The Start of my Postpartum Journey
On Monday I had the opportunity to hop on the InBody Scanner before Murph to see where my numbers stacked up after having Evelyn. I love having this tool in our gym that allows us to see more data to track progress. Pictures and measurements are also great tools that I love to use, but I will admit I’m not the best at doing measurements. I have enjoyed documenting my journeys after having babies and surgery to see where I started and where I "ended".This body loves to put on some extra fluff to grow babies. With Elijah I had not ate the healthiest, but definitely not too bad. We had been strict paleo before I got pregnant, but boy is it hard for me to maintain in those first couple of months where all I want to eat is carbs. I had gained 26lb and the postpartum journey with him was slow, but effective. I ate as healthy as I could staying to a more 80/20 way of Paleo. I wasn’t focused on any specific goals or measurements, but I wanted to eat as healthy as I could and continued CrossFitting all while making sure I didn’t negatively affect my breast milk production.At 8 months postpartum I remember looking in the mirror and seeing abs for the first time ever! I hadn't seen them before even when I was doing all my marathon training and CrossFitting. I had given running up while I was pregnant with Elijah and never picked it back up. I always joke with people that I have only had abs after having a baby, never before. I believe that a lot of that was due to backing off the endurance training and focusing on weightlifting. I had also drastically cut back on alcohol to basically none after Elijah was born. My diet was definitely not the cleanest it had ever been.In October, when Elijah was a year old I added in more accessory work to my regular CrossFit programming to gain strength. This created a huge turn around for my body composition. My diet was still 80/20 Paleo and I wasn’t tracking or really watched what I was eating.I stopped breastfeeding when Elijah was 14 months old and continued with CrossFit and my usual diet. My composition stayed fairly consistent over the course of the next 2 years with a little change in March 2016 when I did three 21 day sugar detoxes over the course of a few months to counterbalance the effects of my knee surgery and to make sure I was fueling my body to heal itself.When I found out I was pregnant with Evelyn in September 2016 I was curious what would happen to my body and if it would be similar to my pregnancy with Elijah. It turns out it was! I gained 25lb and put on the same amount of fluff. I ended up eating extremely clean for the last 6 months of my pregnancy due to my pregnancy rash and CrossFitted throughout my pregnancy.The female body is absolutely incredible and I have no expectations for “bouncing back”. I know that if I put in the work and stay consistent with diet and exercise it will happen with time. I don’t want anything to negatively impact my milk production. I want to document the postpartum journey as I always love looking back to see the progress.I had done an InBody scan in August 2016. It showed I was at 129lb, 15.8% body fat, and my body fat was 20.3lb. My InBody scan at 17 days postpartum showed I weighed 138.7lb, 22.9% body fat, and body fat was 31.8lb. It’s interesting to see that while my diet and exercise really didn’t change much over the course of my pregnancy with Evelyn I still put on 11 pounds of fat.I am back at CrossFit, scaling as appropriate as my body is still healing from giving birth. My diet is still strict gluten and dairy free. I am not counting calories or tracking, but I’ve tracked enough in the past I’m pretty good at being able to eyeball my macros. I still enjoy treats and don't deprive myself. I feel this is an important part of a healthy relationship with food. I may do a sugar detox at some point, but right now I’m not ready to give up my fruit. :-) I can’t wait to see what my body does over the next several months and the transformation it makes.