Body Blues

I feel gloriously curvey when I'm pregnant. I love the shape and eat like everyday is Christmas. I was perfectly convinced I had not gained much weight with this pregnancy - 'you're all baby' - lovely people said and I happily believed them...until nearly four months after having Little Miss and two days ago when I actually weighed myself. The lovely people were actually truly just being lovely, and not at all very truthful. Either that or they hadn't seen me from behind.

It has happened with each pregnancy, I am pregnant pregnant pregnant then suddenly just plain old fat. Its a really tough yo-yo to go through for my self image (compounded after three crawls up and down the weight charts in five years).

All luck and admiration to those (like at least two of my four sisters) who step off the birthing bed and back into their skinny jeans. Celebrity culture would have us believe that is the norm, but lets all agree right now that celebrities are actually total freaks to start with. For normally proportioned girls like me, the loss of those post pregnancy hormones is a double insult when combined with the realisation the picture we have of ourselves in our heads (and in our wedding photos, or beach holiday shots) no longer matches the reflection in the mirror.

So what am I going to do - I know I must exercise to burn fat (although what tends to burn first is my milk supply) I know I must cut down my eating (except I am still ravenously hungry 90% 0f the time) but most most most importantly I must try not to let it get me down.
I must find something nice to wear - in my super sized size - and wear it. I must get rid of the clothes that remind me of a body long gone, and embrace the flowing fluidity of collagen stretched beyond repair. My body has been a baby producing machine for five years and it rightly deserves a ripple of applause. I need to keep in mind I will loose the blubber, but it will take me (personally) at least 18 months. I need to keep reminding myself this as I feel myself sink into the body blues.