40lbs By Halloween?

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Hey all! I am a 20 year old mother of a beautiful baby girl! She turned 6 months May 26th. I was 130 (that was heavy for me as I am usually 120-125) when I got pregnant, and 170 when I delivered. I went down to 160 in a week, but then my back was hurt. Due to the bed rest I was on and PPD I was battling, I gained the ten pounds back plus a couple more. I am now 169.8-170.5 depending on the time of day. I am SUPER depressed and if the stretch marks weren't enough I have to deal with the weight haha!
Halloween I am meeting up with some people I haven't seen in FOREVER and really don't want to show up any less then 130 ish. I've been told it IS possible to lose 38-40 pounds in 19 weeks which is the actual goal, but I don't know HOW. Can anyone give me some pointers? I've never had to do anything like this and have never really exercised before religiously. Help?

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  • oddtrees
    oddtrees Posts: 13 Member
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    Number one would be track everything you eat and I mean everything! I find that if I eat normally and track for a week, it gives me a good starting point. I can really see what I'm putting into my body and what needs to change. From there, start small. Figure out your BMR and TDEE to figure out how many calories you should be eating in order to lose weight. Continue counting your calories and try to reach your calorie goal daily. Don't worry or get frustrated if you go over. It happens. Some days I'm under by 200, other days I'm over by 200. If you have a day where you go over, think over that day and try to figure out why you went over- were you hungrier than normal? Did you go out to eat with a group (eating a group makes people eat more usually)? Were you really active that day? Were you just eating because you were bored?

    Really think about what you are putting into your mouth. The key to long term weight loss is lifestyle change and changing habits. As I said, you can start small. Maybe instead of a coffee with two creams in the morning, you do one cream and skim milk. Then maybe after a week or two, you switch over to just skim milk. If you drink soda, switch to diet. Then maybe try to transition to drinking no soda, or something like seltzer if you like the bubbles. Are you cooking all your meals? I've found that not even buying frozen or premade foods really forces me to cook for myself and make healthy meals.

    What kind of exercise are you planning on doing? You have a young baby, so maybe try going on walks everyday. Or take your daughter to the park and actually run around with her. If you need to go to the corner store, walk there instead of driving. In the beginning, it's important to just get moving. Join a gym, take some classes, and figure out what kind of exercise works for you. I know of some mommy-and-me swim classes, if you want to get your daughter involved, so maybe look into one of those--- although your daughter may be too young for that, now that I think about it haha.

    Good luck with everything! And congrats on the baby. Hope everything works out for you, with the weight loss, your back, and the PPD.