Losing - Last

When I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter, I was already 15 pounds heavier than I was comfortable with.

This was nothing like my first pregnancy. Four years earlier I had gently gained the proper amount of weight at the right weeks consuming the correct amount of milk and protein daily to meet the needs of my growing baby, blah blah blah. I had tried to be perfect. I had exercised up to 32 weeks and had fruit or yogurt for snacks during the day.

During my second pregnancy, it was if the diet floodgates were opened and I decided I would eat anything I chose. Fish tacos, french fries, chocolate cake, peanut butter and bananas --- I felt like I could indulge myself with anything. Hamburgers, too! I don't even eat hamburgers.

I gained an additional 65 pounds. I had put on each lost pound plus more. I looked at the scale the week before I went into the hospital and not only did I weigh more than my 6'3" husband, but it was the highest I had ever seen it.

My depression this time was slight and short lived. I was determined to lose this weight the right way, in moderation, without giving into my control issues and allowing God to help me in this process. I also knew I didn't have the luxury to waste any time. I had to begin the day I got home from the hospital or I would never begin. I needed to make a clean break.


Our daughter was born and we named her for the grace and beauty that God had shown us over the previous years. She was healthy, and big (9lbs 11oz) and slept like she had been born for it.

The tried methods are always the true ones, so after Naomi was born I went back to Weight Watchers. Again, I limited my portions and counted fat and fiber into my diet. Weight Watchers and daily exercise (this time only what I could squeeze in between nursing and napping and preschool drop offs) helped me to lose all of the weight I had put on by the time she was 9 months old.


I will never again be "scary-skinny" as my husband had dubbed my first adventure in weight loss. And hopefully, I will never again allow myself to become obese again. I feel the most like "me" where I am right now. I try to treat both food and exercise with an even hand, indulging in my favorite foods once in awhile and taking a break from working out when my body begs for it.


The funny thing is, Hollywood would call me fat. I am 5'8", I am 147 pounds and I wear a size 8. I have worn everything from a 2 to a 16 in the past 8 years. I can run a 9 minute mile in a half-marathon and I can survive an hour long spin class. I feel fit.


To be honest, I do look in the mirror and feel "fat" sometimes. I know that I am not, that I am average. And each time I am tempted to believe it, I have to tear down the lies that the world has built up inside me: that thinness and beauty equal worth. Not only did I use to believe this lie, but I staked my whole life on it.


My biggest battle now is not the food aspect (although I have really bad days sometimes) or the exercise motivation (it is hard to get up and get myself moving at 5 am), but it is that I am faced with two little girls who might grow up believing the thinness/worth lie unless it is replaced with something else. Something true.


Maybe they will see my life, how it has changed, and that their mother struggles every day to find her worth in God and not in anything else.

Visit Brad' Huebert's blog for a man's point of view on beauty and the eye of the beholder.