My Body 18 Months After Baby

This post is full of TMI so if the thought of that makes you qweezy turn back now, you've been warned.


First I'll start with the elephant in the room, or lack thereof.  I've lost 63 pounds since having Liam.  I gained 49 of those while pregnant.  I had a lot of swelling but it still took a lot of effort to loose the weight.  I've kept it off now for just shy of a year.  At first I just lost the weight, I was skinny fat.  I looked thin but had little muscle to speak of.  I counted calories {using MyFitnessPal.com}for over 9 months straight, almost every day.  Last Spring I took up running jogging, this improved the condition of my body immensely.  It also kept me sane while I dealt with my Autoimmune Disease.  Although I'm now what many people call skinny (I prefer healthy) I'm not as confient as you would think.

First I have stretch marks, the worst of which are on my breasts.  Most of them have faded greatly....except on my breasts.  I got those nasty purple ones that are deep as the grand canyon on my breasts.  I tried hard to breast feed Liam for the first three months of his life, during those three months 90% of my milk was in my right breast, it was literally a solid D and the left one was a small B.  I'd also like to take a moment to say not all women get stretch marks just on their breasts and bellies, I have some in the oddest of places.....I'll leave it at that.

Which brings me to my next topic; my breasts or lack thereof.  You know how some women joke about their breasts resembling tube socks with sand in the bottom after having a baby?  They weren't joking.  For a wide variety of reasons (including my weight gain and loss) my breasts are a very small B on a good day (you know those days when you had too much salt the day before?).  They also are empty feeling, I don't know a better way to say it than that, it's odd at best.

And lastly my stomach.  While it's flater than I would have imagined it would ever be I still have some loose skin around my belly button.  It's not horrible but it's weird sometimes.  I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get it even sort of tight again.

These things leave me uncomfortable even sorta naked, even around my husband.  He doesn't seem to mind but I dunno, I guess I'm still just a little uncomfortable in this body.  It still feels a little foreign to me.  Please don't think I'd trade Liam for my old body because I would NOT.  I'm proud of this strange new body, first and foremost it gave me Liam that in itself is a miracle I would not trade for anything.  This body made it through the crazy experience which was (and unfortunately looks like will be [more on this later]) my Autoimmune Disease.  Last but not least this body did a Half Marathon in 2 hours and 42 minutes.  I really am in the best shape of my life, it's just superficial stuff that bothers me.

I guess my real point is I'm not as confident as you would expect me to be, even though I'm certainly in the best shape of my life.  I have a co-worker who is on her journey to loosing some weight, she constantly says things about wanting to look like me and sometimes I think to myself "you don't want these boobs or belly trust me."  I suppose the real lesson here is to not compare ourselves to others, no matter what they may look like etc. Don't judge a book by it's cover.

Much Love (and Honestly)
-Jen