postpartum body
Until Lily was 10 months old, Lily and another baby her age were home with me two days a week, two days a week Lily was at the other baby’s house while I went to work, and on Fridays I had Lily at home. Since I was still teaching a full load and working on my Ph.D., working out was just about impossible during this period. T was working 60 hour weeks. I was exhausted. We had no help or daycare. The one bit of exercise I got during this time was a one hour walk with Lily in a jogger about four times a week. I didn't even think about running because Lily breastfed a lot for the first year and frankly, my breasts were so huge and unwieldy and leaky that I just thought running would be disastrous. I did that walk in the wind, in the rain, in the snow. I depended on it. It saved my sanity many days.
When Lily was 10 months old, we started taking her to daycare twice a week, and it was a little easier for me to fit workouts into my schedule. I started doing pilates again and using my NordikTrak. After 10 months of not doing my usual workouts, I was very frustrated with how much strength and aerobic capacity I had lost. It was actually completely pathetic. I could barely do 20 minutes on the NorkikTrak. Since I was only able to work out about twice a week because of childcare issues, it took a long time for me to build back my strength and aerobic capacity.
One other factor during this time period is that I was still breastfeeding Lily twice a day until she was two and I was hungry all the time. I could probably eat 3000 calories a day and not gain any weight, which was great, but I still had no strength.
When Lily was three, I started taking a weekly yoga class, which helped with stress in addition to helping me build back strength and flexibility. I also finished my Ph.D. coursework during this time, which freed up enough time for me to start lifting weights again and working out 4-5 times a week. Once I was working out 4-5 times a week, my strength and aerobic capacity improved quickly.
So now Lily is five and I think my body is pretty much where it was before I trained for the marathon, with one exception. My waist has never gone back to exactly the same shape it was before. I have a flat stomach and very well developed abs, but there’s some extra skin on my belly, and the sides of my waist just don’t indent the way they did pre-baby. It’s impossible for me to know if my waist would be this shape just from aging even if I hadn’t had Lily. In any case, I can’t complain. I’m strong, I’m fit, my clothes fit.
The one bizarre post-baby change to my body is that my feet are smaller. I had read while I was pregnant that some women’s feed get bigger during and after pregnancy. Somehow I went from a 7 ½ wide to a 7 regular. Otherwise, I’m about the same size now as I was pre-marathon.
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