42 Months On, 42 Months Off.

Raise your hand if you've ever been pregnant and heard the old adage "Nine months on, nine months off" regarding pregnancy weight? You know the advice. We have all heard it at least once. If it takes you 9 months to gain 25 or 35 or 55 pounds, it's going to take you 9 months to lose it.

Yeah, and breastfeeding makes the weight melt right off.

And it's also normal for babies to STTN from 4 weeks old!!!

Oh...wait....

So, back to that old adage. Can we talk about it for a minute? Because I am not sure where the 9 on/9 off thing originated from, but I'm here to say it's just not always true. There will be those women (many of my friends, sadly, because as much as I love them it also makes me feel a bit stabby toward them) who will gain 30 or 40 pounds and then lose it by their 6 week check up. But more common than that (at least I hope...for my sake) are the women who will gain 30 or 40 pounds and...still be carrying most of it more than 9 months later.

So I'm proposing a new rule of scale: screw the 9 month bullshit. If you're genetically gifted and/or bulimic out your boobs like some women I know (i.e. make so much milk you're shooting calories out your teets faster than you can shove them down your throat), kindly skim on down my blog and take a gander at them pretty pictures of those beautiful children below. But for the rest of us? The new math goes like this:

Take the total # of months you've been pregnant (for me 2 kids = 10 months each = 20 months)
+ The number of months total you spent breastfeeding and/or pumping (19 months for me)
+ The number at the beginning of your age when your youngest was born (I was 30, so 3 for me)
= The number of months it will actually take you to hopefully get within 5-7 pounds of pre-baby weight (42 months for me)

Rohan weaned himself and I quit pumping 6 months ago. So the way I see it is this: I still have 36 months (THREE YEARS!) to get back to pre-baby weight.

:::takes a moment to feel proud of the 13 pounds I've lost toward that goal thus far:::

Hearing no arguments to this proposed new rule, I so order it. So, ladies with spawn take comfort in knowing it's OK to dine on chocolate cake while breastfeeding instead of worrying about your baby weight. We deserve credit for time served in the line of duty, whether it be with a baby in the belly or on the boob!

Post-Script: I was out of town for 5 days on a vacation where I ate anything and everything that sounded good. Ice cream twice in one day? Why not. Puffy Cheetos while driving from the Central Coast to LA? Perfect snack! Pancakes with real syrup? Divine. But thanks to my personal trainer (also known as an extremely heavy little 14 month old who wanted "MAMA!" and only "MAMA!" the entire trip and insisted on being carried through the entirety of Monterey Bay Aquarium, up and down the pier, across Brighton Beach and over the Santa Cruz Boardwalk) I managed to lose 1.2 pounds for the week. Go me!