Diary of a Preggo: Pregnancy makes people forget their manners

 Pregnancy Makes People Forget their Manners!

Now that everyone knows I am pregnant (18 weeks), I’ve noticed some strange reactions from well-meaning people.

For example, shortly after the “congratulations” go around, some women love to start talking about my weight. Now, I haven’t gained much yet - the normal amount of weight for being this far along. But even before I’d gained a couple pounds, women started focusing on weight as soon as they found out I was pregnant.

I’ll need to give you a little history here which explains why this bothers me so much. Since shortly after high school, I’ve struggled with my weight. I gained a little in college and spent a couple years kind of chubby before figuring out it was the stupid birth control shot I was on. As soon as I got off that, the weight melted off in like two months without changing anything. But that time period was still damaging to my self-esteem. I spent the next 8-9 years as happy and skinny as could be, without even exercising. Then my marriage and finances started to take a downhill turn and I became depressed. I could tell my metabolism had also slowed as I neared 30 years old. What do you know, the weight started coming back on, a little bit every month. I made some feeble attempts at exercising but didn’t have a gym membership or a gym buddy, so it was hard to stay motivated. Every time I tried to run, treadmill or not, my exercise induced asthma kicked in after 10 or less minutes and I quit.

Instead I started surviving on carrots, slim fast shakes, protein water and the occasional yogurt, eating like 800-1,000 calories a day. I was starving and miserable all the time and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t lose even a pound. After seeing a nutritionist and fitness experts years later, I learned I had actually broken my metabolism by eating less than half the calories I should have been taking in every day. Plus, being so hungry and depressed makes it really hard to get motivated to workout. If I had eaten enough calories of nutritious food plus practiced a good workout plan, I’m sure I would have been able to lose the weight. But I had no idea what I was doing and was too emotionally traumatized with everything in my life weighing on me to figure out how to fix it.

When I finally made the decision to separate from my ex-husband, I made a lot of other big, life-changing decisions. I would do whatever I could to not be back in that horrible place. Some of the weight melted off immediately, probably just a reaction to not being in crazy stress 24-7. I also talked to my doctor to figure out why I couldn’t breathe when I ran. I signed up for fitness classes and went to the gym by myself, even though I felt totally incompetent there. I started running outdoors, with the help of my new inhaler, and forced myself to push through the hard moments when I  thought I couldn’t breathe after one block. Getting away from negative influences and finding newfound hope in life gave me the happiness and peace to be able to sleep at night, giving me more energy during the day. I started getting interested in nutrition, and read up on how to eat right. I may have been broke and in a small apartment, but I had cheerios, laughing cow wedges, and drawers full of fresh fruits. My apartment gym was a walk away; I always ran there and back. I made new friends who were fitness oriented. I made sure any guy I even thought about dating was also active and interested in fitness. I needed a life partner who had the same goals as I did.

And what do you know, the pounds continued to melt off. Fast forward two years, and I’m at my happy weight, doing triathlons and 5K’s and married to a wonderful man who takes bike rides and runs with me daily.

With that history, you can see why I am a little sensitive when it comes to weight. I’ve always been careful about what I eat and would never call myself lazy, regardless of the couple of times I have gained weight. But it hasn’t been easy for me. I have never been the kind of girl that can eat dessert regularly or not pick and choose every little thing that goes into my mouth.  At  5’2 I am petite but also short and stout, so even two extra pounds is obvious on my small frame. Some women haven’t worked out a day in their life and stay skinny. Me, I have logged everything that goes in my mouth in a food journal for like two years. I work out most days a week, and if I didn’t, I would gain weight, even while eating healthy. But instead of taking the hand life dealt me and focusing on how “unfair” that is, I fight back with fitness and nutrition.

Normally, it wouldn’t be socially acceptable for people to walk up to me for no reason and say “how much weight have you gained?” or other comments on my body. But for some reason when I am pregnant, women think they can make rude comments like this all the time.

Women, hear me: Someone’s pregnancy does not give you a license to talk about their weight or give them unsolicited opinions on pregnancy weight gain. It’s rude. If anything, pregnancy is a time when women are even more sensitive about their weight. If they are like me and spent their whole life trying to keep it off, the prospect of gaining it on purpose, even if you have to for the baby, is incredibly scary.

The one I hear the most is “I gained 60-70-80 pounds when I was pregnant, that was such a mistake. I was stupid. It was SO hard to get it off. I’ll never do that again. Don’t be like me. Don’t eat everything in sight...”

Seriously?

How much of an idiot do you think I am? Of course I would never “eat everything in sight” or gain 60 pounds on purpose! What an insult to my intelligence! I mean yes I am much hungrier than usual, which is normal, but I’m eating a lot of protein shakes and healthy foods and not like entire pans of brownies (like Jenny McCarthy said she ate every day in her pregnancy book – yikes).

The only reason I may gain a few more pounds than I’d like is due to decreasing my exercise level. My first trimester I could hardly move and even now, though I’m back into a workout schedule, I often have back pain or other sickness that prevents me from doing as much for as long as I’d like. Even on the bad days I will sometimes force myself to power walk on a high incline for 40 minutes or do a yoga DVD, but that’s nothing compared to the almost daily 5k’s I was running in my neighborhood.

However, even if I do gain more than planned, I will be back at a major diet and fitness routine as soon as my doctor says I can. I’m already signed up for a 5K in October, giving me two months to train. I already have not one, but TWO jogging strollers given to me by friends and family. (one that has seats for two kids)To be honest, I’m only 4 and a half months and chomping at the bit to get back to my normal workout routine. And, I’ll be burning 500 calories a day breastfeeding. So suck on that.

I’ve also heard this a couple times: “I only gained 15 pounds. Just because the doctor says to gain 30, you don’t need to do that. Back in my day, pregnant women didn’t gain that much.”

Please, don’t pretend to be smarter than my doctor. The only way I could gain that little is by dieting, which is dangerous during pregnancy. I am not underfeeding myself so that my baby can leach calcium from my bones and cause me osteoporosis in later life. Babies will find a way to get proper nutrition to survive, it’s science. And modern science has seriously evolved since “back in your day.”

Oh, and with all due respect, shut up.

Last but not least, for those women I hear going around telling everyone in earshot how much weight they gained during their pregnancy and how dumb they were, I’ve noticed that each and every one of them are at a healthy weight. Not one person who has come up to me and said that was slightly chubby or overweight. So, obviously it was a temporary situation for them and not the end of their life.

So please, women, stop running your mouth and trying to scare the crap out of already sensitive first-time pregnant women.

And if you ask me “how much have I gained,” I will smile politely and say something vague, because I am not going to give you that answer. It’s none of your business.