Photo credit: picture by Chris_J

I was a different shape before I became a mum. My boobs were a little fuller, my bum was a little rounder.

I had made a conscious effort to “get fit”, going to the gym three times a week and killing myself at spinning classes. But I was no fitness fanatic – I was just aware there was too much flesh in places that had, before, been smoother.

On having a baby, my body changed.

The boobs became bigger, the belly became wobblier. But, overall, my actual weight wasn’t much different. And that’s how I know never to measure my body’s shape by how much it weighs. My body just doesn’t work like that.

I can have “fat days” where the scales tell me I weigh less than the week before. I can have “thin days” where my favourite jeans slide on without so much as a wiggle, but the scales tell me I’m heavier than I once was.

Since taking on a job in January that involves getting up at 3.30am and being on the go until 10pm, my body has steadily changed yet again.

I cope with tiredness by eating. Everything. Breakfast at 5am, another breakfast at 9am, a rushed snack from the petrol station on the way home (and you know it’s not going to be a salad), another snack with my hungry toddler in the afternoon, a meal around 5pm and more snacking.

Biscuits, cake, chocolate, crisps – these are all my friend. As is anything that can give me a quick sugar rush and fool my body into thinking it has enough fuel to get through another 6 hours without sleeping.

This is not good.

Slowly, I’ve noticed a bit of a double chin developing. My hips are no longer hips, instead sporting extra padding in the form of “love handles”.

Breakfast radio is not good for the figure.

So, around a month ago, I decided to do something about it.

Realistically, a gym membership is out of the question. With working at a radio station in the morning, running around after my toddler in the afternoon and all my writing work in the evenings, I am time poor. There is no time to preen myself like there was in the old days.

So I turned to the internet.

Twitter came up trumps. There seemed to be lots of buzz around @ThinkingSlimmer. Rolling my eyes and stifling a yawn, I inwardly scoffed, “As IF. Another faddy dieting thing. Whatever.”

But then we did a radio show about fad diets. I remembered this Twitter account and contacted the people behind @ThinkingSlimmer. Sandra Roycroft-Davies appeared on our show and I was intrigued by what she had to say. Rather than encouraging a diet, Sandra told me it was possible to retrain your mind to learn new habits.

For me, these habits mean not thinking about food ALL THE TIME. Not diving into the petrol station for a daily sausage roll to keep me company on the way home. And putting myself further up my list of priorities.

I started listening to one of the company’s “Slim Pods“. The ten minute piece of audio was very much like some form of meditation. Lulling me to sleep within minutes, rather than the former tossing and turning scenario. Waking from a deep sleep at 3.30am every day, I haven’t felt dead. I’ve actually been ready to face the day.

And I’ve stopped eating sausage rolls.

Instead, I still eat at the times I used to eat, but rather than crisps and cake, it’s been soup, toast, fruit, water. The kind of stuff my body actually needs to run on, rather than the stuff that tricks it.

And Sandra? She’s been lovely. The odd phone call to remind me to stop saying “Yes” to everything. The odd email to reprimand me for staying up too late working. Just like my mum really.

I have no idea if I weigh less than I did a month previously. But, for me, it’s not about that. I no longer have to breathe in when I put my jeans on. I’m sleeping better. I’m eating better. I feel better.

But I’m not going to stop listening to the audio before bed. It’s an ongoing thing – I need more than a month of listening to help me give up habits that have taken 6 months to form.

So the sausage rolls aren’t quite safe yet.

***

Disclosure: This is a review post. All words and opinions are my own. I was given a free copy of the Slimpod for review purposes.

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No, instead I’d like to talk about that wonderful subject: weight. Post-baby weight, in fact.

It’s a tricky one. I’m like millions of other women in being unhappy with my size. I don’t know why exactly, I’m not big. In fact, I’m smaller than I was before I got pregnant with Frog. But still, I’m not happy.

It’s all the lumps and bumps, you see. Plus the fact I’m getting married in just over two months and have every intention of upstaging Kate Middleton as being THE bride of 2011.

I tried exercise. It didn’t go well; I wet my pants, farted publically and flashed a bare breast by accident. I tried dieting. That didn’t go well either. I fell face first onto some cake. And then some wine. And then some chocolate.

So now I’m thinking, well, what now?

And here’s the thing. I’ve decided not do anything. Nothing. Not a jot. I’m not going to worry about my body. I’m not going to obsess about the size of my wobbly arse or the less-than-flat shape of my belly.

