Back in March I ran a series of blog posts on food. One of the topics was my four postpartum weight loss journeys. At the time (March 25) I was in the mid-130s generally, and the lowest I’d seen was 134.5 lbs. I was telling everyone I was content with this slow and steady weight loss of about 0.5 lbs every week or two.
Then, a little while later, in the interest of experimentation, I decided to modify my eating habits. The result is that 7 weeks later, I weighed in this morning at 126.5 lbs, which is a loss of more than a pound a week, with much of that coming in the past 4 weeks.
I would describe my current diet as a veggie-heavy, moderate-carb diet. Most mornings I eat a veggie omelette for breakfast. I do 2 eggs, and usually spinach, and then either mushrooms or peppers or cauliflower (a fascinating texture, really), and goat cheese. I drink coffee with cream. When things are going well, for lunch I aim to have a salad with cooked veggies and avocado and pecans, and possibly leftover meat if we have it. I snack on Chobani vanilla Greek yogurt with pecans, and maybe fresh berries and a tiny bit of granola. I will also snack on cheese, almonds, and carrot sticks or other veggies. For dinner, I aim to have some sort of meat with veggies. So it might be fajitas without the tortilla, or chicken cooked on top of Brussels sprouts, or slow cooker chicken tikka masala with cauliflower “rice.” For dessert, I’ve been eating these things called “Dippers,” which are a Dole freezer case product with frozen fruit covered by 67% cacao dark chocolate. They’re packaged in 60-100 calorie packs, depending on the fruit.
I also have either a glass of wine or a beer pretty much every day.
One can never attribute a change absolutely to anything. I continue to run, and it’s possible that I’ve been running more than I was a few weeks ago. The weather is certainly nicer than it was in March! Summer just generally brings more activity, so I’m probably walking around more too. My baby is growing and growing and eating like a linebacker so that may be contributing to weight loss. I also think it would be hard to describe my diet as “low” carb. Beer has carbs. The Chobani yogurt has several grams of sugar, as does the granola I put in it. The Dippers have some single digit quantity of grams of sugar per serving as well. I will eat a single piece of bread in a nice restaurant, or when my mother-in-law made homemade bread last night. I will not embrace any diet that would require me to skip the bright red strawberries that are coming into season right now. When I’m starving and out, I’ll eat a Nutri-Grain bar, which is not remotely low carb.
However, I am generally eating less of the junky carbs, and I think it’s helping move things along. There are downsides. I think one reason my time in the Broad Street 10-miler was slower than I wanted is that I didn’t have adequate carbohydrate stores in my body. I’d eaten carbs the day before and that morning (a granola bar and banana), but apparently not enough. I was dragging at mile 6 before I started doing shots of Gatorade every time I passed a station (I tend not to drink it while running). The sugar did its trick and perked me up. So I need to figure out how to fuel pre-running. This is an interesting trade off, because being lighter could make me faster, but being under-carbed will make me slower.
That said, I am enjoying being thin again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the 120s after having my fourth kid. Now, less than 4 months after he was born, I’m within 2 lbs of my wedding weight. Seeing progress is motivational, and makes not eating cereal seem like less of a sacrifice.
Photo: Lunch salad, with leftover chicken and veggies.
If you like my blog, you might also like my next book, I Know How She Does It. Pre-order by June 2 and you can join my book club, with perks including a signed book plate, advance excerpts, and access to two book club webinars around launch. Thanks for reading!