Mama-Come-Lately

I hate the gym. Always have. Which is why, when I finally got tired of being pudgy, I began an exercise regime centered on gross inefficiency.

See, there are two flights of stairs in our house. Often, I forget to bring something from one level to another — a bottle I meant to rinse out is still up in the nursery, or the diaper bag I wanted to replenish is on the couch.

But now that I’m consciously trying to lose weight I leave things on another floor so I have to make more trips up and down the stairs. Four things to transport from the nursery to the kitchen? Four trips. Three stacks of laundry to bring upstairs? Three trips. You get the idea.

If the items are small and I really want to feel the burn, I carry the baby. I can always feel the extra strain on my joints when I do this, which makes me feel both grateful and sorry for my knees, because I’ve lost at least the equivalent of two of him. I’m not sure what the precise number is, because although I had a great laugh with my OB-GYN’s nurse the day I blew past 200 pounds, I stopped weighing myself after that.

At this point, I’m a few pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight, but things have, um, shifted, so some of my old clothes don’t really fit. Call it Post-Partum Lesson # 15: Just because you can close the zipper doesn’t mean you should wear those jeans out of the house.