body

Do I Even Bother Keeping My Scale?

As I was unpacking I pulled out my scale and thought, “Do I even keep this?”

The last time I weighed myself was around Christmas. We had just begun another stay-at-home order here in Ontario and the food and booze were flowing. My clothes were feeling tight and I figured if I weighed myself I could shock myself into cleaning up my act and lose a few pounds. I hadn’t weighed myself since almost a year before and had mostly forgotten why I had stopped.

I had stopped weighing myself because I had realized that as soon as I take away the weight-loss goal and make it about achieving more strength, better gut health or generally feeling good everything falls into place where it’s supposed to.

Knowing the number was a slippery slope for me and even worse, repeatedly checking on that number. The reason is it would create this stressful yo-yo lifestyle that was so unhealthy.

If the number went up, I’d deprive myself. If the number went down I’d gorge and set off a SIBO flare up.

I’d completely stress about the natural changes my body goes through every month and every year.

What works for me is checking in with how I feel. Do I feel tired, weak, stiff? How is my gut? Am I bloated? How do my clothes feel on my body? How is my skin doing? Do I feel foggy, depressed or anxious? How is my stress level?

Once I have done a scan of my body and really have a sense of how I am feeling then I adjust accordingly. What I adjust is not always the same. Sometimes it means more smaller meals with extra vegetables. Other times because of my SIBO it can mean that I have to reduce my vegetables, fruits, sauces and animal protein for a little while to get out of a flare up and reintroduce them in small portions.

Sometimes it can mean I need to overhaul my schedule and really carve out time for daily exercise which for me is typically a little cardio and a fair bit of strength training with weights.

Lastly is my sleep. My sweet spot is falling asleep by 10pm and waking up at 5:30am. If I do that consistently then I am firing at all cylinders.

Ben and I are pretty similar when it comes to this approach. He called it his three pillars: healthy eating habits, daily exercise and good sleeping habits. I love that way of looking at it so I am going to steal it.

The couple weeks leading up to my move and right after I was a mess. I was eating whatever I could grab, which often meant leftovers on my kids’ plates, I was not exercising at all and I had the worse case of insomnia.

But I was easy on myself knowing that what I was doing was nearly impossible and I just had to survive it… moving four kids during a pandemic who weren’t in school as a solo parent to a new house and city. Phew!

But… I friggin’ did it!!! Whoop Whoop!

About a week after my move I was feeling it. All my clothes were tight, I was trying to sleep better but it was still spotty, and I had set off a pretty bad SIBO flare up. It was time to piece back together my three pillars.

As I unpacked I pulled out my scale. Weighing myself didn’t even cross my mind. No way was I falling into that trap again. I almost tossed it but remembered I may have to weigh my kids fromm time to time so I have slid it way under my closet built-it.

In the meantime I will be protecting my three pillars and making sure I don’t take life too seriously (I am shoving my face full of Lucky Charms as I write this… just keepin’ in real).

Good bye scale!

What Having Four Kids (Including Twins) Has Done To My Body And My Confidence

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Isn’t it incredible what the human body can do?  Or better yet, what a woman’s body can do?  I have had four children, including twins, in the span of five years.  Yes, my body did that!  Today our youngest, Mia and Everly, are seven months old and I am trying to wake up every morning to work out before everyone else is up.  Most days I succeed and I am actually starting to see my body come back.  But it has been through a war.

Since I was young I struggled with my weight, always being a little on the heavy side.  I would tend to compensate with my bubbly personality and spend a lot of time on my hair and makeup.  Finally, while in college, I reached my goal weight by working out and dieting A LOT.  Back then my sole purpose was to turn heads.  I know, that’s pretty shallow, but it’s true.  I was already dating my now husband Mike, and knew that he would love me whatever size I was, but I still craved walking into a room and having all eyes on me.  collage 3

Although my weight fluctuated, I knew tricks on how to lose 10 pounds scarily fast, especially for our wedding and honeymoon.  I wouldn’t say I ever had an eating disorder, but I know that my weight control was coming from a place where I felt I had to punish my body. collage 4

Getting pregnant and watching my belly grow while expecting our first two kids was so exciting and I was able to drop almost every one of those 50 lbs I gained with each pregnancy… but again it was coming from this negative and frustrating place.collage 6

When I found out I was expecting twins I couldn’t wrap my mind around how enormous I was going to get.  I was already well known for having huge basketball size bellies whenever I was pregnant, but growing two babies at once???  To be honest, I was kind of freaking out about it.  collage 5I finally made the decision that I would disassociate my body from my mind during my twin pregnancy and think of my body as a vessel.  Guess what… that worked!  In-fact anytime I’d start panicking about my size I would say to myself “you are a vessel, you are a vessel”.  It became my mantra.

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I must thank Mike for taking these gems.

Although I coped with my size and weight gain really well during my twin pregnancy, after having my girls was a different story.  My postpartum body was literally bruised and battered.  My distracting enormous but adorable baby bump had been deflated and I was left with mush, bruising, swollen ankles and healing from a c-section.  I had this sadness for my body.  I felt so badly for it with the state it was in and at the same time was so grateful for what it had done.  It had safely created two humans and carried them for 37 weeks and 4 days.  It had been touch and go at times but my body did it!collage 7

I made the decision to be kind to my body from now on.  Eat healthy foods, indulge here and there and not beat myself up about it.  I also wanted to get in shape again, especially knowing I was finished having children.  I would take my time.  But this time is different.  I have simple goals that are for me and no one else.  I want to be strong.  I am over hurting my back when I pick up a baby.  I want to be flexible.  No more pulling my neck while reaching for a pacifier that has fallen under a crib.  I want to go to my closet and feel good in whatever I put on.  No more pulling at waistlines and being limited to leggings (although I will never entirely give up my leggings).  collage 10I get it, I am the thirty-something mom now with four kids and I am really proud of that.  I am so much more confident with my body than I ever have been before.  Anytime I start doubting my new curves or war wounds I look around the room and ask myself, how many other people in this room grew two people inside their body at once?collage 9

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