The battle of the bulge

As a mom, and let's face it, an American in general, I have been struggling with weight loss.  I can't really pinpoint when weight and losing it became a constant focus in my life.  Sometime after college, the weight just started to creep on.  And while I've never considered myself obese or overweight, I know that I probably am at this point.  I remember the first time I started Weight Watchers, the spring of 2007.  My girlfriend Candi and I wanted to lose weight, so we signed up and went to meetings together.  I had some success, but keeping up going to the meetings, especially on weeks when Candi and I couldn't coordinate schedules, was hard.  I did Weight Watchers online for a few more months and then cancelled my membership.  I think I lost about 15 pounds total, but it slowly came back on.  In the spring of 2008, before our wedding, I worked with a trainer for 3 months.  It was amazing and hard and often insane.  I ate only what she allowed me, no carbs, lean meats, vegetables, protein shakes, and light yogurt.  It really sucked.  But I felt so good about myself.  People at the gym were so supportive and I did a lot of group classes in addition to my training sessions.  I don't recall exactly how much I lost, but I was fit and toned - I looked the way I wanted to for my wedding.

Of course shortly after that my gym membership ran out, we moved, and the cost of going a gym again was just too much.  So more and more weight was gained, marriage has a way of making you entirely too comfortable.  We decided on our first anniversary to try to have a baby.  Four months of trying later, I was pregnant, so of course weight loss was out of the question.  I did really well at not gaining a ton of weight while pregnant, until the start of my pre-eclampsia.  Before my blood pressure and liver proteins went through the roof, there were tell tale signs of what was coming.  Massive edema and water weight gain started in the middle of April and I managed to gain 45 pounds of water weight.  Including that water weight, I gained 55lbs.  I wasn't actually weighed the day I gave birth, but I was at around 275 lbs.  It was crazy, but a lot of it came of quickly thanks to the IV diuretics I was on.  In 10 day I lost 40 lbs., but I have really struggled since then.

So right now I weigh especially what I weighed when I got pregnant.  I've lost 12 lbs. since May, but I still am not happy.  I've been attending kickboxing classes 2 to 3 times a week, but haven't focused a lot on my eating habits.  I know to lose anymore weight I need to change my eating, but its just not easy.  So that is what I'm working on for me - getting the weight off that I should have gotten off before James was even thought of!