Overweight Chinese Family Release Before And After Scenes After Six Months Of Working Out

With 2018 just starting, there’s without doubt many of us have stimulated the New Year’s resolution of feeing healthier, exerting more and losing a few pounds from the waistline.

However, anyone who has stimulated the decision to embark on their personal weight loss journey will know just how difficult it is to even initiate it, let alone to continue your intensive workouts at the gym for a long period of time.

But while it may be a difficult process, it’s nothing short of inspiring and rewarding when you start insuring unbelievable results.

Working at increasing your fitness level by strengthening the muscles in your body improves your self-esteem and the motivation you have in other parts of their own lives.

The best style of going about it is to document your progress in the form of photo. That way you’ll be reminded of how far you’ve come which should hopefully stimulate you feel a sense of pride.

Thirty-two-year-old photographer Jesse from China did just that, merely he decided it was best not to go it alone and had the help of his loving household. Over a period of six months, four members of household supported one another as they constructed the life-changing decision to shed the pounds. And the pictures that stemmed from their efforts are absolutely incredible and inspiring. The photo diary shows the family embarking on their weight loss journey, with candid shootings of them working out in the gym, and supporting each other during long runs. The family’s weight loss transformation started on the 10 th of March and was initially planned to last until the 30 th of September. However, soon enough, it simply became their new and improved way of life, and something they planned to incorporate into their lives long-term. And it’s safe be asserted that their new lifestyles surely had amazing results, as the entire family not only saw slimmer waists, but bulging muscles and cut abs. The before and after pictures of the entire family actually show off how much they lost together, and will hoefully inspire other familys to adopt a healthier way of life. So how did it all start? Well, Jesse’s mom made the decision to move in with her son and his pregnant spouse to help her daughter-in-law during the initial stages of motherhood. Jesse then guessed up the bright notion of inviting “his fathers”, who at the time owned a small bamboo mill, into the home as well. He did this so that they could strengthen the already close bond that they shared together. Unfortunately, Jesse’s father’s life was plagued by alcoholism and a seemingly insatiable indulgence in beer. This had unavoidably taken its toll on his health, weight, and fitness, and something required to be done about it. Now that Jesse was going to be a father, and his own father was going to be a grandfather, he desperately wanted to help him to wholly regain control of their own lives by combatting his reliance on alcohol in favor of a much healthier lifestyle. Just look at this father-son duo now: Unbelievably, Jesse devised the entire makeshift weight loss program himself, and resulted his entire household is a healthier tomorrow. Since exercise wasn’t exactly their forte, at least not initially, they decided to start off slowly but surely. They kicked off their weight loss program with brisk-walking and eventually, they started jogging. ( Well, they do say you’ walking before you run’ .) Slowly but surely, the family grew stronger both separately and as a unit. They then tried other more intensive forms of exercise before stimulating the decision to start a gym membership. After a while of working out at the gym, the family began to track the progress the issue is attaining by measuring their increasingly slimmer bodies and by taking photographs every 10 days. Incredibly, Jesse and his father’s beer bellies have now transferred to six packs and the four of them seem and feel younger than ever. The rest of their friends and family were astonished at how unrecognizable they began to look only months into their epic transformation. They were also impressed at the sheer dedication they put into their new lifestyle. The household hopes to stick to their fitness regime for as long as they perhaps can. Needless to say, it has changed a great deal in their lives but Jesse believes the most touching change was watching “his fathers” be converted into a much more confident human. Yes, dramatic weight loss narratives are constantly being shared in the media and so are always on our radar. However, heartwarming narratives where households create their own weight loss programs and work at a healthier lifestyle together are much harder to come by. We wish the entire family good luck in all their health and fitness pursuits for the new year!

Woman Can’t Understand Why Man Are No Longer Interested In Her After Losing 140 Lbs

When you lose weight, you instantly expect it to change your life for the very best. After all, that’s what society leads you to believe; that skinny is beautiful. But what the publications and fat-shaming Twitter users don’t tell you is that weight loss doesn’t inevitably induce you a happier person.

