trying to drop the baby weight

Jaclyngfc

Hi, I've been an off and on user for a while, but I've been trying to be more on than off since the turn of the year. I gave birth to my second child (a beautiful little girl, but then I could be biased) in December and would like to at least get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I am breast feeding, and I know that tends to help with weight loss, but I'm also extremely stressed out and am fighting my 6 year old inner child who really likes sweet things, so breastfeeding hasn't been helping much.

In addition to getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight, I never lost the pregnancy weight from my FIRST child, who was born almost five years ago. I currently am at 204 lbs and have my first goal (pre-pregnancy weight for kiddo #2) as getting down to 180 again. I was 234 lbs prior to delivery. This is the highest weight I have ever been and it is adversely affecting everything in my life. I am physically exhausted all the time, slightly depressed and I can't find the motivation to do anything, from clean the house to get my butt off the couch and my nose out of a book to go for a walk. My second and long term goal is to get back to the 140s and to tone up significantly.

I am trying to focus on eating well and making cooking at home a habit, with little success so far. Because I am breastfeeding, I know I should be taking in around 500 extra calories a day, but I am typically hitting the 1000+ mark with extra calories. As the weather warms again, I will start taking walks with the kids.

Some roadblocks I'm facing right now: Going back to work--I'm a teacher and I sponsor my school's robotics team, which takes up a ton of time at the beginning of the calendar year, Lack of sleep due to the baby, the hubby is starting a small business, which takes up a lot of his time, motivation to cook. I'm sure there are some other things holding me back, but I could certainly use some encouragement to keep going and face this behemoth. Otherwise, I feel like I will just slide away, feel awful about myself for doing so, my self-esteem will nose-dive (further) and I'll either just sit here weight-wise, or start gaining again. I have no confidence in my ability to stick with anything at all, to the point where I view failure as inevitable with every task I take on, so I need all the support I can get.