My Postpartum Exercise Plan

LMS smooching on her baby brother

he's not really upset, he just makes a lot of faces while sleeping :)

I didn't have a super-defined plan for how I'd get back in shape and lose the baby weight- unusual for me not to have everything planned out, I know.  But, I tore/badly pulled a groin muscle while pushing out LMS and it took a long time to heal- i.e., it took a long time for it to not hurt to walk.

So, I was waiting to see how the L & D went before making plans this time around.  This time there were no pulled muscles so the main holdup was waiting for the stitches to heal.

Oh yeah, and having the energy to exercise :)

LMS wanted to do the Halloween 5k again, and we'd planned on Mr M doing it with her while TLM and I spectated. Which meant that of course Mr M had drill scheduled that weekend. Seriously, I can't count the number of times this has happened, and it's very annoying.

So I put TLM in the carrier and walked the race with LMS. That made it the 6th race of the year, so I hit that goal, at least!

This race was a bit earlier than recommended (3 weeks postpartum rather than 6), but I justified it because I walked it instead of running it. Since I was able to run the day before giving birth, I'm confident that I can handle jumping back in to my workout schedule, but I'm not planning anything crazy or stupid. I'm just starting out by spending some time on the treadmill, gradually increasing the ratio of running to walking.

I wanted to start hitting the treadmill four weeks ago, but that week was a bit crazy and my energy levels still weren't where I wanted them to be. A week later, on the 11th, I gave it a go. After an early am feeding at 5, I headed downstairs to hop on the treadmill while TLM was in his post-nursing milk coma.

I had been falling back asleep after these early morning feedings, but I always woke up more tired. I've found that if I can just get out of bed and get going, I'm actually more energetic, even though I've had less sleep. Apparently my body is finally remembering that once upon a time (in high school) I used to be a morning person and now my sleep cycle can't handle going back to sleep.

I've also started using the Jungle Gym again to tone and strengthen my muscles. My abs are squadgy and I need to make sure my legs and knees don't have problems again.  I'm continuing to use the foam roller consistently (it made a huge difference while I was pregnant) and it has helped with sore muscles that have appeared with the increased workout intensity.

Last week I ran the Turkey Trot, almost 8 weeks after TLM was born. While I wan't in optimum running condition, it was a good opportunity to see where I'm at physically and what I need to be working on right now (hills and endurance). The Turkey Trot was the 7th race I completed this year, which is the most races I've done in one year since my high school cross country days. Yay me!

Now that the Turkey Trot is over, I'll settle into an actual training plan where I build my mileage and endurance while preparing for the New Years Day 5k.  From there, I'll continue building my mileage and endurance so I can run more races in the spring.

• The Mud Run in February. I realized last year that this is a race that would be a lot easier with a partner, so I've asked a friend to run it with me.
• A local 10 mile race at the end of March, which would be a good lead-in to--->
• My big goal of a local half marathon at the end of April.

I'll see how those go and then plan my next races. I'd like to do:

• the June 5k at the beginning of June.
• the Women's 4 Miler at the end of August.
• the Great Smoky Mountains half marathon towards the end of September. This will be our destination race for the year since there's no way I'll be ready for the Disney World half marathon in January.
• the Halloween 5k towards the end of October.
• the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.

If I manage to do all these races that'll put my total for 2014 at nine. I've tried to space them out and not over-do anything- there's always more races that could be run, but it wouldn't be beneficial. The main thing I have to be aware of is to train smart and avoid injury, or none of these will be happening.

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I can't talk about my postpartum exercise plan without also talking about postpartum weight loss.

Don't hate me, but it only took a week to lose the baby weight. I was wearing my pre-pregnancy clothes the day after we came home from the hospital. {yay!}

Admittedly, I only gained 15 pounds, but I was surprised at how fast the weight came off. We didn't have an accurate scale when LMS was born, so I don't know exact numbers, but I think I gained about 25 pounds with her. I do remember it came off pretty easily, but not in a week. Unfortunately, once I lost the baby weight I couldn't lose any more.

This time I'm determined to get back into weight loss mode and get below my pre-pregnancy weight. Since I got pregnant while in the process of losing weight, my goal now is to pick up where I left off and finally get down to my target weight, which means I need to lose about 35-40 pounds.

What are some things you've done to lose weight after a pregnancy?