my daughter is 16 mo old and after having her last december I was in HORRIBLE shape and had alot of extra weight to loose. I had a very rough pregnancy with non cf issues and they basically said I could not excercise, all in all it had been over a year sicne i had done anything really.
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<br />Two weeks after having her I was weighing in the 190's so I started eating healthfully and walking. I continued walking until I was 6 weeks pp and got clearance to do more. WOrking out was 'my time' after my hubby got home and we had settled in I went to the gym. At first I could only walk and that seemed like a good workout, then I could raise incline a bit I thought I was coming along nicely so I decided to do the elliptical and I thought I would die after 5 minutes LOL. I just kept at it slow but sure and I got better and better. Once I felt I was in decent shape I started jogging and still jog a bit. I completed two 5K's last fall and that was a big sense of accomplishment.
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<br />I try to work out 5 days a week and take my duaghter and dogs on a walk most days of the week. Also I work full time so I try to take 15 minutes during day on a break and go walk it helps clear my mind and relieve stress during the day.
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<br />I have also tried to reduce the amoutn processed foods as well as all the artifical additions in my diet because I do believe in a whole foods way of eating being best. It is impossible for me to do exclusively Perricon Program or Mediterranean or macrobiotic eating but I do try to find a balance and do waht I can.
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<br />I am now 5'6'' and 145lbs for me personally I am working actively too get in better shape (I would like to do a 10K if I can ditch this shin splint) and loose approximately 10 more lbs. I have more an idea of a size (8) and overall apperance but its probably 10lbs.
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<br />I have always been against calorie counting as it doesnt seem to be realistic long term however that being siad. Soemthing I found helpful is sparkspeople.com you can track your food eaten during the day for a while to see where your pitfalls are in your eating. It will show you your carb/protein/fat ratio for the day. You can also enter your excercise for the day and it will tell you the amount calories burned. Self.com has some good calculators where you can calculate your basil metabolic rate (how many calories you burn just in your average day). What I did starting out was just eat as I normally owuld and track that for a week then I could see where I was starting out, then I tried to eat healthfully and just track that with no set limit in mind so for me I found I can eat about 1800 calories a day and with my excercise and still breastfeeding I loose at a nice even slow pace. I was able to see through the trending where my personal challenges were during the day or even during the month.
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<br />Here are the links I recommend:
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<br /><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.sparkpeople.com/
">http://www.sparkpeople.com/
</a><br />make an account and you can log calories, foods, read interesting articles etc
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<br /><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.self.com/fitness/body/calculators
">http://www.self.com/fitness/body/calculators
</a><br />this is a page of calculators, you can calculate your BMI, your ideal weight range, your happy weight, calories burned for varyign activities etc
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<br /><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.fitness.com/
">http://www.fitness.com/
</a><br />this has lots interesting articles ideas etc for fitness and weight loss and there are forums for each as well, they run competitions for stuff its great fun
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<br />hope this helps!
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