McFatty Monday: Let’s do this!

I’m joining Blair’s McFatty Monday in order to shame myself into losing this awful baby weight. Maybe if I publicly say I’m going to do it and track my progress, it will incite me into actually doing it.

I’ve always struggled with my weight – or at least I thought I did. Looking back now, I had no idea how great I looked when I was in college and grad school. I gained a lot of weight when I moved home after UF, but lost it all before I got married. I maintained for a bit, but when I got pregnant, I was definitely heavier than I should have been (like 25-30 pounds heavier). I worked hard not to gain too much weight during my pregnancy, but did ultimately gain 30 pounds. I lost 20 of it within the first week of having Kendall. (When people say a lot of the weight you gain is directly related to the baby, they are right.) The other 10? Well that’s stuck around for the past 6 months. I keep saying I’m going to get serious about losing it, plus the extra 30 of “marriage” weight. I’ve done it before – I lost 30 pounds before I got married, so I know I can do this. I just have to actually DO it.

And I do need to do it. Losing weight will help me not only physically, but mentally and financially. I hate the way I look right now. Finding something to wear each day in my closet is a struggle and 90% of what I wear is black, because at least that is mostly slimming. It makes me grumpy and when I'm grumpy, unfortunately, everyone around me suffers. I also hate the way I look in pictures and the last thing I want is to look back at pictures of Kendall's first year and hate the way I look in all of them. Because I'm THAT vain. As for the financial impact, we can’t really afford for me to go and buy a whole new wardrobe, and it’s ridiculous for me to do so when I have a ton of beautiful (and expensive - hello J.Crew addiction!) clothes just waiting for me to be able to wear them again.

I want to be realistic about how long it will take to do this – I mean 40 pounds could take nearly a year! I’d like to have lost my first 10 pounds by Memorial Day (2 months), at least 30 of it by Kendall’s first birthday (6 months) and be at my goal weight by Jan. 1, 2011 (9 months).

So, here I am in all my post partum glory, (in jeans I bought at the beginning of my pregnancy so I would have something to wear when I started showing that do not button and one of JD’s old USMC shirts that used to fit and even was a little loose). I debated even posting these pictures, since I do have several IRL friends who read this blog, and well, it’s embarrassing. But if the point is to shame myself into doing this, and keep it honest, then here they are. I’m far too embarrassed to post my starting weight, so I’ll just keep you posted with pounds lost. When I hit a decent enough milestone, maybe I’ll share the real numbers. I'm hoping to take a picture of myself every 4 weeks. That's enough time to hopefully see some difference, and I know the visual will really help keep me motivated.

Goals for this week (starting slow!):

• Run three times – after work Tuesday and Thursday, Saturday morning
• Find a good, free, online calorie/weight tracker