When Kelly Glover decided to lose 140 lbs, she thought that their own lives would dramatically improve because of it. However, the 39 -year-old was left bitterly disappointed, especially by the lack of male attention she received despite having slimmed down from a UK size 24( US 22) to a size 18( US 16 ). Glover, who hails from Australia but lived in Hollywood for ten years, felt confident in her ability to attract male attention when she weighed 335 lbs. “When I was 152 kg, I got asked out all the time. Severely. All-the-damn-time , ” she wrote in an essay for MamaMia . “When I lived in Hollywood, humen would literally chase me down the street simply to speak with me. This never happens in Australia. Meanwhile, in LA, I’d get asked out at the supermarket, at the gym, in the Uber carpool, and even once while I was behind the barrier of a police stalemate( yes, genuinely ). ” “After losing 67 kg I was half expecting a romantic comedy montage-style life of never-ending gratify cutes with dates scheduled back-to-back all weekend long- but nope. It’s been crickets.” Glover, who blogs about their own lives experiences as a “fabulously fat” female, chose to lose weight after returning to Australia from Los Angeles and realizing that the dating scene was dramatically different. But despite being “exactly the same person” with the “same personality” and “same looks” Glover struggled to attract the same level of attention from men. Confused by her quandary, she chose to ask a male friend for his advice on the situation. Was she imagining things? Or had her opportunity of observing love completely disappeared along with the 140 lbs she’d lost? Desperate for answers, she turned to a male friend for his honest opinion. “Why doesn’t anyone want to date me now I’ve lost 140 lbs? ” She wrote in a letter addressed to her friend, whom she knew would “tell the truth.” Clearly confused by the message, the friend enquires for further information. “Why do u say no one wants to date you[ sic ]? ” he types. “Well no one follows me down the street anymore, calls out auto windows, asks me out on the street, supermarket etc, ” she wrote, inquisitively. As she expected, her friend was savagely honest with his response: “Well people are more confident hollering at fat chicks.” “They feel like there is less chance of rejection, ” he continued, before adding: “So they are more bold.” Glover hadn’t considered this view. “Lightbulb moment. It’s not me- it’s them! ” she wrote, “These guys suppose I won’t automatically say yes so they’re not even bothering to approach me.” “This revelation reminded me of the’ fat chicks are easy’ myth, ” Glover continued to write, pensively. “Which by the way, as a fat chick of virtually forty years, I can confirm is complete bull.” This new found information triggered Glover to change the way in which she sought humen herself. “If you do the same you get the same, so changes will need to be made, ” she explained, “I’m starting with Bumble( the app where women initiate the conversation ). No more waiting around to literally be chased by humen. It’s time to shake things up and attain the first move.” Glover isn’t the only one who is changing her approach to life. Belfast blogger, Danica Marjanovic has chosen to forgo her diet as she attempts to battle her body dysmorphia. Watch her journey here:

Why Losing Weight All Comes Down To Your Body’s Relationship With Food

I’ve tried every fad diet and trendy workout New York City has to offer.

Ive strictly counted calories and preoccupied overeverything I ate.

I’ve done juice cleanses, cycling, pilates, personal training and sweaty dancing classes.

None of that helped me lose weight.

But over period, Ive detected why.

I wasnt listening to my body.

I wasnt being loving and fostering. I was being harsh, critical and exceedingly judgmental.

“Why cant you do anymore jump squats? ” I had just done 120 reps, so maybe thats why.

“Why arent you losing weight? ”

“Why dont your abs look leaner like the women you train with? ”

“Why do your knees hurt when you run? Why are you so tired? Ugh, whats wrong with you? ”

Wow. With that sort of self talk, Im astonished my body does anything for me.

No wonder I wasnt feeling like my best self, physical or otherwise.

