Sunday, January 20, 2013

And the Journey Begins...

On April 30, 2012 my husband and I found out that I was pregnant with our third child. At that time, Amelia (Amie) was 9 1/2 months old and Kaleigh was 2 years and 7 months. Yes, I kind of freaked out. It was challenging enough running a small website services business out of our home and taking care of our two girls. Money was also already tight, so I was a bit worried. However, I knew that we would somehow make things work. I had to remind myself to have faith and that, while the pregnancy was a HUGE surprise when compared to the other two, it happened because it was meant to. After the initial shock wore off, we went into planning mode on how we were going to make life work as a family of 5.

But first...

I had returned to my love of baton twirling. I joined up with some former teammates, as well as some younger adults I once taught, and we worked very hard to win our two Ohio State titles and two National titles last year. Yes, our median age was somewhere between 30-35, but we went out there and showed many that it was possible to come back. While there are some other twirlers older than most of us still out there on the competition floor, it is rare to have a group mostly containing individuals 32 years old and up with a few 20-somethings twirling with us. In fact, the bosses of the studio, in their 50s, went out on that competition floor and became the envy of other instructors who stated to us that they would love to do the same thing. It was a very surreal experience and one I am glad I took part in.

But there was one problem and it was my weight.

My weight fluctuated during our months of  practicing 3 to 5 hours per week. When I found out I was pregnant, I was weighing in at a whopping 258 pounds. That is the most weight I have carried on my 5'6 3/4" frame. Compared to my 125 pounds when I had last twirled competitively, this was astronomical and caused my twirling excursion to really open my eyes to my physical state.

Me in 1998 at 125 pounds. This is the last time I competed in a solo, which was my biggest winning moment. I twirled in team one more year after this and then once in 2004, but then primarily taught classes on and off until our reunion team in 2012.
In this new twirling endeavor, I was eventually able to go from feeling like I was dying at the end of practice to simply being tired. I was using pain patches for a few months, but was able to wean myself off of those. My once high cholesterol normalized and my occasionally high blood pressure normalized as well. Twirling again was doing great things for my health, so my doctor okayed it at my first prenatal visit to finish out the last two months of the twirling season as long as I felt okay while doing it.

Well, I was actually feeling great. I performed at the spring recital that month and would then continue practicing for our July National appearance in Dayton, Ohio. I did really well for the most part until we hit that incredible summer heatwave. I had some difficulty keeping myself cooled down and that was something that my doctor was concerned about, but I tried to manage that the best I could. Staying cool became even more difficult when the June 30th derecho plowed us over, knocking out our power for almost a week. Not a single hotel room was available for hundreds of miles, so I found myself sleeping in the car one night because my house was still 90 degrees at 1 a.m. and I was worried about the baby. Because of a week with no air conditioning, burning up at practice seemed a little more bearable.

 
Me third from the left in the back in April 2012 with my beautiful teammates. I would find out 8 days later that I was pregnant. Weighing in at around 258 in this photo.
May 19, 2012 at the Spring Recital with the team. Me in the front second from the left. Still  weighing in over 250.
In July 2012. I'm second from the left in the back.  I  weighed in at 247 pounds in this picture. I had lost 11 pounds since the first twirling photo taken in April, but I was also nearly 3 months pregnant in this photo.
Yeah, I'm not one who likes photos of myself and that's because of the obvious. There were many times I would come home from practice crying because of my weight and some photos I even hid from my Facebook Timeline out of embarrassment.

But now, I need to explain this weight loss during pregnancy...

I lose weight during pregnancy. My total amount lost about 10 days after having Kaleigh, my oldest, was 49 pounds. I weighed 238 when I got pregnant with her and came out at 189 in the end. 

               
            The end of my pregnancy with Kaleigh...3 days before she was born in September 2009.
I gained all of that weight back. It was difficult to watch my weight as a new mom running a business. I ate when I could and what I could. Most of the time, I couldn't really eat until after she was asleep and that would result in me eating too much at one time. 

With Amie, I started out at 242 pounds and lost only 25 total. When I gained all of that back, I ended up hitting that 258 pound peak by the time she was 9 1/2 months old, which is when I found out about our "bonus baby." 

I had already made up my mind during my twirling that I was going to lose weight. The pregnancy, however, meant that I wasn't going to be able to diet other than switching to healthier eating habits like I had done in my past pregnancies but not adhered to after they were born. So I told myself that after the baby was born, that was it with the weight. I didn't want to have to look at this heavy person in the mirror. I didn't actually "feel" overweight until I picked up the baton again and had a hard time doing things that I used to do with such ease and knew would be easy had I not been carrying the equivalent of a second person.

I knew the pregnancy, just like my other two, would give me the head start and the momentum I needed to lose...and I was right. 

Although I didn't try, I kept losing. The doctor finally resolved himself to the fact that I just lose weight while pregnant. I had two healthy girls despite the loss, so he was very supportive and encouraging of the weight loss because he knew by this pregnancy that I was not starving myself...I was eating BETTER. 

The pounds kept coming off. Because of this, I didn't need maternity clothes. I wore my pre-pregnancy clothes the entire time because, as the baby grew, I shrunk. Having gestational diabetes with this pregnancy, as I did my first, placed me on the diabetic diet and accelerated the loss even more. I'd say the moderate carbohydrate intake that the diet calls for is my sign that reducing carbs and increasing protein is the diet my body responds to, so I am continuing it (I will share this diet in the next post).

Now let's fast forward a little more...

On January 1st, I had my baby boy. It was a "shotgun birth." I labored for days, was sent home from the hospital and my doctor's office the day after that because the contractions were not long or hard enough. I was having painful contractions for about 72 hours before he was born. It was when the contractions hit a steady 7 minutes apart that we headed to the hospital, but they were getting close together very fast...too fast for the 45+ minute drive to the hospital. They were closing in on each other so quickly that he was born 1 hour and 15 minutes after we got to the hospital. Things happened so quickly that the epidural I signed on for in May didn't happen, which I'm very proud of myself for having him 100% drugless.  It was definitely the greatest pain I ever felt in my life and has changed how I look at other significant pains I have had.

At 10:46 a.m. on January 1, 2013, I gave birth to a healthy 7 pound 10 ounce baby boy.

Amelia Dawn (1 1/2), Kaleigh Rose (3), and Eric Johnothan

And as of today, I am down 53 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight...

Me with Eric...Slimmer face compared to those twirling pics :)


And I fit in a pair of jeans that I wore maybe twice YEARS ago. I'm also pretty sure I only wore that sweater once. :)

Body shot as of January 18th...much different than the above pics.
The day I took the above body shot, I was also able to zip up a leather jacket that I had hardly been able to move my arms in last winter.

So now that I've started this blog and given you the background info, I am dedicating myself to this journey. I want to continue down the road to my goal weight. Right now, my aim is 150...that is a healthy weight for my almost 5 foot 7 inches. And because I used to run just because I liked it, I want to run again. Hubby and I are investing in new exercise equipment and he and I are bound and determined to do a 5K this year...more than one preferably. 

Until next time....





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