I think it's wonderful that these days there are so many positive messages about the postpartum body. I totally agree that we should be proud of our bodies for carrying and birthing a child, and we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves about recovery and feeling pressure to immediately bounce back into shape.
But I think we can all agree that it's one thing to say you are going to be proud of your postpartum body and entirely another to try on your shorts and not be even close to able to button them. I can tell myself I'm only a few days or a couple of weeks or months pp, but I don't think there's anyone out there who isn't at least just a little discouraged to find that they can't immediately put away their maternity clothes after coming home from the hospital. Although maybe we should all lobby for pants with elastic waists anyway, am I right?
It's a weird place to be, because on one hand it's so amazing the way God made our bodies to grow a human. Our organs shift and expand and contract to make room for that tiny speck on the ultrasound screen, which has its own heartbeat and fingernails and a brain and a tongue and tiny eyelashes, for crying out loud. It's a privilege and a blessing to be able to carry a child.
My skin stretched and stretched, and then the baby comes out and of course there's going to be stomach flab. My hips shifted, and so why wouldn't my pants fit differently? I know this in my head, but it's still hard to look four months pregnant and have the scale tell you that after it's all said and done, you're up five, ten, fifteen, twenty pounds from what you were before you got pregnant.
It's good to be proud of our bodies for doing this amazing thing, but I think it's okay to feel frustrated that our clothes fit differently. They may never (probably won't) fit the same way ever again, and it's okay to feel sad to say goodbye our pre-baby bodies. But we also need to be sure and give ourselves grace. We need to not just say that we are okay with our postpartum body and actually believe it.
And we need to be patient.
I'm very much looking forward to getting back in the habit of working out and exercising, but I am going to take a different approach to it this time than I did after R. The main thing I'm going to do is be more patient. The day I received the okay from my doctor to start running again, I laced up my shoes. Over the following weeks, I tried to continue to push myself to get back into shape, and looking back I feel that personally for me, I wish I would have taken more time to ease into it more slowly. Again, that's just me.
This is obvious but worth repeating: you cannot compare your recovery timeline to anyone else's. We all have different body types, different genetics, different ways of carrying a child, different delivery stories, different ability and time and desire to exercise. You do you and forget about anyone else.
I am not a personal trainer or a coach, so the following is not advice, and of course you should listen to your own body (and your doctor) and decide what is comfortable for you, but here are a few things on my postpartum exercise plan this time around:
-Run 1-3 miles only, focusing on getting faster and stronger at that short distance.
Last time, I tried to add miles too quickly, and this time I want to focus on increasing my speed and endurance for a short distance. I am going to sign up for the OKC half marathon, which is in April, but I won't start training for it or running longer distances until I've spent quality time with the introductory miles.
-Do exercises focusing on healing diastasis recti (abdominal separation).
Thankfully, I only have 1-2 fingers of separation, so it's not bad, but I really want to work on specific exercises to target this area of my body and avoid the things that will make it worse. I didn't do this at all with R, and I probably did some harm to myself with planks and things that I should have waited longer to add back into my routine.
-Do more weights/strength training
I am more of a cardio person than a weight person, but I want to build back muscle that was lost while I was pregnant, and I'd like to incorporate more strength training into my routine this time.
-Remember that something is better than nothing.
I tend to expect the best out of myself, and when it comes to exercise I often feel like if I don't have time or energy to do a long workout or go for a long run, it's not even worth it to do anything at all. But every little bit helps, and something is always better than nothing. Even if it's slow, even if it isn't very long. I want to keep this in mind and not be so hard on myself and expect to be able to consistently fit long workouts into my schedule, because realistically that isn't going to happen any time soon.
Those are a few thoughts I've had recently, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts about this topic, whether you are newly postpartum, have been in the past, or will be in the future!
Related: Postpartum Weight and Recovery after R
Related: Postpartum Weight and Recovery after R
What plans do you have for your postpartum recovery? Do you find it hard not to compare your timeline to those of other moms? What tips or advice do you have to share for good exercises or workouts to do to get back into shape after having a baby?
