Bye Bye Baby Fat...Hello Bike

So when I got pregnant the doctor told me that I would probably gain around 30 pounds during my pregnancy. I did gain 30 pounds...by my 6th month pregnant. Then I gained another 30 pounds in the last 3 months. I started out at 5' 7" and 138 lbs and ended at 5' 7" and 198 lbs. I still remember stepping on the scale at the hospital during labor and my mother exclaiming "You don't really weigh that much; do you?!" To her credit it was out of pure surprise since apparently I was wearing my extra 60 pounds well :-)

People who know me know I am have a more slender build. I have never really had trouble with gaining too much weight and it's not because I exercise a lot; that's just how I am. I had never even bothered calculating my BMI until I started gaining a gross amount of weight during my pregnancy. During the end of pregnancy; I just hurt so much. My joints hurt, my feet hurt, I had trouble completing a mere 2 mile walk around the lake. To add to this was the love of dessert. I have always loved eating dessert but while I was pregnant it was an obsession. Me and the bakery department at Super Target were good friends by the time Keegan was born. I told myself I would worry about it after Keegan was born.

So that's what I did. After Keegan was born I lost 30 pounds in the next three weeks. Part of this was due to sleep deprivation, forgetting to eat (because of frantically try to take care of the colicky baby that was Keegan), and a lot of the weight was just plain old water weight so it came off fast.

The next 15 pounds was just pure determination. I limited myself to 1600 calories a day and spent an hour each day walking on the treadmill with Keegan strapped to my chest. This was one of the few things that would make Keegan stop crying and let him go to sleep. He loved riding in his baby bjorn while I walked on the treadmill. So by the time Keegan was 6 months old I had lost another 15 pounds. This was not easy; I had school at night and was working 50% time and of course all that other baby stuff but I did it!

I remember showing up to a party with some friends when Keegan was around 6 months. One of my girlfriends said "You are so lucky that you drop your baby weight off like that; I wish I was so lucky." It was all I could do to not to shout "It wasn't all luck!"; I was exercising at least an hour a day and watching my diet and felt like I was working my a** off; there was no luck here. Although since my body prefers to be slender I am probably somewhat genetically disposed to *not* being overweight; so that might be something. Well...tell that to the last 15 pounds.

Up until Keegan was a year old I kept telling myself; "They say you should take as long to get the weight off as it took to put the weight on." After Keegan's first bday I had no more excuses. I was still 15 pounds heavier that I had been and I hated it. It took a series of pictures of me in Florida with my belly pudging out over my shorts to put me over the edge. I *had* to loose this weight if I was going to feel good about myself again. I *would not* accept that I could not get rid of this weight. If I had to stop eating and run 10 miles a day I *would* loss it.

Being an engineer, I know that losing weight is a simple matter of energy mass balance. We studied this a ton as chemical engineers. You can't make something out of nothing. Of course this is complicated by other human factors such as being tired, craving things, eating out, etc. etc. So I did some research and decided on a plan of action. I really had no more excuses; I wasn't in school at night, I wasn't breastfeeding every other hour, and I was working my normal 40 hours a week.

I decided I would start weightlifting. Muscles burns oodles more calories than fat; around 3x more. So I started lifting every night and I brought free-weights into work and lifted them for 15 minutes twice a day. I also started walking more. Me and one of my co-workers went out and did a 35 minute 2.5 mile walk everyday. Lyle and I have always done our 2-3 mile walk every night. My ultimate goal was to start running again. Would weightlifting and walking 4-6 miles a day be enough? Probably not; so I started honestly keeping track of what calories I ate a day (this included snacking with Keegan, grabbing a cookie here or there, stuff like that). It's amazing what you won't eat if you realize that you have to go through the troubel of recording it. For a few weeks I limited myself to 1400 calories a day. This pretty much sucked. I was always hungry. My only saving grace was I didn't keep track of calories on Sat. and Sunday. This helped me through such a severe calorie restriction.

After a few weeks of the above routine the weight started to melt off. One week I was 150, then 148, 145, etc, etc. A couple weeks ago I got on the scale and it said 137 lbs. Wow, was I excited. I can wear all my old jeans and it feels good. So I stopped restricting calories. Suddenly the next week I was back up to 141 lbs. Wow...suck. Unfortunately I *really* like to eat. I love food. I know that I could never live on a limited calorie diet for more than a month or two. So what to do?

Well if I want to eat more I have to exercise more, right? Simple mass energy balance. So last week Lyle and I came up with a plan. We each work 25 miles from home but we only work 10 miles from each other. Could we possibly drive the car 20 miles to a park in between our works? Then we could carpool and each bike 5 miles to work. Less gas, more exercise. How can you loose?

Well you loose when it rains as we found out last week. Still it has been working out pretty well. The biggest problem is it takes 25 minutes longer to get to work in the morning. Oh yeah and you get really really hungry after biking 5 miles. Which is actually awesome because you can eat more and not gain weight!

So now the exercise routine is:
bike 5 miles to work
lift free-weight 15 minutes
walk 2.5 miles
bike 5 miles to car
walk 2.5 miles
lift free-weights 30 minutes

I am eating around 2000 calories a day and losing weight again. Being curious about how much calories I should be intaking to maintain my weight I checked it out online at:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burned

According to this I need 1900 calories a day if leading a sedentary life style (can you call life with a toddler sedentary?). With the biking and walking and weightlifting I need and extra 1100 calories a day. I mean wow! That is amazing! That means I can eat some pizza and we can go for ice cream and I can feel awesome about it because I'll still be losing weight (albeit maybe not eating super healthy).

As for the running thing; after having MRIs done on my knees I will probably never be running again. But I think the bike is a wonderful substitute. I am beginning to see muscle definition in my legs and my knees never hurt. So right now I am a big fan of bikes :-) I can also finally say bye bye to all that baby fat I put on and I can keep up with crazy little Keegan even better than before.

The cumulation of all this wonderful working out happened on Saturday while we were camping. We climbed around a mile of stairs at Whitewater Park. Last year I would have been huffing and puffing, my knees would have hurt, and I would have been exhausted. I bound up those stairs with vigor, was never short or breath, and my knees felt great; I was so excited I told Lyle "SO this is why we do all this working out!" Lyle wasn't quite as excited since he had Keegan strapped to his back; but I *did* offer to carry the kid.

So I guess I just wanted to share. I was excited to finally reach my weight goal and excited about having a more active lifestyle. Now the tough part will be sticking to it. It takes quite an effort of will to get on that bike and ride at 7am...I am really not much of a morning person. Especially since my ride in starts with a colossal hill. I started the ride with thoughts like "I am saving 60 miles of driving by doing this 5 mile ride, I am getting in shape, I am getting healthier, I can have ice cream tonight when I get home" The last bit to the top of the hill was punctuated with thoughts like "I hate this bike, I hate this hill, I think it's worth $10 in gas to not have to go over this hill, I need to work closer to the park, I need a taxi, I need a nap." Then after that initial hill things were much better :-)

Hope everyone is having a great day!