weight loss Wednesday

A couple of people have been noticing that I’ve been losing weight since we got here, so I thought I’d write about it.

It’s funny because most people associate Italy with the food here, but this part of Italy doesn’t really have what Americans consider to be Italian food.  I’ve posted about this before – it’s just not what we expect.  Most people expect to gain a ton of weight eating all the carbs in Italy, but either my body likes Italian carbs or it’s my lucky year. 

I’ve lost close to 25lbs in the 6 months we’ve lived here.  I wish I could say I worked my butt off to lose the weight, but (I’m getting ready to duck) I haven’t consciously done ANYTHING to lose the weight.  (I know, you can smack me now.)  The ONLY things that I can think of as to why I’m losing weight, besides it being my lucky year, is that 1. I stopped breastfeeding 3 months ago 2. I’m very busy chasing an active toddler around 3. I’m also very busy lugging that 25 lbs toddler everywhere (so now I actually have muscles).  So basically, thanks to Abbie, I’ve lost weight.  =)

I might get a little more exercise here than I did in the States.  When you travel and explore new cities, it involves a lot of walking.  Walking itself is good exercise, but walking while wearing a toddler on your back (or a book bag full of all the toddlers junk that weighs as much as the toddler does) is even better exercise.  I think my body was storing fat to put into breast milk, so now that I’ve stopped producing milk, my body isn’t storing fat like it was when I was nursing.  And the only other thing I can think of is that we don’t eat out nearly as much as we did in the States because all the restaurants around here serve the same food and it gets REALLY old really fast.  Plus Mark usually doesn’t get home until 7pm or after and Abbie goes to bed around 8:30pm so that doesn’t leave much time to go out to eat.

My self esteem has gone up a TON in the past few months.  I used to look in the mirror and every single time I would think “ew” to myself.  I would only focus on the flaws that I saw, and I pretty much only saw flaws.  Now I can look in the mirror and think “not too bad” to myself and I can put on clothes and think I look halfway decent instead of feeling like a bloated toad in everything.

But speaking of clothes, I am running out of clothes that actually fit, very quickly.  I know, I know, there are MUCH worse problems to have and I fully admit that.  But I can take pretty much every pair of pants I own off without unbuttoning/unzipping them.  Jeans/pants shopping is one area that online shopping isn’t very fun.  I need to try pants on to see if they fit and Italians wear different style jeans than we do, and they’re uber expensive, so buying some on the economy over here is harder than it seems also.  All I can say, is that I’m going try to stick it out with my current sized pants until I go back home next year and then I’m going on a MAJOR shopping spree.  I’ll probably go on multiple major shopping sprees.  I might as well not even bring a suitcase full of clothes home with me since I’ll just buy all new ones when I get back to the States.  (Relax Mark, I won’t shop at Lorde and Taylor’s or Banana Republic or other expensive stores… unless they have REALLY good sales.  I’m more of a Target, Old Navy type of shopper.)  I’m definitely looking forward to all the shopping I’m going to be doing in the States.  I’d better start saving my money now.  =)

On a side note, Abbie slept through the night last night!  Went to bed with no fussing and didn’t wake up once!  Or maybe I was so tired I didn’t hear her, but I highly doubt that.  I wake up if that kid yawns, even though she’s across the hall, on the opposite side of the house with 2 closed doors in between us.  And yesterday I bought her a crib to keep at my parents house during our stay next year too.  It was a $300 crib from Target that I got for $75!!!  SO excited about that.  Since we’ll be there for 6+ months I wanted her to have a good crib and not a pack n play.  Plus we’ll be able to leave it there and our next kid(s) will be able to use it during our visits.  No, I’m not pregnant.  Are you nuts??  I’m still LOSING weight!  I don’t want to gain any right now!!  =)