Ive since learned the biggest health and weight loss secret no one is talking about: listening to your body.

Thats what I wasnt doing.

When my body told me, “Hey, Im depleted, ” I ignored it and pounded away at the gym anyway.

When I wasn’t hungry for food, but truly yearned for love and needed to do something relaxinglike sleep or talk to a nurturing friend, I ordered pizza instead( and ate the entire tart by myself ).

When my body was craving physical activity, I lied on the couch.

Our bodies are constantly sending signals.

The problem is, many of us arent listening to our greatest allies.

Our intellects, picking up on many self-limiting messages and images from the media, thinks it knows best.

The key is to have our minds and bodies in sync with one another.

Our bodies talk to us, and we need to listen.

All the things you can do to find inner happiness necessitate the body. The intellect isn’t living in a separate house.

I could never fully commit to the best regime of diet, exercising, stress reduction and meditation until I got my body fully on board and comfy with it.

That meant loving, honoring and respecting my body for all it does for me, rather than criticizing it for not being superhuman.

It is vital to work with your body and not against it.

Here are the ways I learned to listen to my body 😛 TAGEND

1. Feel what you are feeling.

Simply ask yourself, How do you feel right now? Be honest with yourself.

Feel what you’re feeling rather than escape through distractions and denial, including narcotics, alcohol, food, run, shopping, social media and TV.

Now, when I crave my go-to consolation food( pizza ), I ask myself why I feel the need to be comforted in that moment.

Last night, for example, I felt lonesome.

Instead of ordering pizza to comfort myself, I called a dear friend on the phone to connect, and I FaceTimed with my niece and nephew.

Afterward, I felt joyful and realise I was no longer hungry.

I made myself some white tea and curled up with a good book.

2. Accept what you are feeling.

Don’t judge or criticize what youre impression. Practice radical self-compassion.

Instead of beating yourself up for wanting a cheeseburger and fries instead of salad, compromise with yourself.

Order something that’s a compromise( like crab cakes, for example ). It can be something fulfilling that is neither super healthy nor super unhealthy.

3. Be is accessible to your body.

It’s always speaking, so be willing to listen.

I do this through prayer and meditation in order to give my body a deep sense of peace, relaxation, ease, calmness, lightness, alertness and energy.

When you are open to your body needs, you are less likely to pollutes it with food, drugs or alcohol you know doesnt agree with you.

You work together as a team with the common goal of feeling good, instead of dismissing each other.

4. Trust your body.

Every cell is on your side, which means you have hundreds of billions of allies.

Ground yourself by turning inward and feeling the sensations of your body.

Take deep breaths, and be aware of your body.

I recommend trying pilates or yoga.

When you are connected to all the ways your body is working foryou, you will attain healthier options that support you.

5. Live your life.

Before I eat, I ask myself if I am hungry for food or hungry for something else like love, comfort, stability, validation, etc.

I shed unnecessary weight when I stopped obsessing over everything I was putting in my body and rigidly counting calories.

When I stopped labeling myself and food as good or bad and enduring the shameful feelings and emotions that accompany that way of thinking, the weight literally melted off my body.

The next time you want toreach for “bad” food, feeling tempted to overeat or have any kind of craving, try to stop focusing on the food.

Listen to what your body is telling you instead.

When I’mout with friends and feel seduced to order a brew like everybody else, I can literally hear my body gently remind me that beer constructs meextremely bloated and sick for hours.

I order a glass of wine or iced tea instead.

If I only want to drink water when Im in a social set and dont want to deal with any pushback from party-goers, I ask the bartender to set a slice of lime in my drink.

People suppose Im sipping on vodka and leave me alone.

Another trick is to ask, “How do I feel right this moment? ”

Either you are hungry, which is natural, or you feel something you don’t want to feel.

Instead of self-medicating through food, try being emotionally available to yourself.

Through the practice of checking in with and nurturing yourself, you will eventually stop feeling the need to comfort yourself through food.

