The Lost and Found of Pregancy Weight...

Today's guest post comes from Zoey, from Good Googs. I have met Zoey a couple of times now. She is a star. And her blog is gorgeous. And I thank her for sharing here.

I hated being pregnant, both times. I love babies. I could just soak up in the baby stage for years and be quite happy and content there. But I hate being pregnant. And I more than ate for two during both pregnancies, I comfort ate. And I can't really say I regret it. Because whatever got me from the beginning of that pregnancy to the end of it was worth it. And I'm planning to be pregnant again so I'll probably go through the whole thing again.

When Piper was born she was 2.8kgs and I'd put on about 20kgs and that's not counting the 10kgs of stress eating I'd put on while trying to conceive. None of that matters of course. I would have put on a tonne if it meant I got her at the end of it. She was worth every gram I put on, every pregnancy discomfort, months and months of unrelenting heartburnx and nausea that rendered me incapable of anything beyond the fetal position.

I'll admit that I was spoiled with Riley. I lost all my pregnancy weight plus 10 more kilos just by breastfeeding. And I didn't have to do anything, it just fell off. And then Piper came along and she wasn't a comfort feeder like Riley and I lost approximately zero weight. I was devastated. Breastfeeding was my kind of weight loss regime.

So all of a sudden I had to find another way to lose the weight. And as I'm still breastfeeding, I didn't really want to heavily cut back on what I was eating either, which left me one option - the gym. The 24 hour gym actually. Because that allowed me to sneak off when Piper was sleeping, work out and be back before she needed another breastfeed.

In my pre-child days I enjoyed the challenge of the run. I used to run about 8kms every morning in an hour. And that was when I still smoked a packet of cigarettes. So to start with that was my goal. Not the cigarettes part. I am a very happy non-smoker now. But the 8kms in an hour part. I started with all that I could handle which was about 400 metres of running followed by about 100 metres of walking and I did that for an hour.

I made myself increase the running by about 50 metres each time I went and soon I was doing about 1 km of running to 100 metres of walking and it was at that point that I thought I'm not really pushing myself here. I must have had a good night sleep because I decided to go for 2.5kms without stopping which meant only having two walking breaks in the hour. And although I had that moment after about 30 minutes where I thought 'there is no way I can do this', somehow I pushed through. And then a week later, I decided to go for only one walking break and the week after that I did my 8kms without a break.

Since then I increase the speed every time I go. My new goal is to be able to run at 10km/h for the hour. And now I'm about 4 kgs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. I still have more to lose after that to get back to a weight that I'm comfortable with. Where I feel comfortable in my skin, but slowly I can see the shape of my body returning.

And I still eat pizza, cupcakes and have indulgent coffee-type drinks every week. That is a key part of my lifestyle and I don't see that changing anytime soon. But running is also part of my lifestyle now too. Something that I'm proud of. Running helps me to love my body. Every time I finish a workout I'm somewhat surprised that my body could do it, especially with my mind telling my body that it can't half of the time.

I did a pregnancy test today because I've been having some weird symptoms. And when it was negative I felt a twinge of sadness. I don't want to be pregnant right now (give me another year and I will!) I want to be able to go to New York next year with my husband next year, without the kids and most definitely not be pregnant. But I think after having my two babies there is nothing abstract about being pregnant and not being pregnant so even though I was relieved there was sorrow there as well. But when I am pregnant in a year or so I will be so happy that this baby will get a kick-ass place to grow and thrive. Because running gave me more strength than I thought it ever could.

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Zoey is the mother of one preschooler (the googy) and one baby (the squishy). In her former life she bought lots of handbags and wore a vast array of high heels. She also did lots of things alone - she went to the movies alone, ate alone and even enjoyed having a quiet drink alone. Now she does nothing alone. She lives in regional Australia and loves it, but still misses her shoes. Zoey is a reformed perfectionist, writer, parent adventurer, chaos manager, tiny dictator lover, baby snuggler, photographer and social media addict. She blogs in words and pictures at Good Googs. You can find her on Twitter and on Facebook.