7 until the old Chelsea

Losing the baby weight is definitely not an easy task, nor is it fun. Think about it, you go from a pregnant state where you can eat practically anything you want without the worry of weight gain. You're growing a baby, you're gonna gain weight regardless. Than comes the delivery of your beautiful baby and with that comes the realization that being chunky is not as acceptable anymore. Before you were providing nutrition for your child, putting on extra weight in maternal stores, circulating more blood to oxygenate the baby, and your boobs were bigger to support lactation. After the baby comes you get all of the joys of those fat stores and big boobs, but now you can't blame it on the baby. I remember laying in the hospital bed with my little boy chilling in the bassinet next to me. I remember looking down and seeing this piece of playdo that *used* to be my abs. I just remember thinking, "He's out, why don't I look skinny again?" You see all these super skinny celebrities that magically lose all their baby weight by the time they are discharged from the hospital and I wonder, why didn't that happen to me. But than I realize that I don't have a full crew of fitness gurus, acclaimed chefs, and stylists to dress me for my shape. All I have is my at-home aerobics tapes, my $6 calorieking book, and the buckets of "skinny" clothes from last year.

I did know that though my resources were limited, I was determined to lose the weight. I figure I weighed about 200 lbs at delivery (cut me a break, I had an 8 pound kid) and did not want to carry that weight around, let alone do it in the time of the year that everyone is running around in their underwear, calling it this thing named a swimsuit. In my endeavor to regain my pre-pregancy physique I decided to watch my calories. Herein lies my previous point, in pregnancy you can eat what you want, but after that baby comes it's a whole new ball game. Now I am counting my calories and watching the types of foods I put in my body. It has been 12 weeks since delivery and luckily for me, it is paying off and I am seven pounds until the old Chelsea returns! So here I am 41 pounds down and 7 to go. My next goal...135!

Note to self: next time I am pregnant, don't go in with the mindset of "who cares how much I gain, I'll lose it eventually" I have a feeling that the third time around it might be a little more difficult to drop the weight...?