I'm not sure how it happened. How did trading one job for another translate into exponentially more stress? I remember the long days of high school and college, working at two jobs and attending school full-time, and most of those semesters resulting in good grades. I remember the 12 hour days of being a flight attendant, when my feet and ankles would ache and *occasionally* I nodded off in the jumpseat from the mixtures of late nights and early mornings and hour long commutes. I remember training new employees at the bank and the math headaches that you get from balancing the vault at the end of the day, yet coming home and cleaning and preparing dinner for my husband. Having a baby and giving up the out-of-the-home work shouldn't have been so stressful, but it was. The days when he just cried and cried, and slept for 15 minutes, then woke up crying again. The nights when he just wouldn't sleep, or I wouldn't be able to fall asleep, certain that any moment he would be up again. With the first baby, I managed to deal with the stress productively. I took him out for a walk around the neighborhood every evening at 8, during which he would fall asleep, and when we got home I could finally attend to all that housework that went undone during the day, before my husband got home from work (I think he got off at 11 in those days). I went out by myself at least once a week, whether I was running errands or visiting the library for some new books. And even during those cry-fests, I had my Gilmore Girls on the tv, buoying my spirits to keep going.
With the second child, actually, just the second pregnancy was a doozy, it became harder to delineate that time for myself. I was so tired ALL THE TIME that nothing productive seemed to happen until the sixth month (the nesting month!). I even put off making Christmas cookies until January. It was during this increasingly stressful time of carting an active 1 year old to prenatal appointments and trying to contribute to our family finances and cleaning up leaves from the yard (see yesterday's post!) that I discovered the answer to my problems. The grocery store sold BOXES of candy bars. Like 25 packs. Of full size candy bars. For a fraction of the price of just purchasing a Snickers at the checkout. At the end of a tiring and stressful day, there was nothing me and my growing belly wanted more than several bites of chocolate covered caramel and nougat. Oh. The satisfaction and stress-amnesia my nightly candy bar brought. And the real kicker was how the extra calories needed during pregnancy negated the impact of these candy bars on my weight gain. I reached the same final weight that I had on my previous pregnancy, and, just like the one before, I actually lost a few pounds in the last few weeks of gestation. Probably a combination of the 9th month nausea I seem to be blessed with and the mile long walks I was taking to try to get the baby in position (totally worked too, delivered at 38 weeks!). As you can imagine, the stress of a second child only increased once he was out of my body and making demands on my time that so often intersected with demands already being made by his big brother. So I continued to buy the boxes of candy bars, upping my daily intake to 2 bars just to handle the stress, especially since I was breastfeeding, and that required some extra calories to keep up, so I could just burn off the baby weight as I had done the first time without really paying close attention to my diet. Um, WRONG. Whether it was the decreased exercise due to my now 2 year old not wanting to take evening strolls around the neighborhood or the increased junk food now catapulting down my throat, when it all settled and the breast milk dried up after the first birthday, I found myself still carrying a bulge around the middle and an extra 10 pounds. Which sadly made me feel more stressed, and so, coinciding with my new part-time job, I began stopping at Chipotle every other week to eat my feelings. I found that they went down better when covered with guacamole, mmmm. The ten pounds didn't go away, but neither did my weight go up for over a year.
Finally, I was jarred by two things. First, my neighbor saw me outside playing with the kids and asked if I was pregnant again. Nope, just hanging on to the baby weight from #2, but thanks for asking. Second, I saw some photos of myself that were really unflattering. Like, I'm not surprised she asked because, wow, that looks like I've got something growing inside me! Obviously, something needed to change, and I was finally ready to look myself in the mirror and take responsibility for my unhealthy weight. I started by using the Couch to 5k running program to get from a mostly sedentary lifestyle (sure, I carried kids up the stairs and chased them around the park and cleaned the house, but nothing that was a sustained, purposeful activity) to being the active woman I once had been. It was not pretty. My first run ended about 6 minutes early, as I burst in the door croaking for water and bent over, struggling to breathe. Thank goodness it got better. I got to a point where I actually looked forward to my runs; the half hour alone, the chance to listen to music I like, and even the running felt good. I am still struggling to get past week 4 on the program, but just taking this time to myself has really helped handle stressful days. Despite my increased activity, however, my weight didn't drop dramatically...or at all. Now time to face the other demon: junk food. I had stopped buying the boxes of candy bars, but was still frequenting Chipotle and other fast food restaurants with the kids...for the convenience of course! And had gotten up to a 3 pops a day habit owing to my early morning job and 2 energetic children. It seemed the only way to keep up. So this past January, I committed to dropping my 10 pounds through a combination of diet and exercise. After 10 months, I've actually managed to keep off 6 pounds, although it hasn't been easy, and I've certainly given in to my stress demons on more than one occasion. But I love looking down and seeing less belly protruding. I love having a little billow in my shirts and a little slack in my pants. I love having energy at the end of the day to slip into my sneakers and run around the neighborhood. And I'm once again carving out some personal time, to feel like I am Rachel for a few hours each month. I love my now 3 kids, my wonderful husband, and the life we live. And I love making healthier choices about how to handle the stress that is inherent each day!
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