Today marks exactly five months since the birth of my second child. I am amazed at how quickly those five months have gone and how quickly my newborn daughter turned into a laughing, squirming, and very interactive baby. Gone are the days of healing and chilling. Life has returned to normal swiftly and without warning. It is rather difficult at this point in the post partum stage to recognize how my journey has progressed. All the signs of my pregnancy are pretty much gone aside from a few stretch marks and a few extra pounds that still remain. My clothes … Continue reading →

Now that I am almost five months post partum (it is crazy how quickly time passes), I am realizing that my post partum journey is hardly over. As this stage of my life progresses and evolves, so must my post partum workout routine. It was at this point after my son’s birth that I finally picked up and stuck with a hard core exercise regiment. Gaging my progress, successful or otherwise, has been a particular challenge for me. In a lot of ways I tend to be extremely hard on myself (perhaps this is the source of my motivation). The … Continue reading →

At twelve weeks post partum I wrote about being stuck in a rut of sorts. While my muscles were getting toned and my clothes were starting to fit again, I was not losing any weight. I made some changes by watching what I was eating more closely and keeping track of my food intake with my food journal. The biggest change has been cutting back on sweets. What I discovered was that I was going way over my breastfeeding caloric needs. I was eating when I was not hungry because whatever it was that I was eating tasted good e.g. … Continue reading →

There is a lot to be said about post partum exercise. Whether the motivation is to lose pregnancy weight, get fit after baby, or to simply get back into the routine (all of these are my motivation to exercise post partum), there are a number of things that you can do to make your post partum workouts a success. First and foremost: mental preparation. You need to get it in your head that you are going to start working out as soon as you are physically able be it four weeks post partum or twelve weeks post partum. Based on … Continue reading →

For some reason, subconscious or otherwise, I have an obsession with jeans.This obsession was brought on from having babies. While I have written before about pre pregnancy jeans, I feel that post partum jeans deserve some attention. I think most women can agree that finding a pair of jeans that fit well and make us feel slim is fairly important (to us anyway). Finding the perfect pair of jeans is no easy task. The larger difficulty is finding the perfect pair of jeans after having a baby. After wearing maternity jeans for months, getting into a normal “feel good” pair … Continue reading →

I am almost in disbelief that it has already been three months since my daughter’s birth. I was thinking, hoping, and mostly dreaming (apparently) that I would be completely back to my normal non pregnant state by now, but I still have a long way to go. My perceptions and expectations are being forced into change, e.g. there is not a lot I can do to make my ribs and hips go back into their narrower place (it takes more time than I anticipated). I am caught in kind of a weird transitional place right now. Most of my clothes … Continue reading →

I have never really gotten into cheer leading. I was never a cheerleader and I never had the desire to be one. Cheer leading was something that I rarely ever thought about. My only real experience with cheer leading was with my former high school students. In such a small private high school the cheer leading tryouts were not very competitive. Even though I supported my cheerleaders as their teacher, I did not truly understand or appreciate the value and benefit of their presence until recently. In the last eight weeks I have reentered into the world of altheticism to … Continue reading →

I have reached another one of the post partum milestones. At twelve weeks post partum I have mixed feeling about my progress in the last six weeks. While change has definitely taken place, other aspects of my post pregnancy fitness seem stuck. Compared to my first post partum experience, I am leaps and bounds ahead the second time around, but in terms of my own self imposed goals, I am way behind. I am continuing to exercise at least five times a week. If I am especially motivated, I will get in a workout or two over the weekend as … Continue reading →

I lost twenty pounds in the first few weeks after my daughter was born. Of course I still had the ten pounds left from my first pregnancy. At two weeks post partum I was able to fit into a pair of my post first pregnancy pre second pregnancy jeans. Granted these particular jeans were a bit loose pre pregnancy and at two weeks post partum they were a little tight. Nonetheless, I was very happy that I could fit into these pre pregnancy jeans (which was very different from my first pregnancy; I bought jeans that were four sizes larger … Continue reading →

There is a lot of anticipation for post partum women to get back into their pre pregnancy jeans. It seems to be an ever present goal one that marks the successful manipulation of the post pregnant body back to what is considered normal. To an even greater extent, a woman’s pre pregnancy jeans fitting again after giving birth is the litmus test that the woman has officially bounced back. This has been my position from the very beginning of my first pregnancy. I thought that if my pre pregnancy jeans fit again after my baby was born, then I would … Continue reading →