OPERATION:BABY WEIGHT LOSS

So during my pregnancy I thought i was being really healthy. I ran until about 6 months along when it got to hard for me to breathe. I think that was when the intense weight gain started. I still was working out 4-5 days per week, but lets be honest ladies....the occasionaly cookie dough blizzard with extra cookie dough was becoming a several nights a week treat.
I remember my midwife getting real REAL with me when i gained 10lbs in ONE month! It was the month of December. December was not only my birthday and Christmas, but it was Christmas and my birthday as a pregnant lady. Ofta....that month took a toll on my body! My midwife said, "Amanda you are greatly increasing your risk for a C-section byt gaining this much wieght and you MUST calm down on the weight gain." She then explained to me why your risks are increased which. ITs graphic and not really "blog appropritate" so i will just leave it at that....

So by the time Leo was born I had packed on 

45 pounds

that makes me sick...

About the week after i had Leo i had set my plan into motion. I was going to loose all 45 lbs by the time i went back to work in 11 weeks.

{insert loud, obnoxious laughing}

That did not happen. It didnt even come close to happening. I did start running about 5 weeks after Leo was born. IT felt good. But i didnt have a routine down. And with my hubby's work schedual there were only specific blocks of time i could run. So without something being routine in my life i typically fail. Now i should back up and explain why i thought loosing 45lbs would be easy as cake(cake, who said cake, can i have a piece....)

About 3 years ago i started running as a new years resolution with my friend Erika(who i got even closer to through running!) You see, running gets you real intune with your body. And all the things your body does when you run. You would think most of running pains surround how your legs, or that side ache feels. In reality, running got me REAL intune with a little part of the body that involves waste going out....yep I went there. My digestion track. Your body digests and sends waste out different when you are a runner. All that gravity I guess makes it pass through and out faster(really scientific i know) Erika and I spent hours discussing our digestive system. Through this time we trained for a few half marathons and 2 marathons. We finished and earned hardware together. 

So, 1 month before I became pregnant with Leo i had run and completed the funnest marathon ever! The Duluth Grandma's Marathon! 26.2 miles of beauty. We started with gloomy storm clouds ready to chase us from Two Harbours into the center of Duluth, MN. It was amazing. I had pulled my hamstring doing the splits to show off at church league softball 4 days before(stupid) and didnt think i would actually finish. But when your whole family drive 6 hours north and a cousin flys in from California to watch you....you better finish!

So anyway, I went from running 26.2 miles straight in June to 10 months later being 45 lbs larger....

So when i went back to work, i had only lost like 15 of that. 7lbs 10 ounces was LEO, and probly the rest was placenta and blood. Needless to say I had aways to go....

In August I barrowed P90X from my friend Meghan who lost all 40 of her pregnancy wieght gain doing it. So i had high hopes of loosing it all in 90 days. 

I H*A*T*E*D P90X. 

I stopped like 30 days in for lots of reasons. Mostly i was not seeing results. I was back to trying to get back into the love I had lost during pregnancy-Running. But it was hit or miss on my lunch breaks. 1 week I'd run 4 days and the next week maybe 1 day. So again defeat hits.

The New Year was approaching and so some co-workers set up a 12 week weight loss challenge, I had high hopes to win! Well, I didnt. I did however loose 13 lbs in 12 weeks.

It was mostly thanks to a new approach since i was in physically therapy for tendonitis in my achillies. All that means is it killed me to walk, run, or stay still. My ankle would catch or lock. It was awful.

So 2 weeks before the challnge was to be over(i had already given up on winning) i asked my friend/coworker to start Weight Watchers with me. I knew i would NEVER go alone so was praying she would go with me. My daycare lady had started it about 3 weeks before and was having amazing results. And then of course there is Jennifer Hudson plastering the advertisements Jennifer had made WW cool to me. Im not gonna lie, i had always imagined the meetings consisting of these elderly ladies sitting around complaining about their weight. Jennifer made it cool and my daycare lady made it real. 

So the next day I went to Erika and before i could spit out the entire sentence, "would you even consider starting Weight Wat....." she cut me off and said YES! She had lost something like 35-40lbs about 10 years ago. After about 5 years of not going she had slowly packed on about 10 of those and was ready to get back on track. My friend runs about 40+ miles a week so her issues is clearly not exercise. It was strictly eating.

So on 3/28 we went to our first meeting. The lady kept saying to me, "You look like a deer in headlights". Um, yeah thanks thats how i feel to! I walked out so overwhelmed I wasnt sure I would continue.

I went home and tried to read as much as i could. I made a deal with myself. If i loose at the 1st wiegh in next week, I will keep doing it. 

The first week was kinda ugly. I realized just how much food i eat. And how often i was eating. I was hungry, but not awful. 

Then truth day came. The wiegh in day. I was scared/nervous. I got on the scale expecting to maybe have lost 1 lbs...maybe.

The leader said I was down 5.6lbs. IN 1 WEEK! I felt like going crazy like they do on the 1st week of Biggest Looser when they loose like 20 lbs! My friend had great results to! I relized what worked for me.

It was tracking.

I wrote down everything I put into my mouth whether it was food or drink. I had a set amount of points