It worked for me once as I was shedding for the wedding. It worked for me again as I was shedding Blake's baby weight. And, gosh darn it, I am going to make it work a third time to shed Emily's baby weight.
As a new mom, we rarely have time for ourselves. We're constantly tired, irritable, and most likely stressed out about our current post baby weight. It's hard enough to find time to get dressed in the morning, the last thing we want to worry about is whether or not we have any clothes that fit. Reality is, until we can finally fit in our old clothes, we probably wont feel like ourselves again.
Post partum (Blake)
When I was pregnant with Blake, I gained a whopping 46lbs. Every OB visit I cringed when I had to weigh-in. I was embarrassed by how much I gained, despite the fact that a lot of it was water weight, evidenced by my swollen hands, feet, face, you name it. After Blake was born, I lost 22lbs in one week. I was amazed and feeling confident the rest would come off just as easy. Well, I was flat out wrong. I was in my maternity pants for close to 3 months post partum. I was miserable and uncomfortable with all that extra weight on my body. I couldn't get back to the gym until Blake was old enough for the gym daycare, and I desperately wanted to feel like myself again. I have always been into fitness, and I longed for a good run or really just any consistent sweat session would have been fine. However, I knew the only way to kick-start the rest of the weight loss was to change my eating habits.
Post partum (Emily)
I was lucky to only gain 30lbs this last pregnancy. I can thank a 2nd trimester stomach bug (that lasted 2 weeks), and 3rd trimester nausea (lasted a month) for that one. The first week post partum I lost 17lbs. For the first time in 9 months, I actually looked forward to getting on the scale to see how much closer I was to my pre-baby self. I thought to myself, well, I only have 13lbs left to go. But again, reality sets in, 13lbs is a lot!!! I was hoping breastfeeding would melt away the remainder but that didn't seem to be happening. One would assume that as a mother of 2 kids, you just lose the weight from chasing kids around the house. But I found it to be the complete opposite.
I didn't have much time to eat, so I found myself starving until I was in hands-shaking-mode. Then I would raid the pantry for anything that was quick and caloric to stop the shakes. I was so hungry by the time both kids were asleep that I would consume the majority of my calories at night. Here I was supposed to be losing weight, and found that my number was creeping up again. Something needed to change, and that was my diet.
The Diet
I stumbled across the diet (or should I call it a "Lifestyle Plan") when reading Health Magazine over 5 years ago. It is coined, The Carb Lovers Diet. The crux of the plan is that you eat carbs, but the good carbs. The ones that help keep you fuller for longer, called Resistant Starches (RS).
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| Includes meal plan and recipes |
The plan is divided into 2 phases. The first phase is a 7-day plan where you follow a strict meal plan. Meals/snacks include things like smoothies, apples with almond butter, Amy's frozen enchiladas, and chicken pasta primavera. You are allowed 3 meals a day and 1 snack.
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| Phase 1 sample meal plan |
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| Loaded with delicious recipes |
1. The plan recommends you clean out your pantry of trigger foods - the ones you know you can easily binge on. This part was tough for me since Blake eats enough snack foods to keep Nabisco in business. Rather than purge our pantry, I divided up the shelves so that all of Blake's snacks are together and I know to not even bother reaching there.
2. The plan also recommends keeping a food journal, something that I have done in the past and seen success on. If you eat it, you have to write it down no matter what. No one wants to write down "12 Oreos" when they are trying to lose weight so that really helps moderate your food intake. I also added the times of my meals to get a sense of how often I was eating or not eating for that matter.
3. Since I am breastfeeding, I need to eat more often so I have 2-3 snacks a day but they are small snacks and are all packed with RS.
4. I don't eat the wide variety of foods that are on this plan (red meat, fish), so I end up repeating the same meals over and over. This can get extremely monotonous so I try to use different spices on recipes to make it seem unique.
5. When deciding to do this diet plan again, I knew there was one thing I just couldn't give up: my morning coffee. I take my coffee with cream and sugar. Cream and sugar are both pretty much the devil on this diet plan. So I switched using cream for unsweetened almond milk but I am not giving up the 1 tsp of sugar in my coffee. So if you decide to do this diet, recognize if there is something in your life that you just cant give up and try to modify it as best you can.
Phase 1 Stats (7 days total)
-3lbs
Let Phase 2 begin!
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