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absolament

With every pregnancy I put on about 40 pounds. It usually last up to 3 years, then my body stops trying to store fat, I'm less inclined to over eat, and I get a boost of energy, which helps me get back down to near normal. With my last pregnancy and now in my 30's it wasn't as easy to take off that excess baby weight. When my daughter turned 3 I was at a size 16P. My prepregnacy size was 10P. With the stress of raising a little one now in the past, my eating habits came back down to normal and I quickly went down to a size 14P. But the weight didn't go away as fast as when I was younger. Maybe because now I have a full time desk job whereas back then I was a student in college and walked a lot. To boost my metabolism, I started a gym membership. I only did exercises I enjoyed and only when I had the energy and desire to do so. It turns out I was happy going 4 times a week for "me" time and my favorite exercises: yoga, pilates, step, racquetball, elliptical. In 6 months I was down to a size 10P again. And so, here I am, a year later. Healthy and within my ideal range. However, I joined myfitnesspal so I can lose that last 10 pounds and get into a size 8P, around 130 pounds for my frame. My weakness is dessert and other goodies that seem to frequent the office. I don't want to deprive myself and decided that having a calorie log might help. I was never good at keeping track on my own. I found this site in SELF magazine and here I am. Day one....

CricketKate

Welcome! I'm also struggling with baby weight, though my issues seem to be a little different than yours: I have been able to lose the baby weight with all of my kids by eating pretty healthy. In the past, I got pregnant pretty soon after I finished nursing my baby. After baby # 4, I knew that I was finished. I have found that the weight has crept back up on me (if you count 20 lbs in a year as creeping) since I stopped nursing my last baby. Now I'm trying to get to a normal body and weight since I was either pregnant or nursing for almost 10 years.

absolament

Could it be stress? 4 kids running around is bound to be stressful. I have 3 (19, 16 and 4). I've been reading a lot about stress in my health magazines. Even if you eat well and exercise, stress will cause weight gain (or so the articles say).