New mom qualifies for body-building competition 8 weeks after giving birth to daughter.
Wow. That’s impressive. Or completely nuts. I report, you decide.
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Tanya insists: I could do squats ’til I turned blue and I wouldn’t have a keister that nice. But I did fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans about 2 weeks after I delivered my daughter. To my boyfriend’s chagrin, though, it had nothing to do with pole dancing.
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Véronique adds: As a new mother who has been battling the prego bulge for almost 6 months, I feel like I must intervene! The pot belly as in “I was absolutely determined not to get stuck with that little pot belly like so many other new mums.” Well stop the presses: there comes a time in your reproductive life where it ain’t goin’ anywhere. I have toned up and lost weight and if anything, it’s made the pot belly look jigglier. My body is DETERMINED to look five months pregnant and I don’t think anything will change it unless I pull a Kate Gosselin and get liposuction in exchange for air time on my hit reality TV show. In the mean time, I am considering resuming eating dessert three meals a day — as nature intended — since cutting it off hasn’t made a dent. So there! If you were blessed by the Gods of good genes, enjoy it privately. Those of us stuck with the muffin top would be grateful. I’m looking at you, Tanya!
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to diminish this woman’s accomplishments. Indeed, when you are breastfeeding night and day, it is difficult to find the energy to train strenuously. It is also difficult to stick to a high protein, low-fat, low-carb diet since your tired, overtaxed, body is clamoring for MORE OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIPS! NOW!!! So I give her two-thumbs up for self-discipline and an A for effort.
But I have to say that when you are cooking for a crowd day-in, day-out, and that crowd includes two high performance gymnasts, one jiu-jitsu fanatic, a growing 5 foot 10 teenage girl and a husband who runs and lifts weights regularly, “lots of protein shakes, lean chicken, salmon and egg whites” gets long pretty quickly. Unless you are willing and/or able to make two meals everyday, it’s not going to fly, you can quote me on that. Logistical considerations aside, what message would that send to the children, especially the dancers and gymnasts among them? Mommy won’t be eating the same food you are ‘cuz it will make her fat? I don’t think so. In my family, healthy eating is in but special diets are out.
Finally, my husband and I had a good laugh at a wedding last year because the groom had completed an Ironman triathlon. My husband said: “I used to envy guys like him. Now I just think ‘Imagine what I could do if I only had myself to look after.” Indeed.
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Thank you, Veronique, for the perspective. For me, having children almost totally got rid of my former body-obsessedness. I still work out, but for totally different reasons. And yeah, like my OB said, “dieting and breastfeeding should be mutually exclusive.”
Good grief Veronique my daughter has 5 kids but only 1 jock among them. As a result her grocery bill every month to me is Wow. With your gang of high performance types your grocery bill must be the size of the national debt.