My body - friend or foe?

I know I am not the only new Mom out there wondering this exact thing. Does my body hate me now? Will it ever be back to where it was before I got pregnant? Or even close? Some of my friends, bless their souls, have had the great fortune of weight loss with breastfeeding. Well, as noted in a previous post, weight loss was not a benefit of breastfeeding for me. I was hopeful but just didn't see the pounds melt away. One of my "veteran" mom friends told me that weight comes off in increments - it goes, then plateaus and then starts again. Well, according to her, the next "start" is at 6 months. Eli will be 6 months on Wednesday so I'm fully expecting to wake up 10 pounds lighter on Thursday!

All kidding aside, I have been trying. The scale has refused to budge - it even started going up again! I have convinced myself and repeatedly told Tim that I broke the springs in the scale when I was pregnant and now it won't record weight accurately. That is probably not the real case so this morning I went in search of scientific proof of what's going on with my body. The truth hurts sometimes and a lot of this is what I expected but one thing was not.

I went to Meredith College's Human Performance Lab to have my Resting Metabolic Rate (calories you burn just existing), body composition and calories burned during exercise checked. I feel like I have been working against my body so my hope was that with some hard facts, I'd be able to work with my body.

The morning started with a weigh in and 7 site skin fold test. Then I sat in a chair, feet propped up and had a mask on that measured my breathing and who knows what else to find my resting metabolic rate. After that, we did a treadmill test where the machine measured the amount of calories I burned at various heart rates. So the results....

My weight and body fat were pretty much what I expected. An ideal body composition would require losing 30-40 pounds. I would love to do that!! My Resting Metabolic Rate was pretty depressing (and surprising) to me. I burn 1008 calories per day just existing. That's it! I have tortise slow metabolism. I was hoping for so much more. Nonetheless, you add to that 300-500 calories per day for daily activities to get the amount you need per day. I had previously used some equations to calculate what I need per day and boy were they off! This is exactly why I wanted to do this. I WAS working against my body. Through the test I also found out how many calories I burn per minute at various heart rates and intensities. They further broke that down to show how much fat and carbohydrates were burned per minute. It was pretty cool.

So now armed with scientific knowledge about my "work in progress" body, I'm ready to make this happen. The 1st five pounds will be the hardest for me. Once I see progress, it'll be much easier to stay focused. If you're one of those people - male or female - with a high metabolism, count yourself lucky.....worrying about weight isn't fun.