One of the many, many things women are told when they’re pregnant is that breastfeeding will make you skinny. “It literally melts your fat away!” “Your baby will suck you right back down to your pre-pregnancy weight!” Sounds great! Sign me up! What they don’t tell you is that for as long as you breastfeed, your body will basically stay “soft,” no matter how much you work out. Something to do with the hormones and oxytocin or something. Which is fine, as even at my smallest, I never had 6-pack abs anyway, so whatevs.

I also was constantly told that being in good shape before pregnancy, and keeping up working out as long as I did would help me soo much during childbirth and recovery, and would make me “bounce back” super fast after having the baby. That was so encouraging, and I totally believed it!

When I first found out I was pregnant, I was possibly in the best shape of my life. I was doing boot camp 3 days a week, and running another 3 days a week. I was just getting to the point where for the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying running, rather than just doing it to counteract the ill effects of my sitting-8-hours-a-day-at-a-desk job. I ran an 8K when I was 20 weeks pregnant. I had to stop running at about 24 weeks due to a pulled groin muscle. (That shit sucked.) But, I continued doing boot camp classes until I was about 33 weeks, and kept at it on my own after getting a customized workout from my awesome trainer until about 37 weeks. And I kept doing yoga after that up until my water broke (literally, my water actually broke during yoga class).

I knew, even with all of that encouragement and motivation and hard work, that I wouldn’t go back to my pre-prego body right away. It would take six weeks or so, right? HA. At six weeks, I was still at my pre-boot camp weight, which is about 20 pounds heavier than I’d like to be, and where I was about four years ago. (You can read that story on my old blog here and here.) I’m now seven months postpartum, and I’m still struggling. Not only with the weight, but with the general state of my physical self.

I started back at boot camp at about two months postpartum, for two days a week. It was really freakin’ hard. I’m thankful every single day for my boot camp ladies who get me through it. Somewhere along the line I started jogging, and while ridiculously slow and painful at first, that has actually progressed pretty well. I can do about 3 miles without stopping on a good day, and I’m still slower than I was, but not incredibly so. And I’m using the jogging stroller, so that’s all kinds of fun, plus the thing is heavy, so I’m hoping it will make me even more fit. I’m trying to get in a workout four days a week, but lately it seems like two is about average.

While I can now fit into *some* of the clothes I couldn’t a few months ago, I still have some pounds to go. And while I do love feeling the “good sore” feeling that I have the day after a workout, there’s also some not-so-good soreness and pain that I feel like is always there. My groin muscle that I pulled during pregnancy continued to bother me for a few months, and every now and then still flares up when I’m running. But it’s improving. My right knee sometimes hurts so badly that I can barely get into the car without crying out in pain. And every single morning when I wake up, my feet hurt for the first few dozen steps I take. Pretty much every time I stand up from my desk, I walk the first few steps like I’m 80 from soreness in my legs, knee and feet. Granted, I know I need new running shoes. But good grief, I’ve never had this many aches and pains before.

I get that every body is different, and that having a baby will change certain things about my body forever maybe, but I never heard until well after the baby came that it can take nine months to a year (or until after you stop breastfeeding) before your body starts to remotely resemble its pre-pregnancy form. That’s something I wish I had known, and I hope that other mamas out there know that bouncing back may not happen as fast as you’d like, even if you are super healthy and in great shape, and THAT IS OKAY.

Every day I have to remind myself to be nice to myself, and to be healthy for my body and for my baby. I’ve gone down this path of getting fit before, and I know can do it again, even if it’s harder in some ways this time. I’m still early in this new journey, and I have lots of snuggles and giggles to share with a sweet baby boy, and that takes priority over getting another workout in.

This is what I wrote when I originally posted this at 30 weeks pregnant – and I need these words so much now: “One day I will need to be reminded that I did this; that I. can. do. this. #30weeks & still going at boot camp. Yes, there are modifications, and yes, I’m definitely slowing down, but I’m still doing it. Couldn’t do it without our awesome trainer Lyle and the amazing ladies who are there with me through every burpee, squat jump, lunge and push up.”