The Wardrobe Stylist

Last month I opened up on the blog about my fitness journey since I’ve been a teenager. It’s a series I started to document to show what I did over the years to achieve the level of fitness and body shape I’ve always wanted in hopes of helping others.

In episode 1, I left off at the Glamour diet that helped me lose some of the weight I wanted rid of 18 months after my first pregnancy, as I wanted to lean out more. Now I am taking you on to what I did after my second pregnancy to losing baby weight I gained.

Losing Baby Weight Gained After the Glamour Diet

I kept the weight off I lost on the Glamour diet for a year an half. The body has a comfortable weight it tends to want to stay at, depending on the type of exercise you do, your age, your hormones, and your food of course. The comfortable weight my body likes is the one I got to after my first pregnancy, which was 10-15 pounds heavier than I got to 18 months after giving birth to my first son.

Body Memory

Muscles and fat in the body have a memory which they tend to go back to (explaining why sometimes we end up gaining some weight back even when we haven’t changed our diet or why when we try the same programme after a while, it doesn’t work).

To get the body to drop again, you have to shock it. Which is why when I tried yet again to implement Weight Watchers, the Glamour diet, and tons of cardio again, I only managed to drop 5 pounds. My body already knew what I was throwing at it and wouldn’t budge. I had to be smarter….but how??

Garcenia Cambogia

At that point, I had read about garcenia cambogia and it’s great effects combined with a great diet and exercise plan.

I’m sure many of you already heard of it. Did you know that garcenia cambogia is:

• Is a small green tropical fruit also known as the Malabar Tamarind originating from India and South-East Asia.
• Traditional Asian cuisine uses the fruits in various dishes; which constitute a natural remedy against obesity and are also a great energy provider.
• an appetite suppressant that’s effective for emotional eaters by increasing serotonin levels in the brain, which assist with proper sleep, stabilizes mood swings and also helps maintain self-esteem. 
• It helps block fat production and decreases belly fat by blocking an enzyme called Citrate Lyase, which the body uses to produce fat.
• It helps increase energy level. The active substances saturate the glycogen deposits in the liver and other tissues, reducing appetite but increasing energy levels.

While that seemed like the solution I needed to kickstart my body again, it was the wrong timing…I got pregnant and it’s not recommended for pregnant women.

If you are looking however for a brand to try, here’s one that was recommended to me which comes with an e-book that explains the benefits of garcenia cambogia.

Second Pregnancy

During my second pregnancy, I was on medication, extremely nauseated and throwing up the whole pregnancy just as I had been for the first one. Still I maintained a healthy diet and exercised. For some reason (mainly due to the medication slowing my metabolism), I gained 30 pounds. I reckon this is nothing for some women but for me it was a big deal as my baby weighed the same as his brother and I maintained my healthy habits.

After Delivering

After birth, no matter what I did, I couldn’t losing baby weight I had gained. I was still on medication, and in desperation, I went back to Weight Watchers. I decided however that this time I was going to incorporate some weight training. Since I was a novice at weight training, I decided I would do a class or 2 a week alongside my cardio training. I lost a few pounds here and there but I was nowhere near able to losing baby weight I had gained. I couldn’t take my magic Garcenia Cambogia pill as I was nursing, and it’s not recommended for that either.

So I decided to call it quits on dieting and exercising. I knew that being on medication wasn’t helping my case but I had also lost the babysitter I had during the day to go workout and it was too busy at night to go after my husband and my other son came home. I also decided to go on a 5 week trip where I didn’t want to be bothered with diets and exercise. I basically lost all motivation to losing baby weight I gained.

3rd Pregnancy – Surprise, it’s Twins!

I went back to work a year after delivering to only find out a few weeks later that I was pregnant with twins! I was not expecting that. My little one hardly turned 1 and here I was pregnant again not with 1, but 2 babies! Needless to say, it was stressful at home.

The Loss

This pregnancy didn’t last. I was almost 3 months along before the babies died. One of them was a-cardiac, meaning it had no heart and living off the other twin. It’s a very rare condition (about 1 in every 35,000 twin pregnancies). Yet the chances of their survival was 70%, but it wasn’t meant to be. I had a hard time accepting their fate, which pushed my goal to losing baby weight I gained even further. I did go back to the gym shortly after and started to watch what I ate but to little avail.

The Thyroid Solution Diet

About 5 months after the miscarriage, I decided I was fed up with the way I looked and wanted to losing baby weight I gained. I started reading up on the Thyroid Solution Diet from Dr. Ridha Arem.

