My Big Fat Greek Body

Ok, so I'm not Greek but it wouldn't have made sense if the title was "My Big Fat Norwegian Body." And no one would have wanted to read a blog post titled that unless you're a real creep.

So what's up with me not complaining about how fat I am anymore?! A few months ago I was reading the ask miss manners section of Real Simple magazine (Warning: I'm going to plug quite a few published works) and a woman asked what she should do about a friend who constantly complained about her husband. Miss Manners said that whenever someone constantly jib jabs about something it is clearly very important to him/her and they're probably having a hard time making sense of it. It was like a slap to the face and a cold splash of water all in one: I am that annoying girl who only talks about how fat she is!! You're a tricky one universe! So I decided to stop constantly annoying everyone around me and just shut the heck* up.

By no means does that mean I've lost all the baby weight and I look fabulous. I pretty much look AND feel the same as I did a few months ago. It is really frustrating when you (quite literally) are working your butt off and don't see much results. After consulting fitness instructors, work out manuals, everything on the internet my answer was "Oh, well, do more cardio, eat less carbs and go on a diet." I swear, that carbs thing is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. Even my sweet husband gently had to remind me that I have my father's genes which means we have to work extra hard to look good.** So, my response: ew. I'm breastfeeding so I have to eat more than diuretics and broccoli (I also said that to the girl who gave me a look about wearing a maternity dress at 6 weeks) and I'm doing so much cardio that all I want to do is--you guessed it--eat more carbs. What became even more infuriating to me was putting in hours of ab work outs only to have my stomach look like it was sticking out even more.

Well, the carb gods looked kindly on me and while eating quinoa (literally translated as grain of the gods) I uncovered what my problem is: Diastasis Recti. Its a separation in the abdomen that happens to petite pregnant women/women who have large babies. So in laymen's terms things get so big up in thur that your abs separate and then can't really hold/tuck in your organs and fun inside stuff. There's a test that you do that involves laying on the ground like you're about to do a sit up, lift up your head and then feel your stomach. In my case I could feel where my abs were, and in the middle I could keep pushing two fingers down until I was playing kickball with my kidney. I never realized how freaking messed up my abdomen was until I found out I have severe diastasis recti. Super fun!

There is a pot of gold at the end of this lard filled ranting rainbow though. After some research I found the greatest book for postpartum women with diastasis recti: it's called Exercise After Pregnancy--How to Look and Feel your Best by Helene Byrne. It's one of those books that you might be embarrassed to have sitting on your coffee table when guests come over but it is so worth it to own. I honestly almost started crying while reading the introduction because FINALLY! A woman who understood exactly what was going on! It was like she read my mind. She understood that I didn't recognize that weird flub staring back at me in front of the mirror and that my shoulders are SO FREAKING TENSE! She even described the post partum tummy as pudding like when I think I described it as a ziploc bag full of tapioca.

So my buddy Helene has these great isometrics and stretches that focus on tightening up your deep core and knitting your abdomen back together. A section of the book focuses on exercises you can do the first 4-6 weeks post partum which is fantastic with other sections of hard core knitting exercises and how to not ruin your back while being a momma. It's also nice that she uses post partum mothers as her models instead of super obnoxious Jillian Michael types who wear booty boot shorts and a sport bra. I love this book. And super kegel = super awesome. I just said that.

Now why write about this book? I just remember how frustrating it was to hear people mention knitting your abs back together but having no other information/exercises on how to do that. So for all you other mommas who are normal people and aren't back to their size 1 pants like all those annoying people who say they lost the weight in "like only 4 weeks!"this is my recommendation. You don't need to starve yourself and ruin your milk supply and yeah, go ahead and punch that Orange County girl who judged you for wearing a maternity dress (FYI I'm not ever going to get over that.) Don't get upset when others are stupid and judge you, you had a huge baby, you were petite before, diastasis diastasis diastasis, real women have curves, big is beautiful, hairspray, Kirstie Alley, etc. Kiss my fat Norwegian a**.






* I really debated whether I should write "hell" or "heck here." I went with heck since it was less offensive, but if you really want that sentence to pack some punch, read as "shut the hell up" instead. 


** My father is not fat. He's in fantastic shape. We just lost the gene pool lottery when we inherited the farmer genes. Farmer genes don't know when the crop will have a good year or whether a famine is coming so our bodies store away lots of love for the long and arduous winter months.