Trim Healthy Mama

I have mentioned before that I am eating Trim Healthy Mama style since October 2012.  This post is going to be just about Trim Healthy Mama.

I have been pregnant and birthed five children. With every pregnancy I gained 40 lbs and lost 35. Not bad for a first pregnancy but after going through that 4 times I started out my pregnancy with Nathan over 20 lbs  heavier than I did with Samuel. As the pregnancy progressed I was right on track to gain another 40 lbs at about a pound a week...

In July 2012 I found out I was pregnant with Nathan.
In August 2012 we passed the first milestone of one year of breathing without Eva.
In September 2012 I went to an Above Rubies retreat in Edmonton. I bought a copy of Trim Healthy Mama (one of the first copies in Canada!) and brought it home. I perused it a little but it looked too complicated. So I put it down...then one day I picked it up again but thought well, whatever it is, I am not starting until after Christmas. I love Christmas cakes too much. Once I picked it up again and started reading from the first page instead of flipping around I found, to my delight, that it was simpler than I thought...

My friend, Holly, was on board with me and we encouraged each other in healthy eating...and let me tell you I was far from perfect, I was pregnant,  I was and am still grieving. It is usually not a great mix to start a new type of diet. But, I could not resist...there were so many delicious and relatively simple recipes to try (once you invested in a few strange ingredients). My goal was not to lose any weight at that time but to not gain as much during my pregnancy with Nathan.

Being pregnant with Nathan was bittersweet, surreal, sad, hopeful, stressful, disconnected, difficult and joyful. As you can see it was a rollercoaster of emotions to carry the baby that would not have been without the death of his sister. It was during this time that I started eating THM style. After few  weeks I felt like my emotions were more stable and I was not having giant mood swings that saw me angry one moment, in tears the next, and laughing five minutes later. Trust me I had thought I was going crazy.

Once I started THM I became fairly consistent with it one meal a day that gradually expanded to two meals and then full days. I only bit off what I could chew (pun intended). I still felt sad but I felt good too. I felt that I was emotionally still a complete wreck but I felt, physically, much more stable than I had felt in years. And during the turmoil that was my pregnancy with Nathan I felt that my physical health supported my emotional health. Without the physical health I was enjoying I am sure my emotional health would have been much worse than it was already.

I only gained about 20 lbs total during my 42 week pregnancy with Nathan (I wish I was more accurate with my numbers, but whatever). Now I am going to divulge some secrets here today that I have not talked about with my closest friends...my weight. I weighed 170 lbs when I married Mike over 10 years ago. 170lbs is a really good, healthy weight for me. I am almost 6 ft tall, for the record. After 4 pregnancies and a time of incredible stress with my daughter in hospital and then a time of incredible grief that never lets up and leaves me eating comfort foods in the middle of yet another horrible night I weighed close to 200! Yes, I weighed 200 lbs when I got pregnant with Nathan. I did not want to believe it. I did not want to admit it to Mike. I did not want to get on the scale. I weighed almost as much as when I was full term with my first son.

Now, I have never really let people in on my weight, even when I was 170lbs and looked really good. Because I went through a time in my life where I was always was made to feel too fat, even weighing 140lbs which is really too skinny for me. The reason I am sharing today is because I see so many of my friends struggling with baby weight, grief weight etc...I am not superwoman. In fact I am so far from superwoman she would not nod her head to me if we crossed paths in Superstore (another pun! I am getting good at those).

When Nathan was born I lost about 20lbs right away (almost 9lbs of baby, a couple pounds of placenta, fluid, blood, etc...) Then I lost another almost 10 pounds over the next 6 weeks or so and weighed less than when I started my pregnancy. Now I weigh about 182 lbs. I still have 12 lbs to go to attain my goal weight). I am still not perfect on the THM plan but I wanted to encourage so many of the mamas I know struggling with weight loss. It can be done. And I have barely exercised. I am not fit and firm and my belly still jiggles like a bowlful of jello but...I got the best compliment from Holly last week...she said I really need some new clothes!

Thank you Trim Healthy Mama for the gift of physical health that is continuing to support me in my ongoing grief and love for my daughter in heaven, while I physically and emotionally parent my sons here on earth.