I was convinced I had hypo thyroid (even though I didn’t). I was doing everything and could not drop. Sure age and pregnancies had a role but I thought there must have been something more. Even though I was technically in the normal thyroid range (between 3-5), I figured, why not give this diet a shot. I no longer had to take medication so that helped shed off a few pounds within the first week!

Preliminaries

Before beginning, I changed a few things:

• I wore the Squeem waist cincher for 6 weeks 8 hours a day. It didn’t make me drop pounds, but it brought my waist back to its original size.
• According to Dr. Arem and most other health specialist, sleep is important, this was an area that was lacking for me. I was still nursing which meant I was still waking up at night. So I cut that.
• I also got sun blocking curtains to ensure the room remained dark when the sun rose.
• Since I stopped nursing, this meant I could take the Garcenia Cambogia, which I did.
• I felt better so I no longer needed to take the medication, so I quit that too.
• For the first 6 days of the diet only, I had to detox by drinking a really gross detox smoothie twice a day, first thing in the morning and before dinner. Blend with some water (I found it doesn’t blend well if you don’t put in any water):
  • 4 small strawberries
  • 2 stalks of celery with leaves, coarsely chopped
  • 1 cup of fresh spinach
  • 1/2 a lime
  • 1 garlic clove crushed
  • 1 cup of chopped parsley
• Then eat raw fennel with your shake. It boosts your immune system, and its weight-loss capabilities date as far back as ancient Greek times. Fennel has strong antioxidant benefits and also aids digestion and suppresses the appetite.
• I ate on schedule to avoid food cravings an help with portion control.

The Food

The Thyroid Solution Diet is split into 2 phases. The first was 6 weeks, the second was for 12 weeks. Once the second phase ends, you should start again with the first phase but for 2 weeks only.

Below is a sample of what you can eat. The book details many more food items you can choose from. If you like variety, I suggest you get the book and create your own combos

Phase 1

Breakfast

• 2 egg whites + 1 whole egg – Protein 1
• 1/2 cup low-fat or fat-free plain yogourt – Protein 2
• 1 1/2 cups of cucumber – Fibre
• 2 tablespoons avocado – Fats
• 1 cup of blackberries – Carbs

Snack #1

• 1/2 cup baby carrots
• 2 tbsp hummus

Lunch

• 4 ounces fish – Protein 1
• 1 cup lentils – Protein 2
• 1 cup broccoli – Fibre
• 1/8 avocado – Fats
• 1 cup of blackberries – Carbs

Snack #2

• 10 almonds

Dinner

• 5-8 ounces turkey – Protein 1
• 1/2-3/4 ounces goat cheese – Protein 2
• 1/2 cup quinoa – Fiber/Protein 3
• 1-2 cups asparagus – Fibre 2
• 1 tsp olive oil – Fats

Exercises

I was still stuck on tons and tons of cardio. It’s fine while the effect lasts and at the time, it was working. What I changed when I implemented the Thyroid Solution Diet was the form of exercise. I did much more HIIT training. Generally that looked like this:

• 1 minute high intensity
• 2 minutes medium to low intensity
• repeat for 30-40 minutes 5x a week.
• incorporate ab workouts 3x a week.

I was back to my pre-second baby weight. At that point, I began working on toning and touch on phase 2 of the plan.

In Summary

My weight struggles after my second and third pregnancies lead me to go various ways, give up and finally get back on my feet to losing baby weight I gained. To recap what I did to finally drop those pounds were:

• Wearing a body cincher
• Taking Garcenia Cambogia
• Sleeping 6-8 hours
• Taking a detox shake for almost a week
• Following the first phase of the Thyroid Solution Diet to get my body back on track.

The next phase will take you to how I began my toning up regimen and phase 2 of the Thyroid Solution Diet after losing baby weight I gained. Stay tuned!

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you might like to receive my fashion, beauty, fitness, home décor, and DIY tips and tricks that will save your life right into your inbox! Get a free health hacks download when you sign up!

This is Grace

Grace from Color & Grace. Based in Troy, Michigan, Grace is a 41 year-old petite woman who loves colours. Born and raised in China, she moved to America for love in 2007. Her day job – teacher. Her dream job – fashion blogger. Make sure to go and check out her blog and leave her a comment on her awesome outfit.

It’s Time for You to Link up

Make Sure to Follow Your Host

• Bloglovin: Grace & The WardrobeStylist
• Google +: Grace & The Wardrobe Stylist
• Instagram: Grace & The Wardrobe Stylist

Here’s a list of the linkups I link to. You can also sign up for the link up there.