My weight has always fluctuated by about ten pounds, which for me meant the difference between having to lay flat on my back to zip up my jeans and being able to comfortably pull them up over my ass by my belt loops because even at my thinnest, I’ve always had a little bit more junk in the trunk. Because of this ten pounds (which, let’s face it, is really more like fifteen) I’ve had the pleasure of being plagued by constant weight-obsession ever since I can remember being aware of my body.

For the most part I’ve been able to keep myself quite lean over the years. A healthy combination

Me (right), pre-pregnancy

of diet pills, crash dieting and targeted restriction has allowed me to accumulate a nice little collection of ‘skinny jeans’-- jeans that I wear when I’m skinny-- and a few pairs of ‘fat jeans’-- jeans that I bought when my ‘medium weight leggings’ became too see-through to wear during the day. Yo-yo dieters will know what I’m talking about there.

But whatever the weight bracket of my single-girl wardrobe, nothing could have prepared my closet for pregnancy. I went ham. I mean, absolutely off-the-grid in pregnancy. Any and all rules about my intake and level of activity went completely out the window. And I wish I had cravings and/or hormones to blame but I don't. It was a conscious decision in pregnancy to free myself from a lifetime of body-image imprisonment and to finally stop beating myself up about being a normal person with a normal metabolism who doesn’t possess the innate life energy or motivation to live in the gym several hours a day. I mean, I was in the process of creating a human life and if that’s not a reason to finally grow up and put these impossible standards of beauty to rest then I don’t know what is. Right?

Wrong. When I finally got up the courage to weigh myself Marin was 6 weeks old and I had gained fifty pounds of real, actual weight. Marin, her sac, her fluid and the placenta were long gone and I was left with a gaping wound just below my abdomen, pudgy knees and a number on the scale that read like a gut-punch. I was completely mortified and ashamed of myself. I knew that I was gaining weight in pregnancy and even had an inkling that I was wider, my ribcage felt bigger and my arms were fattening up but all seemed part and parcel to the massive bump that was growing alongside of these extra bits.

One week before giving birth

Nobody told me that when you have a baby it can take weeks and in my case, months, for your stomach to begin the transition back to normalcy. So in addition to my real, full-body, large-scale weight gain, I was also donning a deformed version of what used to be my best feature and I’ve never been more at odds with myself. On the one hand my body had done this amazing thing-- it nourished, protected, comforted and housed the baby love of my life for nine months-- but on the other hand, it completely abandoned me and shape-shifted into a version of myself that robbed me of my femininity, curves, sex-appeal and general well-being. I began to avoid social outings and stand miles behind the camera because I couldn’t even look at myself. I truly wanted to be invisible.

And now I am faced with a major dilemma. Do I allow my negative self-image to interfere with precious moments and memories with my daughter, or do I finally give up the ghost and appear in photos with her and post them wide because I am a major part of her life and I am so much more than my appearance or my weight. I am a mother, I am a lover, I am a protector, I am a friend-- and I’ll continue to be those things whether I’m 120 or 200 pounds.

I know it sounds trite but now that I am a mother, I feel imbued with the added responsibility of

Me now (one week ago)

conducting myself in such a way that I would want Marin to behave. I don’t want Marin to grow-up weight obsessed. I don’t want her to place inflated value on her outward appearance because social media has saturated and skewed her views. I don’t want her to ever feel less than because of something so stupid, so superficial, so god-damned temporal that it shouldn’t even occupy space in her brain.





Today I am down twenty-five pounds from my postpartum weight and I still can’t fit into my ‘fat jeans,’ but I have gained a shit ton of perspective. I may never return to my goal weight and I may never be fully confident on the beach but the truth of the matter is, I never was. I’m finally beginning to realize that my standards of beauty are impossible because I shift the goalpost every time I approach them-- and if I want to be happy in my skin, I can be. I can re-route my inner dialogue and I can appreciate my body for all the things that it is, it was and even the things it will never be. Because this body is mine. Because this body is healthy. Because this body is beautiful.

#postpartumbody #weightloss #bodypositivity @julesvonhep #bodybeautiful #5monthspostpartum #CandyFromABaby #momlife #momblog #mumlife #mumblog #mumblogger #momblogger #mumbloggers #instakids #ukmum #mummyblogger #motherhood #ukmummyblogger #mumlifeisthebestlife #honestmum #igmums #selflove #selfcare #inspiration #positiveselfesteem