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.