Journaling has helped me open up and be honest with what Im actually experiencing.

Enjoy what your body wants to do.

I choose to ask my body what it needs, and I follow its advice without judging, whether it’s sleep, remainder , nourishment, physical activity or time spent in nature.

If you can barely keep your eyes open, its likely best to go home and sleep and skip spin class.

Losing Weight Can Be As Simple As Changing The Way You Talk About It

In college, losing weight was a top priority for me. This was before I started training myself about health.

Dieting was tough when you had to eat at the dining hall regularly. It wasn’t the junky, fatty foods that were a problem for me, however. It was the dessert table.

If you have ever been inside of a college dining hall even once, you know what I’m talking about.

Every damn time I went to grab a dinner, I swiped a cookie( or five ) on my way out. It constructed it really hard for me to start losing weight.

Forget ice cream, cake and tarts. Chocolate chip cookies are, hands down, my favorite dessert.

Now that you know about my addiction, you can imagine how hard it was to tell myself every day, “I have to avoid the cookies.”

But sticking to that dumb rule was even harder. Why? Because of the language I was using.

Ina video from Business Insider, Susan David, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of “Emotional Agility, ” explained how having “have-to” objectives sabotages everything we’re trying to accomplish. According to David, we should set “want-to” aims instead.

Shesays,

We start trapping ourselves into’ have-to’ speech … We become attracted to the very thing we are trying to avoid.

And that’s exactly what happened to me.

Anytime I ate in the dining hall, I couldn’t stop thinking about NOT feeing cookies. According to Davis, my brain already decided I was going to eat those cookies before I even tried to avoid them. Damn.

Making yourself feel like you have to do something never works.

Davis explains,

Have-to goals that are generated by a sense of obligation or shame actually ramp up temptation.

Yup. That sounds about right.

If merely I knew then how to define a “want-to” goal instead of pressuring myself, I might have had a healthier outlook on weight loss before I graduated.

Confused about what a “want-to” goal is? David describes it simply 😛 TAGEND

[ A want-to goal] is driven by an internal intrinsic desire that is of value and connected basically with what we want … A want-to goal actually ramps down temptation.

If I had a deeper connection to the desire to lose weight, it would have become a different type of priority for me.

Back then, I just wanted to look like a Victoria’s Secret model.

Now? I’m just happy nothing’s wrong with me and my body is healthy enough to do the things I love, like running and snowboarding.

I wish I could go back and tell my freshman year self, “You don’t have to’ seem hot’ for anyone.” Appearing hot is just something on the surface that doesn’t bring real happiness.

Wanting to be healthyin order to live a long life and do the things you love is a much better reason to cut out sweets.

Once you start thinking about it that way, attaining healthier choices is so much easier. It becomes a pleasure instead of something to beat yourself up about.

And yes, I will still have a cookie( or five) every once in awhile.

But I don’t feel dishonor or guilt about it anymore because those occasionsare few and far between.

Why Literally No One Cares You’re Doing A Juice Cleanse

If you are not talking about mimosas, I don’t want to hear about your juice cleanse.

When people are on juice cleanses, they want everyone on their Snapchats, in their offices and in their subway automobiles to know. They talk about how alive they feel and indicate them to everyone trapped into listening.

Your week-long challenge to drink swamp water does not impress me. The truth is if you treat your body more like a temple and less like a frat house, you won’t require a cleanse.

People just like to feel like they can press undo buttons to all the mistakes they made that weekend. Unfortunately, a juice cleanse is not the human enema people hope it willbe because once you go back to recollecting how much you like beer and cream cheese, it’s back to the frat-house cleanse.

Of course, we promote living healthy, and that’s why we encourage you to eat food and have juice, too — treat yourself!

“Generation whY” is back for its 6th season to ask, if you are sipping salad juice, can you please do so in silence?

