In this post I am going to share about my transformation journey from Fat to Fab, where I lost 20 kgs after my baby daughter’s birth. I was told that once you have Caesarean delivery you can never be able to better the body that you had in your teen days — This was scary to me.
If you just wanted to know about my meal plan and exercise routine, then you can jump to the ‘Transformation’ section in the later half of the post.
To completely transform your body, you need to count your calorie intake and burn, no/negligible sugar in your daily meals, exercise for about 4-6 days a week and most of all will-power & dedication.
Where was I when I started
I had gained 12 kgs during my pregnancy and the weighing scale showed 65 after my C-section delivery. My BMI was 30 and I started wearing L-XL when I was used to wearing XS-S depending on the brand. It was particularly hard for me to see myself like this as I had always been physically fit throughout my childhood. However, after my delivery I was a full-time mom and it was hard to get even an hour to hit the gym because after delivery you aren’t at your full mental, physical and emotional strength. When I look back, I can’t believe that I stayed this way for close to 4 years. Not that I did not try to hit the gym regularly, but I could not be regular for some or the other reason; it was primarily due to not being dedicated enough and to add to that taking care of a baby in itself is a full time job.
When my daughter turned 2 and half, my husband and I travelled to the US for his office work and I was surprised to see how fitness conscious every single of the American is. I saw them running on a typical Boston snowy winter or hitting the gym. I got extremely inspired by looking at them. I started going to long walks and started hitting gym but wasn’t fully dedicated to it. Even though my daughter started going to school 3 days a week, I could not maintain dedicated fitness routine. One of the contributing factors apart from my less determination, dedication, and discipline was post-natal depression which happens to some women after baby delivery and it goes with time.
My daughter was 4 now and we had just returned to India. One day I was looking at my old pics in which I was wearing XS-S size and now I am wearing L-XL and that too with discomfort — this was saddening. After ~2 months we went to the US but in a different city and this time I don’t know how but I decided to work on my fitness with renewed zeal, full dedication, determination and above all with self-motivation.
I figured, no one motivates you unless you are self-motivated.
Fast forward to January 2019 when we were in Bentonville, Arkansas a beautiful place surrounded by nature and home to Walmart. My fitness journey started with walking and doing mild exercises in the gym. Losing weight was the foremost thing in my mind. I wanted to lose weight as soon as possible but had a fear that my body may not hold up due to C-section. So, I decided to go slowly and in a healthy way. I divided my goals into sections. My final goal was to reach 50kgs. But losing 5 kg was my priority. I decided to lose 1-2 kgs per month.
Transformation
My husband and I talked about a plan to achieve this and following was the plan:
- Count calories intake: We zeroed in on MyFitnessPal as it had very good database of food which includes Indian, Chinese, Italian and local American food.
- Eat good meal: Take negligible sugar and sugary food, less carbs, and more protein
- Burn more calories than what I consumed. Do anything that I like on the day to burn calorie. It could be gym, run, walk or anything that can burn calorie. I started with 6 days a week.
- Have measurable goal: Try to lose 400-500 grams per week and not more than that. It could burn your mental strength and you could get discouraged.
Can’t emphasize enough the role of ‘Cheat meal’ played in my journey. But I restricted to one ‘cheat meal’ per week. Some go for a full day of ‘Cheat meal’ but in my opinion it’s too much.
Workout routine:
- Cardio with machine (treadmill, elliptical, cycle)
- Floor cardio
- Strength training
- HIIT workout
- Yoga (including asanas and pranayama).
In my workout I included cardio as well strength training such as weight training, body weight training and ballistic exercises (strength training workouts such as bodyweight squat, lunges, push, pull, planks and core work. These exercises helped me building my body stamina and toning my body.
Apart from gym and strength training I also concentrated on YOGA. Asana as well as Pranayama (breathing Exercise). In yoga, I included Surya Namaskars, Dhanurasana, Ustrasana, Chakrasana etc. These asanas help in making your body flexible specially spine flexibility and help you in tone your body and good for posture correction as well as build muscles strength.
Yoga not only help you in shaping you physically but also gives you mental as well as emotional strength as it includes Pranayama (breathing exercise).
Don’t underestimate your food intake. You will only be able to exercise 1-2 hours, but your food can ruin your exercise benefits.
Meal Plan
I included high protein (I am vegetarian but eat eggs) and good fat in my diet, more fibrous food and increased water intake. If you don’t eat eggs then you can focus on Paneer, Tofu, Soyabin etc.
I designed my meal plan as follows:
- Early morning: lukewarm honey water (around 6:30). Then after 30 mints again 2 glasses of warm water followed by black coffee. (replaced my morning milk tea which I was addicted for since my college time)
- Breakfast: 2 eggs (1 whole), with Poha, Vermilli upma, Plane dosa and Veg sandwich with paneer alternate days depending on what I felt like eating.
- Snacks: 1 fruit. (NO SUGARY FRUIT)
- Lunch: Salad, Roti/Chapati (1), Brown rice, Green sabzi, Daal with curd.
- Evening snacks: someday makhana or peanuts with roasted chickpeas, nuts with seeds.
- Dinner: I used to take dinner by 6:30 or max 6:45. Used to avoid carbs. 2 eggs omlette with salads. And before going to bed a glass of toned milk.
Things that I completely avoided were sugar, Maida (refined flour), all kind of packaged foods (biscuits, cookies, and white bread). This really helped me in weight loss journey. One more thing that really helped me not eating carbs after 6:30.With these workout routine and meal plan, I started losing my weight as I had planned 1.5-2 kgs per month.
After 6 months I lost some 15 kgs and achieved my goal. At present, I am 46 kgs and BMI is 20. I lost weight but I gained so much strength and stamina. I am more energetic now: not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well.
Trust me when I say this: It never feel any better than fitting into the old dress of our teenage days.
It’s 1 and half years now and I am continuing with my journey and will continue because being healthy and feeling fab never ends.