I Love Martial Arts Georgia

Monday, October 7, 2013

The infamous Baby Weight


      I began my weight loss journey only a few short months ago in June 2013. Let me start from the beginning, I had my first daughter in 2008 and gained a whopping 75 pounds. On February 17, 2008 I gave birth to Alyssa Marie and weighed in at 193 lbs. Within the first month I dropped down to 177 and remained there until I got pregnant with my second daughter in 2011.

      I always planned on loosing more weight before I got pregnant again, but I never could keep it off. I really watched what I ate for the majority of my second pregnancy, determined to not gain as much as I did the first time. On June 21, 2012 I gave birth to Ava Madison and weighed 210 lbs.  That was more than I ever wanted to weigh. Being over 200 lbs was scary for me. I needed to do something about it fast.

   Having two kids helped me to keep moving, but I have always struggled to eat as healthy as I should. I think that has a lot to do with why I am still holding on to my baby weight.  I have tried many different eating plans and diets, none of them stuck. I am a pretty picky eater to begin with, so the prepackaged meals were not my thing.  I love sweets and carbs, but who doesn’t? I am learning to have smaller portions of the things I love, instead of cutting out completely.

   I have never been big into exercising, only doing a little here and there. I own an elliptical, treadmill and Pilate's machine. They live in my garage, out of sight out of mind. I go through spurts where I will work out hard for a few days. Then I get burned out and stop. This is how I have been exercising my entire life. I was not making any progress in my weight loss and I was becoming depressed.

   A few weeks before Ava turned one, I weighed in at 190 lbs. My mother-in-law, who also struggles with weight loss, bought us a Groupon for 5 classes at ILoveKickboxing.com/Choe’s HapKiDo Grayson. She had done kickboxing years ago and loved it.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it out. So, I called and scheduled our first class… I knew it would be intense, but holy cow I have never worked out so hard in my life. After the first class we signed up for one year, knowing that it was going to lock us in and force us to stick with it for at least the duration of our contract.


    I have continued to attend kickboxing classes 2-4 times a week, along with a slight change in my diet. I eat a salad almost every day for lunch and have cut back on my snacking at night. It has been around 4 months since I started and I now weight 170 lbs. and have dropped 3 pants sizes. I don’t weigh myself on a weekly basis,  it’s more like once a month. I actually don’t own a scale. My main goals are dropping dress sizes, becoming stronger and living healthier life style for myself and my family.
 
Malia Drake

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