movement consistent and fun in her everyday life. Which I will talk about it more in my next post, my postpartum fitness.