Hello! I’m Holly Hierman, CEO of Fit Finances. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog!
If you’ve been following me you know that I am on a mission to get off the baby weight from my first-born! I gained about 45 pounds being pregnant with him and I’ve only been working out for a couple weeks now. At this point in time, he’s almost 2 ½ months old already!
My goal is to track my transformation, not only to create accountability for myself but also to help other moms out there: new moms struggling! Iwant to document the journey. Because lets be honest…not everyday I wanna work out, not everyday I wanna count calories, not everyday I even wanna get up. In fact, this morning, I was sitting in my wonderful recliner and I had just finished feeding little Luke and I thought, “Oh man, I could just sit here and sleep all day long, I’m so tired.” But I had to make myself get up and take a walk just to get my motor going.
So, I’ve written this blog because yesterday I weighed myself and like I said, I’ve been working out for a couple weeks now. But I kinda got into a funk because the scale hasn’t changed! I know I’ve only been working out about 2 ½-3 weeks, but it bothered me! And it was funny because I know better! I’m in the fitness industry and I help people all the time with weightloss, and one of the first things I always tell people when they first start working out is, you may not lose any weight or you may even gain weight during the first month or so and that is completely normal.
Of course, when the roles are reversed, immediately my first reaction was to get frustrated and to get upset. I just felt like, why am I even doing this? Why am I counting calories? Why am I putting everything into the myfitnesspal app? All of these feelings started flooding in! But I realized, that I’m not the only one! Even though I have years and years of training, of helping other people deal with the same situation and being a leader in the fitness industry: I myself can fall into the same trap!!
I want to encourage you today because it was really a mental game last night after I weighed myself and I figured out that the scale hadn’t moved yet. It had been two weeks since my last weigh in. You have to remind yourself that no matter what, you have to keep going and there are a couple of reasons why you might not lose weight or you might gain weight when you first start working out…
Now the number one reason is because you may be eating more because you’re hungrier! Your body says, I’m not used to this situation of this calorie deficit so give me more food! So, it cues that hunger in you. A lot of people if they are not counting calories, watching their portions or keeping an eye on their nutrition, the most common thing is you’ll probably eat more in order to counteract the calorie deficit.
Secondly, is because when you first start working out again, you actually start building muscle! So in that first month or so, your body is trying to figure out what to do with it. So you may not be losing weight yet, but hang in there because it does kick in. When you start getting more of an even schedule, it’ll kick in. And then your metabolism will go up and your body will realize what it’s supposed to be doing and you will start shedding the pounds.
I had to remind myself of all of these things last night because I was kind of disappointed and a little frustrated. I’m sure you’ve felt like this too. Add in the postpartum hormones and oh my gosh! It’s a perfect storm! I want to encourage you, don’t let it get to you!
So the last reason is that your body might be in shock. It’s thinking, What’s happening? I’m not used to this much output of calories with this little input of calories. Or whatever it may be, sometimes it takes your system awhile to wake up and realize it’s time to start shedding the weight.
So, again these are just some reasons you might not see the scale move at first. To be completely honest and transparent, my first thought was to not let anybody know. To not share all of these negative thoughts that were running through my brain. But let’s be honest, I really want to share this journey with you and I know I’m not the only person who’s going through this. Being the motivational speaker and team leader that I am, my first desire was to create a very positive and motivating type of blog to keep you going and keep you pumped up. But I’m gonna be really honest and say I don’t always think that that is what’s motivating. I think what’s helpful is to know what’s real and so that’s what I wanted to bring to you today.
I felt a little demotivated and deflated last night but I picked myself up by the boot strapsand decided to keep moving forward because at the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world! It’s not! Like I said, there are scientific reasons why you might not get that weight loss right away. It’s a journey, it’s a process! Things don’t happen overnight and remember everything worth having is worth waiting for!
If you found this helpful, please add a comment below and share this with somebody who is recently on this journey as well! Have a great day!!