Special thanks to Tappo . For more Elite Daily original videos, subscribe to the official Elite Daily YouTube Channel and like the official Elite Daily Facebook Page .

Lea Michele Disclosed The Workouts That Built Her Love Her Body More Than Ever

At the end of the day, happiness is the top priority for most people.

That includes Glee star Lea Michele, who has finally figured out how to be healthy without sacrificing anything.

Sounds hard, doesnt it? But genuinely, its about workingto figure out whats best for you.

She told PEOPLE,

You have to look good, but you also have to feel good. So I find workouts that take of both those things.

It took the Scream Queens actress a couple of years to figure out what workouts made her both seem and feel good. For now, shes sticking withhot yoga, hiking and SoulCycle classes.

She goes to SoulCycle every other day. Consistency is key, people.

Obviously, working out is just half of the whole picture.

The 30 -year-old sticks to a vegan diet most of the time, but also likes to enjoy pizza, pasta or mac and cheese for her cheat dinners. She also keeps her home almost gluten-free.

Her one regulation? Utterly no fast food. Youll never find Lea in a McDonalds.

A vegan diet might sound extreme to those who couldnt imagine living without cheese( like me ), but Lea has that find it works best for her body.

For her, being at the top of her health game doesnt mean going overboard with it.

She says,

Its so important for me to stress that being healthy is not about being a gym rat. Its not about being 90 lbs.

Lea also loves to hit up plant-based restaurants in LA when shes not whipping up nourishing vegan food at home.

Learning to love your body is a process. After years of experimenting and experiencing fluctuation in her weight, Lea has finally reached the phase where she truly feels her best in her own skin.

Ive never loved my body more than I do right now. And Im so grateful that I feel that way.

For her recent shoot inthe August issue of Womens Health UK, Lea had no problem stripping down. She owns her confidence because she cracked the code to a healthy lifestyle that works for her.

Want to do the same? Start experimenting by changing up your diet and workout regimen.

The biggest takeaways from Leas journey are that figuring out a personalized healthy lifestyle can take years and that its not about how you seem. Its about how you feel.

And you wont learn what feels best in terms of food or workout unless you try new things.

4 Weight Loss Tips To Follow After Your Diet Plan Objectives

Losing weight and keeping it off isnt easy. A quick online search will deliver you seemingly endless pages of miracle supplements, diet and workout programsall claiming to be the best.

Some are sold with the promise of being low-effort and promote fast or dramatic weight loss, while others promise results by offering a more restrictive and depriving plan.

Regardless of which plan you choose, they rarely provide long-term success and tend to emphasize the short-term practices.

Popular programs and products may kickstart weight loss, but they typically merely address one facet rather than helping you form new, healthy habits to attain lifelong results.

Its common to slowly regain weight as old habits return and life challenges arise. You may find yourself doing these programs several times a year to get back on track, or for longer durations to achieve better results.

But youre probably not looking to yo-yo diet for the rest of your life. There are much more effective and enjoyable approaches to weight loss that involve constructing lifestyle changes to help you end the dieting cycle and instead focus your energy on enjoying life.

Below are tips to follow for long-lasting outcomes following a weight loss program 😛 TAGEND

1. Maintain motivation.

Diet programs often induce you sacrifice the foods you love or curtail your diets so drastically that the changes are not sustainable. When the program aims, its common to feel deprived, depleted and a lack of motivation to keep going, especially if you havent learned new healthy habits.

Ways to stay motivated are to maintain confidence with a positive outlook, go easier on yourself, stay focused on your objective goal and make small changes that will slowly help you achieve that larger goal.

Give yourself credit for how far youve come in losing weight, but also realize that weight loss and maintenance is life long.

Creating a supportive environment with friends and familyand trying new, fun ways to live healthier( like new workout classes or recipes) can also help you maintain your motivation when its lacking.

2. Stimulate a plan so youre prepared for lifes challenges.

A common reason for get off track is being faced with a challenging or stressful life event that forces a change in routine, emotional distress, lack of motive or less time.

