Ok its been a long time...9 months to make n bake 9 months to get in shape

Its been a long time I know, why not give up the whole tracking thing but I have learnt alot in this time that I wish to impart to you funky mammas!

My first thought is it takes 9 months to make n bake a baby and 9 months to get back in shape. I have lost
3 stone or 21 pounds which is my baby weight and now with the coming of spring an extra stone to feel
good in my boots..and nothing else, will take a slower journey still. I am hypothyroid which means it is medically very hard to lose weight ( those.. its my glands! stories actually apply to me and other people on thyroxine 150 mcg a day) so if I can do it! anyone sitting in a cushion of body fat necessary for the production of your child and milk making it will come off. Believe me it will.

I am still breast feeding which becomes after 6 months a political hotbed for debate. I was not entering a political debate out of choice by still breast feeding its just what happened, this is my first son and I am sure if I have another child if I stop at three or four or six months all will be determined yet again by how I feel, what happens to work naturally or what just feels right. That is all I wish for others just to feel what is right for you. There is no right! Listen to the echos of the women up in the hills of time, they did what was right they listened to their inner voices and to their mothers and friends and then did what was right for them.

At about 4/5 months still tired and carrying all the extra weight I just started to walk to the baby screening cinema's twice a week. Through a park in the dead of chilly december and january. It was about 5 miles all round and just getting there, up hill mostly to Hampstead Everyman was enough
to start the body back into motion. i would have the carrot cake and tea that comes with the ticket and still slowly my body would move back into gear. Slowly step by step.

My tips in short hand are.
1. Enjoy your time with your baby each moment becomes another so enjoy when they are little and cosy up with them and take it easy on yourself.
2. pick a destination ( I can't just walk aimlessly in a park so destinations with reward are what worked for me! A cinema a friends house a cafe anything with a warm reward and just aim to get there twice a week.
3.
I joined a gym at 5 months, to give myself a chance to just be doing something else other than feeding him etc. I started slowly adapting him to the creche ( good for him as he was getting very inquisitive to other children) it took about a month before he was happy for an hour in the creche so I just went on the cross trainer and listened to music for 25 minutes whilst raising my pulse. This way I was working out for 25 min's three times a week with walking up hill and back it was roughly an hour and a half cardio three time a week.

4. Yoga I started doing light yoga stretches at 4 months, after a emergency C-section I took it really slowly i once cycled to Triyoga class and by the time I got back I felt shattered irritable and scared by the sheer pressure I had put on myself to do it. It was too early and my body was shaking and my milk was less because of all the stress. Not great.

5. By six months I was doing yoga three to four times a week plus lots of walking, I was being gentle on myself nothing abrupt or jerky. Just slow gentle sometimes intense stretches were enough to pull my body back into alignment.
6. I only started to look at the scales when I started to feel better and lighter and clothes were loose,
its better not to get fixated with weight but just get into a routine or rhythm and eat well.
7. I bought a new cook book The Ottolenghi  Vegetarian cookbook Plenty. I am not a Vegitarian but the new recipes are so delicious I just add a chicken or fish or meat to it if I want.

The food is so delicious that we all eat it now with no salt to little Sasha can have it all.
If you start having to puree everything for them and buy organic you may as well all eat healthy as it saves time, so as you little one starts to learn to eat well and properly for the first time so do you eat well and healthily. Plus cooking takes up part of the ritual and stops you snacking out of boredom.

More to come...