25th April 2017

How After Baby Started

As After Baby started as a Slimming World Instagram diary I thought I’d explain how it all began.

I gave birth to my little man in December 2015, a week before Christmas. Before I fell pregnant I had got to my biggest in years and had attempted to do SW at home but failed miserably after a couple of weeks and gave up. I don’t think I was ready at that point, I was comfortable and my size 14s fitted so I wasn’t too bothered. Shortly after that failed attempt I found out I was pregnant and then that became my excuse to eat EVERYTHING. I know that you don’t need to eat for 2 but the little voice in my head (who is named my Inner Fatty now and still takes over from time to time) was telling me that I was going to get fat anyway so what did it matter! I was eating takeaway after takeaway then piling chocolate on top. I shouldn’t have listened to her.

This picture was taken 3 days after he was born and I was mortified when it appeared on Facebook. I figured I still had water weight though and my belly was still going back so wasn’t too fussed. About 3 weeks after I went shopping for some new clothes as I was fed up of leggings and my jeans from before pregnancy had been stretched out and 1 pair had even ripped as I wore them for as long as possible. I thought I had lost most of the water weight so just grabbed my usual size 14, stretchy skinny jeans, some baggy jumpers and went home. I really should have tried them on in the shop…. I got home excited to try on my nice new clothes, the jeans wouldn’t come past my calves and the baggy jumpers were TIGHT, not even slightly how I’d pictured them! I cried my eyes out and that made my decision clear, I had to do something about my weight as I didn’t want to wear my maternity leggings forever and I couldn’t have any more photos like that one showing up on my profiles. I dug out the old SW book that my colleague had given me and started again.
I have never managed to stick to anything like this, I hated cooking and loved (written in past tense but I still do) pizza! I managed to stick with it though, trying new recipes and actually enjoyed making them! I became a bit of a housewife, cooking everything from scratch and even making SW friendly cakes! I then started up my Instagram after seeing so many great ideas on there, it also seemed like a great way to diarise my food and look back on the weeks I had had good losses to see what I had eaten. After about a month I started to slip, I had lost a stone but my birthday had arrived and the takeaways became the easier option once again. I still continued to lose weight but it was getting harder and I needed more motivation which is when I joined a group. By this time it was April and I had lost a stone and a half, so I set my target at a 2 stone loss. I figured that was a reasonable target but in my head I just wanted to be a size 12 and that was what I was aiming for. 

I reached my 2 stone target by the middle of June but now I had a bit of an issue, not a bad one mind you, I’d lost too much to fit in size 12’s but not enough to get in a 10! It had been a very long time since I was a 10, the only reason I’d been that small before was due to my breakup with my daughter’s Dad which was just stress induced and I had spent less than a year at that size before piling on the weight again. I spent a month and a half at my original target weight before deciding to lower it by half a stone, which I struggled with a bit at first but the incentive of not having to pay again pushed me to get to target. I reached it at the beginning of September and I can honestly say I have never felt happier. I still struggle with self esteem at times and I do sometimes consider lowering my target again but I don’t want to look like a skeleton, I’ve been that end of the scale and it wasn’t a good look. 

I now model wedding dresses for a local company, doing catwalks. This is something would never have imagined doing a few years ago. There are other models I work with that are skinnier than me but I don’t look fat next to them and that is such an amazing feeling!

Best of all though is that I can now wear baggy jeans, tops and hoodies and feel totally comfortable in doing so. I would never have worn a sweatshirt 3 years ago because I would have felt frumpy and just generally a bit shit and I lived in skinny jeans as they made me feel skinnier. I now LOVE my boyfriend jeans and a baggy t-shirt tucked in! 

Honestly, joining Slimming World was the best decision I ever made! And on that note… It’s time to face the scales.

If you made it this far, well done! I salute you!

xx