On October 31 around 11am my son was born. I had been using the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating during the second and third trimesters of my pregnancy. I was on plan about 80% of the time. The plan allowed me to eat well, keep my questionable blood sugars down, and only gain around 30 pounds. Most of that thirty pounds was gained in the first trimester when I had extreme food aversions, no meat, no eggs, few veggies and cravings for simple carbs and junk.
When I had my son I immediately lost all but 5 pounds of what I gained. I was ecstatic. But that was short lived. I am exclusively breastfeeding, if you have ever done that you know it brings on a hunger like nothing you have felt before. Trim Healthy Mama foods are all healthy foods and you do not need to count calories, etc. I took way too much liberty with this. I was starving and just because a pan of brownies was "healthy" I would chow down ignoring the fact I was probably eating tons of extra calories that I did not need. I began to slowly see the weight creeping back up. I got worried as the scale was inching slowly back up. I had to do SOMETHING.
First I tried the 21 Day Fix eating plan. It is actually a really solid plan, easy, and kind of fun with the little containers. Sadly it made my milk supply drop. I tried it twice just to be sure. Within 2 days of starting both times my baby became a fussy, hungry basket case. That plan was out.
Next I decided I would trying good old weight watchers. I have used their breastfeeding plan in the past with success.
Bingo!
We have a winner!
I continued to eat THM foods and count the points. The new Smart Points system is very friendly to a protein based diet, although they penalize you for saturated fat which anyone in the THM, WAPF or Paleo community knows is bad old science. On the breastfeeding plan I am able to fit in plenty of healthy fats like coconut oil and butter so my milk supply stayed up. On WW I quickly realized that some days I was not eating enough, while other days I was eating way too much. I was able to zero in on what foods I was over doing it on and see how much I should be eating. It has made a world of difference, the scale is heading back down.
This has taught me that while THM is supposed to be a no calorie counting, eat to satisfaction plan some of us will need to be more aware of limiting our portions than others. If you are following Trim Healthy Mama and have stalled or are gaining it might be worthwhile to look into tracking your food with a paid plan like Weight Watchers or a free service like Myfitnesspal.com, Mydailyplate.com (which may have a different name now), sparkpeople.com or fitday.com. It might help you to see some areas you can improve on such as eating more or less. It will also help you visually see exactly how much of different foods you are eating.
After 3 weeks of tracking with WW I feel so much more in control and hopeful. I will be discontinuing WW when my membership runs out but feel that the investment was worth it for the insight it gave me.
