Losing the belly - part 1

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(Edited)

Hey people,

I hope you're all doing well! As promised, I'm keeping you guys updated on my postpartum recovery and showing you some photos of my progress. I'm taking a pic every 2 weeks so that you can see the results better.

The rule of thumb is a 40 day rest period after giving birth in order to make sure that your pelvic floor had enough time to heal. Now I'm at 35 days, but I feel pretty good already and have started moving again.

So far I've had 3 real gym sessions at my gym. Before that of course, I did prepare my body for physical activity, but very slowly and without forcing it. This meant taking walks with my dog at first, and even if that seems like nothing, trust me it was hard, especially when it meant walking uphill. Once if felt that these walks were getting easy, I started with lifting light weights.

As expected, I lost ALL my muscle mass and progress I had made before, meaning I'm back at square 1.

Gaining muscle

Right now I'm not doing any abdominal exercises, only legs, back and arms. My back is constantly in pain from the awkward feeding positions and carrying the baby over one shoulder. Also standing in front of the changing table bent over is taking a toll on my back, and I feel the need to strengthen that part of my body first!

You may think that I would want to focus on training ab muscles primarily in order to get rid of that belly fat, but that would be a mistake. Unfortunately, one cannot just lose weight in specific places, so once again, my priority is my overall health and fitness, as opposed to focussing on just "losing the belly" as the title of this post falsely suggests LOL.

Abs, or rather the core is trained automatically, as every weight exercise uses core muscles, so I won't be focussing on abs at all at the moment. Right now it is more important to get stronger overall, especially in places that feel extremely weak at the moment, like my back.

Losing weight

My weight right now is 62 kg. I had started my pregnancy at 56 kg which is my regular weight, and went up all the way to 68kg when I was 9 months pregnant.

I have not been on any diet to get back to my initial weight, or trying to lose any weight. While breastfeeding it's important to consume more calories than normal, and I don't want to starve myself or my baby just for the sake of a six pack. I'd rather focus on gaining strength and I know that burning fat will follow automatically in due time.

I'm drinking plenty of water in order to get there (important for weight loss and milk production!), I'm making sure to have a high enough protein and calorie intake, as well as getting enough rest. That last ingredient is harder to get by, but some naps here and there should do the trick =)

Here's a frontal and profile view of myself at 1, 3 and 5 weeks postpartum:

front 1 3 5.jpg

Collage_Fotor 1 3 5 weeks.jpg

Stay tuned for some more pics of progress =)



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25 comments
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Sounds like you have a solid plan, and the work you did prior to giving birth should put you in good stead. I do like seeing body transformations so don't disappoint me now 😛 Good luck!

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Oh, and if you can switch a tag for #sportstalk, I can give you a vote on my alt for some SPORTS tokens. I think these updates would be a good fit for this tribe/community.

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oh nice!!! will do =) ahaha and hope not to disappoint you =)

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I'm twice your regular weight right now, and on the way to losing about 20kg to return to my lean, mean days when I could jump a car. Your progress is motivating haha. I'm like "what's my excuse"? 😭😭

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you could jump a car? more details please =) and I'm happy to help motivate you! You should take before and after pics too, I find these very motivating because you can look back at how much progress you've made =)

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(Edited)

LOL yeah I was a bit of an athlete in my college days. I played basket ball and did high and triple jump before I injured my knees. I had like a 40 inc vertical leap :) You can get higher with a little run up so it's not actually that hard to jump a car from one side to the other :)

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Wow, that is impressive. Can (could) you dunk? :)

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LOL. Of course. I could do a 360. I had the air time. I'm also about 6'2.5" so, haha.

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Wow!! Impressive numbers. 6'2.5" (or 189 cm) is actually not that much for a basketball player (we used to have a 227 cm guy in my hometown basketball club :D) so you must have had some amazing jumping skills. I, at 177 cm, can only touch the board but I am currently working on touching the rim :D

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Hehe. Yeah, I could jump for sure. I was only 85kg with springy legs :) (I'm 112kg now 😱)
LOL. You reminded me of a guy on the team, we used to make fun of him. He was the shortest at 5'7. We used to say to him in the first year "white men can't jump, let alone short white men" (ironically I was the only non-white person on the team )

He must gotten pissed off or something, he started working out doing squats and walking around with weights around his ankles all day. One day, he just straight up ran up and dunked on my head haha. I was like

that's motivation for you by the way hahaha.

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Wow really??? I always wondered if people of my height can dunk after some serious training. So thanks for telling me that it is possible indeed and for the extra motivation :) I actually just started doing squats like two weeks ago. I have been working too much on the upper body lately and have always been kind of neglecting my legs (except for running) so I decided to try squats, for the first time in my life. Let´s see if it helps with my basketball goals too :D

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Oh I've seen it a few times. It just takes work as you already know. This kid is 5'7"

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(Edited)

Awesome. And he is even shorter than me. No excuses anymore, I need to achieve that too. Thanks mate :)

Btw I can see he is jumping from both legs, I jump just from one. I might need to work on the technique too.

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ps: that looks like a pretty descent leap from your profile photo. Mind you it's more Kung-Fu than basketball :)

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Hahaha thanks :))) Yeah, definitely more Mortal Kombat like than basketball :) Needless to say I had to perform dozens of those jumps to get one shot like this :D

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You have a great plan Eve. And you're making such an amazing progress. I'm sure you'll get to your old self very soon.

PS: Maternity suits you very well :)

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It's great that you show such frank pictures of your progress. Women hold themselves to such hard standards sometimes. You're a mother. Your body has just been part of the miracle of life. That should be the focus of the postpartum adjustment. Be kind to yourself. Accept the pace at which adjustment takes place, and most of all, be healthy! This is a post every woman should read who is about to give birth or who has recently given birth.

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thank you @pokerm! I'm definitely in no rush and won't do anything extreme =). I am embracing the "imperfections". I know some women get very depressed about it but it's definitely not my case. I know it will all come back in due time =) Thanks for stopping by!

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You rock dear Eve :D Working so hard. I hope it doesn't frustrate you too much - I guess the body for a part does what it wants and the other part will be thanks to your effort <3

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thanks girl! No I'm not frustrated...I'm way too tired for that ahhahaha. I actually don't work too hard either. Right now I work out maybe every other day or every 2 days, depending on how the day goes, and usually only for max half an hour... but it keeps me sane to work out =)

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Wow.. I don't know if this comment is late but you deserve all the credit.... Sweet mom 😄

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