It is inevitable to experience periods of struggle, but it doesnt have to go hand-in-hand with halting your progress.

Its easy to feel a lack of control with lifes challenges, but if you shift your mindset and recollect you have control over your food options and how you spend your free time, you are able to make your healthy habits fit into your new parameters.

You may have to change your workouts and your go-to meals, but having this control and flexibility along with making healthy selections is empowering, which can help you through the stressful times you dont have much control over.

To ensure youre prepared to stay on track, try to identify potential setbacks that could impede your progression, like not having enough time, a tighter budget, being tired at the end of a busy day or being pulled in every direction other than living healthy.

Make a plan for how you can continue to makehealthy selections if you were faced with these setbacks, like having quick and healthy recipes on-hand, a listing of workouts that dont take much time to complete and learning ways to destress and improve your sleep.

This way, if you actually experience a bump in the road, you wont let it stop you.

3. Acknowledge the other factors in weight loss.

Most weight loss programs merely provide guidance in diet and/ or exercising. Although these are major components, there are many aspects that can greatly influence your results.

Some other factors to consider are how well “youre sleeping”, how you manage stress and your mindset.

In order for life following the completion of a program to continueto construct positive changes, youll have to maintain your success at managing your sleep, stress and outlook on life.

4. Keep sustainable habits, fell those that arent.

The best plan for you is the one you can stick to. Even if you had success with a program, it might not be a good fit for you to continue long term.

Oftentimes, people have an all-or-nothing approach, where if they cant stick to a healthier routine as instructed, they dont follow through with it at all.

To ensure you keep forward momentum, identify what you liked and didnt like about your program, how various components worked/ induced “youre feeling” and if they were sustainable. There isnt a one-size-fits-all diet out there that works for everyone.

Its perfectly fine to choose elements you want to keep and mixture and match your favourites from different programs, as long as they help you achieve and maintain your goals.

With so many short-term health and weight loss programs out there to choose from, its no wonder theres disarray and low success rates for losing weight and maintaining it off long term.

Since improving your health and wellness and attaining weight loss is not a race, its typically best to only use popular programs as a launching point rather than an end point, helping you try new methods and form new habits that set you on a path toward achieving your goals and inducing it a lifestyle.

To help you learn dinner planning secrets that spark ingenuity in your kitchen so you can scheme and make dinners that are healthy, easy and delicious, check out the present guidelines.

Mom’s Side-By-Side Pic Proves Size Doesn’t Always Determine Your Health

Loving your body as is demonstrates to be a so difficult thing to do, especially when you go through a major life event, such as having a baby.

New mom and blogger, Laura Mazza, from the UK posted the photo below along with heartfelt words about learning to love your body through the changes that come with pregnancy and childbirth.

On theleft is a photo of Mazza before having a newborn, and the right is after.

No, this isn’t a before and after shooting of weightloss. But it is a victory tale. I write this from my heart. It hurts.

Posted by Mum on the Run onSaturday, August 27, 2016

The photo has been shared over 4,000 times since she posted it two weeks ago.

I feel like we rarely watch before-and-after photos like this.

We are all left in awe of women like Kim Kardashian and Blake Lively who can bounce back from having a newborn in eight months, but what about the women whochoose not to bounce back?

In the photo on the left, Mazza confesses she wasnt truly happy.

She tells,

I ate no carbs, and scarcely any veggies. Just meat. But I loved it because I was losing weight rapidly and the more bones that protruded, the more I valued myself.

I aimed up hating meat, and was always suffering from heartburn. But still I looked at this photo, this image of myself, like I was fat.

She feels her post-baby body and post-baby habits have stimulated her even more proud of herself.

She said,

I have achieved more with this body than I have with my old body. Ive feed more good foods. Ive lived more, Ive dedicated more, Ive enjoyed more. Ive stimulated life. This body, THIS body should be celebrated and admired.