It’s not because I’ve suddenly realised I look better than J-Lo and Pippa Middleton combined. I don’t. Nor have I suddenly grown to love those wobbly areas I hated before. I still dislike them rather a lot.

It’s because of this article.

I’m loathe to link to it, but I can’t very well write the rest of this post without you at least having a glimpse of what has triggered it in the first place.

Had a look? What do you think?

Personally, I don’t think it does anyone any favours.

First of all, the woman who’s featured (or rather, ridiculed) in this article is clearly in great shape. Especially when you consider she’s had two children, not that long ago. So I disagree with that bit for starters. Secondly, apparently she’s admitted to an eating disorder in the past. Which makes poking fun at her all the more cruel and unnecessary. And thirdly, why does it matter?

And that’s the thing I haven’t been able to get out of my head all day. Why does it matter? Not just that, but why does it matter to me?

Is it because I’ve recently (yes I know she’s nearly one – but it still feels “recent” to me) had a baby myself? Is it because I’ve suddenly taken up my place in the sisterhood now I’m a mother? Is it because having a baby has made me ultra over-sensitive and a little bit moody?

I don’t think so. Or at least, I’m pretty sure the answer’s no to the first two questions.

Actually, I think the reason this article really gets to me is because I had a baby girl. A daughter. A daughter who will grow up to be  a teenager, to be a woman.

I don’t ever want her to hate her body. I don’t ever want her to feel too fat or too thin or too short or too tall. I want her to feel confident and comfortable and happy in who she is and what she looks like.

And articles like this really don’t help.

So that’s why I’ve decided to accept my own body, lumps and bumps and all. I eat healthily and attempt exercise. I’m not fat, but I’m not thin either. And that’s just how it is.

I’m going to quit moaning about not being the size of a supermodel and start leading my daughter by example. I’m going to start liking my body again, for what it is now. Not what it never will be.

And once I’ve completed that mission I’m going to don a very tiny cropped top and march up and down outside the offices of the Daily Mail. I bet they can’t wait.

*This post is for all the ladies in the MUMenTUM group.

The post Sometimes it’s hard, to be, a woman (dum de dum de dum) appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

When you have a baby, it’s easy to get obsessed with numbers. How many hours is she sleeping? How much milk is she drinking? And the big one…How much does she weigh?

Numbers, numbers, numbers.

Call me thick, but I’ve always hated Maths. The sight of a graph fills me with dread. Pie charts bring me out in a cold sweat. And I would rather sit in a bath with a tarantula than work out a conversion from kilograms to pounds.

So, imagine my horror, when I found out that having a baby involves pretty much all of the above (except for sitting in a bath with a tarantula. Obviously).

When people meet your new baby, one of the first things they’ll ask is “how much does she weigh?”. This is the only time in your baby’s life that they will be introduced with their name and weight in the same sentence. At any other time this would be considered strange. I mean, can you imagine introducing a friend to a friend with, “This is so-and-so and she weighs 9 stone”? No, didn’t think so.

So why do we do this with babies? In the early days, I have to admit, Competitive Mum was making an appearance. I was as guilty as anyone of posting my baby’s new weight as a status update on Facebook, as if anyone actually cared. It’s pretty ironic that we spend the first few months of a baby’s life worrying that they’re putting on enough weight, when they’ll probably spend a lot of their adult life trying to lose it. (No? Just me then).

Frog had a weigh-in today (no, she hasn’t taken up Boxing. It was a check up with the Health Visitor). She’s dropped a bit on the chart thingy. Don’t ask me how much she weighs because as soon as the Health Visitor told me it went straight out of my head. I’m no good with numbers, remember? The Health Visitor told me to try giving her some more solids. As if. She already packs away three full meals a day, about a gallon of milk and grazes on snacks in between. She actually spends most of her day eating. She hasn’t got time to eat any more!

I spent the rest of the day worrying about how to “fill her up”. How can I cram in more food? How can I make her fat?

Until I realised it’s a load of old bull. When she’s hungry she cries, so I feed her. When she’s full she stops eating. Since when did we assume babies don’t know how much they need anyway? She’s still putting on weight. She’s reaching all the developmental milestones she “should” be meeting. What’s the problem? She isn’t making a nice neat line on the growth chart? Maybe she just hates Maths as much as I do.

I just hope she continues to defy the Maths and ignore the numbers, unlike her own mother. If, like me, you ever worry about your own weight from time to time, look where to buy acai berries for weight loss.

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