When It’s Time to Stop Losing Weight

Fashion & Beauty, Fitness & Food

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Have you been stressing out about losing weight?
Here’s permission to stop torturing yourself!


I’m gonna be brutally honest and tell you all that when I got this particular set of pictures back from my photographer, I didn’t even want to post them. I’ve still been unhappy with my baby weight that is not only still hanging around but literally not budging ONE POUND since about 2 weeks postpartum. So I’ve been a little hypercritical of my body lately.

So instead of trashing the pics, I decided to throw them all up here (Ok, ok…not ALL of them, I still get to filter through some) and talk about why I’m letting myself stop trying to “lose weight”.

Most of us know that the number on the scale actually means very little – right? I mean, it doesn’t tell us about bone density or hormone changes or health history or muscle to fat ratio, etc. Instead it gives us an annoying number to fixate on and stress about.

But the fact is that I personally do have extra fat hanging around after this last baby (who turns 6 months in 3 days! Make it slow down!!). I’ve made some dietary changes and some exercise attempts in the past several months with very little success. See my post-partum updates here, here and here.

Life is busy, there’s no doubt. And having our 8th baby has been a HUGE adustment for me. I have to feed, clothe and homeschool all these kids, plus clean my house, run a blog and business and I’m still rarely getting a full night’s sleep. For crap’s sake, life is insane enough without worrying about some belly chub!


And so I came to a couple conclusions this week;

1. If I’m not going to give it 100% of my effort, then I can’t complain about not being in shape anymore. My nursing cravings are still totally out of control so making drastic diet changes just isn’t in the cards for now. I know things will change once baby Alice starts eating more solids so for now, I’m doing just fine.

2. I need to stop focusing on the “weight loss” and focus on making healthy changes. Starting Monday, I’ll be doing a health challenge with some friends which includes eating lots of produce, drinking water and exercise. There’s no focus on weight loss, just maintenance, but it should help shift my attention from the scale to how I’m treating my body.

So if you’re looking for it, here’s permission to stop worrying about body fat percentages and the size of your pants. Let’s focus on treating ourselves with love and kindness and hopefully that will spill over into our treatment of others as well! The whole world could do with a little more kindness right now.

UPDATE: See the end of my postpartum weight loss journey HERE, as well as links to my other progress posts!

Photo credit: Let Me See You Sparkle Photography

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2 Comments

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