I should admire myself. I should love myself.

But that self-love didnt come easy.

It took her some time to get to a point where she didnt am worried about being skinny anymore.

Because sometimes, its only not worth it to curtail your diet to only meat. How long can someone feasibly sustain that lifestyle, anyway?

Mazza has learned skinny bodies arent the only ones that should be celebrated. In hypothesi, celebrating all bodies seems pretty obvious, but its much harder to do in practice.

No matter what size you are, a size 6 or size 60. You deserve to celebrate it. Sexy underwear AND a new wardrobe.

Her honest words and before-and-after photos prove self-love is something we learn over and over again throughout our lives.

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6 Postpartum Body Changes No Woman Should Be Ashamed Of

When I got pregnant the first time, I immediately took to the Internet to learn all about what the next nine months had in store for me.

I learned about breastfeeding, bottle feeding, sleep training and co-sleeping.

I even learned that I needed to stimulate those really neat( and wholly lifesaving) postpartum pads. What I didnt learn, however, was how my entire body would be completelydifferent after having babies.

I knew the normal stuff — I would probably get stretch marks and gain some weight — but what actually happened after pushing out these two beautifulbabies still has me a bit confused.

I feel the need to nation here that I dont, in fact, dislike my body.

Im wholly aware of how beautiful and powerful childbirth is. Im also in no way body-shaming myself or others.

Im simply talking about all the changes to my physical body that no one — including my ever trusted Pinterest bloggers — bothered to mention.

I also feel the need to tell you if you went home from the hospital in your pre-pregnancy jeans and have never experienced any of the things Im about to talk about, Im going to need you to exit this post without leaving a comment.

Go eat a pizza alone in silence. I dont wished to know unicorns like you exist.

However, here are six realistic postpartum changesyou will face, as per my experience 😛 TAGEND

1. My belly button will literally never — without surgical intervention — be the same.

I used to have the cutestbelly button.

It was so open, tight and non-deformed that I would have never in my wildest dreams expected current realities that is now my new belly button.

The best style to describe whats going on down there currently is to say it looks like a permanent frown face.

My stomach has been stretched to its limits and deflated two times in the last two years, but this malfunction didnt happen until after my second pregnancy.

When Graham was two weeks old and I was brave enough to peek in the mirror for the first time, I was able to convince myself that once I lost some of the pregnancy weight, my belly button would open itself back up.

Not the case.

Im almost a year out of my last pregnancy and 40 pounds lighter. But still, my belly button frowns.

2. My belly legitimately feels — and seems — like cottage cheese.

Now, one could argue I could work out more.

One could also argue I could win the Miss America swimsuit competition. Both are about as likely to happen.

Seriously though, I do eat fairly well and work up more than I have in my life. The consistency of my belly has( much like my belly button) remained unchanged, despite significant weight loss and toning.

I can feelmuscles underneath the cheese.

3. The texture of my hair has changed.

I used to be able to go through an entire body pump class sweating and pumping for over an hour, dry off and take my hair out of my ponytail, merely to have it autumn perfectly back into place. No need to brush or otherwise fuss with it.

This was patently astonishing. But I will never experience it again.

Not merely did I lose my fabulously thick and shiny pre-pregnancy hair, it’s now growing in with a coarse texture Ive never experienced before.

Im learning things I never wanted to know, like frizz-eliminating blowout techniques and leave-in conditioner.

4. Boobs? I dont even know where to start.

Yet another part of my body that wont be fixed without surgical intervention.

Not merely are they permanently two sizes bigger than before, theyre two sizes saggier. I have that much more surface area for stretch marks to cover.

Granted, my stretch mark situation could be so much worse. But there they are, my little tiger stripes reminding me of the utterly terrible experience that is breastfeeding.

Side note: I know Im not supposed to say this, but man. Do I love formula.

5. I am the proud owner of two brand new love handles.

Would you believe I was once wholly baffled by love handles?

