How I Reduced 12 Kgs and Many Inches in 3 Months… And With No Dieting!
Journey of a postpartum mother
From a normal & healthy BMI of 24.2, I reached to Obese Class I BMI of 31.5 during my last month of pregnancy. I had put on 20+ kgs in 40 weeks. Post delivery I was 82 kg, glaringly overweight for my height of 5 feet 6 inches.
I had developed many side effects due to being overweight, and coupled with absolute shock over the postpartum changes in my body, I felt like screaming at the top of my voice for the first couple of weeks. I had to wait patiently for my stitches to heal (since it was a c-section) and post 8 months I decided to act upon it. I hired a professional Personal Trainer (PT) and started going to the gym.
I had to be extra cautious not to goof around the stitches and hence started slow. I remember vividly, during my first session I started crying cause I was not able to do even simple Squats. My strength, stamina and flexibility were at rock bottom dragging along my self-confidence.
From there I had come a long way, having a personal trainer who understands your challenges and limitations, and pushes you to your absolute best, worked wonders for me. Slowly we both started to build my basics, strength and stamina, followed by flexibility. Honestly, it took a while to witness tangible results, but my grit kept me going. Being a fit & active person most of my life, I just couldn’t give up in between. I kept imagining myself in my favourite tee and hot pants and oh boy that dream helped me push harder and harder. I also happen to have my picture in the same costume in my bedroom as a daily reminder/motivation for this fitness journey and it helped me immensely.
From dragging myself to the gym just because my PT had arrived, to eagerly looking forward to the gym sessions, my attitude and energy levels took a 180-degree shift as I began to see results. I reduced around 8 kgs in 2 months and many many inches. I never was on any diet since I was feeding my baby and the entire weight reduction was only due to my workout, clean eating and lifestyle changes. At the gym, we used to focus on upper body workout one day, and an abs workout on another going in turns. Leg workouts were the worst, I used to dread them every single time, guess it’s difficult among all for a reason. But my PT had an awesome workaround for that too. SWIMMING!
One of the great benefits of swimming is it works on your entire body, head to toe and gives you an overall toned body, inside out. While it is a great sport which I always wanted to learn, now I had a clear incentive in mind too, i.e. my weight loss. I started taking training sessions and fell in absolute love with swimming. I learned freestyle swimming in a month and felt at complete peace whenever I was inside the water. It equally felt great physically post every swimming session. At the end of 3 months, I reduced a whooping 12 kgs and came almost to my pre-pregnancy form. The only con of swimming I would say is the dreadful side effects of chlorine on the skin. You need to have an extra skincare routine to curb some of the ill side effects such as dry skin, tanning, irritation in some cases and more.
While I was figuring out what was working for me in my fitness regime, one thing I realised that works with certainty for all is our grit and determination. If you have the courage and willpower to overcome all your inner devils then trust me nothing could ever stop you. Now go for it, see you on the other side!