I actually said out loud that I didnt is how they even existed. How could one even get gasps on and buttoned, merely to have those unsightly accessories hanging over?

Then, God chuckled to the angels.

Hahaha! Oh, nave, never-been-pregnant-girl. You will know one day.”

Seriously, if I had to buy gasps big enough to not highlight my extra baggage, I would never wear gasps again.

Love handles be darned. Im wearing my jeans( with the loosest peasant blouse I can find ).

6. Everything is bigger, including my feet.

I do believe person or persons warned me about this one, but I didnt believe her. I spent over 20 years curating the perfect size-7 shoe collection.

Within nine months, all that time and investment became as useless as my size-2 6 jeans( which are still in my closet for the working day I lose the final 30 pounds Ive put on sinceI was1 6 ).

Unlike the rest of my body, Im not holding out false hope that my feet will magically shrink. I have given away basically every pair of shoes I have owned before two years ago.

Here’s a piece of advice: Save all themoney youre dumping into your shoe closet now for sashes and Spanx later.

If youre reading this and youre already knocked up, theres no going back now.

Fear not. Theres truly nothing on Earth — not even bigger feet and love handles — that will compare to the love you will have for your children and the love they will have for you.

Except when theyre old enough to play with said love handles like flapjacks.

I Weigh Myself Every Day, And It’s Led To My Healthiest Lifestyle Yet

If you asked me six years ago, I’d tell you I was trying to lose weight to fit into size 2 jeans. That was freshman year of college.

By junior year of college, I was an expert at the yo-yo diet. I tried countless cleanses, detoxes and dinner schemes, but nothing worked.

Naturally, the scale wasn’t my friend. Something as simple as a number can be super scary, especially when it means so much to you.

Back then, I’d only weigh myself on two occasions.

One would be when I was very unhappy with my size and wanted to motivate myself. The other was whenI felt especially svelte and knew hopping on the scale would result in a quick rushing of happiness.

It took me a long time to get away from that nonsense, but after a lot of trial and error, I’ve figured out what a healthy lifestyle looks like for me.

It involves weighing myself every day.

Weighing myself every day has become one of my favorite habits.

I don’t dread the number on the scale anymore because I see it every day.

Watching my weight fluctuate throughout the month based on my menstrual cycle doesn’t faze me. I don’t even linger on the scale and think about the number.

If my weight is higher than a certain number I’m not comfortable with, I know what I have to do to get back into my consolation zone.

But I don’t freak out and pressure myself. Maintaining an eye on it holds my health in check.

It’s not about appearance, it’s about health.

Weighing myself is my route of being aware of what’s going on as my body changes. I know I’ll never weighed under 120 pounds again because I’ll also never be 18 again.

It’s been proven over and over that weight is genuinely merely a number, when it comes to appearance.

For example, this fitness expert and trainer proved that she weighed more at her strongest compared to her pre-fitness weight, even though she seems about the same size. The number isn’t as connected to appearance as we may think.

So , no. When I weigh myself, I don’t get anxiety about how the number on the scale correlates to how I look.

I’m proud of my strength. The only reason I keep working out and eating healthy is to maintain the years of hard work , not to alter the number on the scale.

My weight can also give me a clue into my overall health. It would be alarming if I watched a sudden spike or decrease in weight.

Weighing yourself daily isn’t for everyone, but you won’t know until you try.

We can tell ourselves over and over that the number on the scale has nothing to do with self-worth, and I believe that’s true.Getting on the scale every day has helped me set that into practice.

I look at the number, and I don’t insure my self-worth. I insure anumber that simply represents how much my body weighs, no more , no less.

I’m not telling everyone should be doing this. Althoughit’s been proventhatthere are many positives to weighing yourself daily, it doesn’twork for all of us.

If you’re happy not get the hell out of there the scale, keep doing what you’re doing.

But if you dread the scale, get on it more often. It’s the only route to overcome it.