Weighty Matters

I have gained a total of 10 pounds since May.

Do not ask me how that’s happened.

I wrote earlier about my Issues Oh Dear Lord when it comes to pregnancy, body image, weight gain, etc., so I’ll try to not rehash the same ol’ song and dance. Just the same, yesterday when I got up on Ye Ole Scale, I was totally comfortable and cool with an expected gain. Honest to God. I wasn’t psyched to see one, but I’ve come to a place of peace about honoring my body and what it decides it needs to do in order to help bring our kid into this world.

So yeah. I stepped on the scale and nothing happened. I actually stopped the nurse, rather incredulously, and asked her to repeat for me what the scale was saying because clearly my ability to read numbers had walked out the door. When she revealed I’d only gained three pounds, I had her go back to check my chart. Apparently a month ago I’d lost weight, so the three pounds I put on since the beginning of last month were making up for the ones I’d lost the month before that.

“This can’t be right,” I told Scott. “That can’t at all be OK.”

I’m not the looker of gift horses in their mouths, but here is my perspective: I am a fat girl who has always had weight issues. I use “issues” rather deliberately. My body is what it is, but the traditional methods of weight management, when it’s been a goal, have never really applied to my body all that well. I have a bum thyroid to blame for that, plus years of unhealthy, metabolism-wrecking dieting. My worth as a person isn’t diminished because I gain weight easily, but my weight has taken center stage throughout the years.

(God, I always feel like I have to qualify, don’t I?)

Anyway, I’ve always put on weight easily, and considering that for the past two years I put on 15 pounds, despite boot camping, clean eating and half-marathon training, I’m a little dumbfounded that I manage to get pregnant and quit working out altogether, save for some walking and pre-natal yoga, and not pack on the weight. How is it that the one time when it’s socially permissible (well, kinda) for me to gain weight and not actually have it be chalked up to a character flaw, I’m not gaining weight?

Of course, I worried. Honestly, I felt as though this had to be a sign that my body is once again not behaving the way it needs to and dear heavens what in the heck do I need to do? I found myself getting a bit indignant, and a little apologetic, but what the heck, Doc?

Turns out, it’s nothing to be worried about at all. My doctor said if I do this back and forth for the rest of the pregnancy she’s still not worried. My friend, Casey, mentioned to me over Twitter that with her second pregnancy, she ended up weighing less than she did when she began her pregnancy. My dad said my own mother didn’t put on much weight when she was pregnant with my sister and I. So I decided only one thing was in order, and that was a bacon-cheeseburger and fries.

Here’s the strange thing, though, and I noticed it after my friend, Angelica, mentioned it to me later: it’s funny how our bodies behave once we stop worrying about calories so much. And I thought to my bacon-cheeseburger and fries, and how I actually only ate half of it, and a handful of the fries. While I don’t always know that this is always the case when I indulge in a cheeseburger, I thought about how I only eat when I’m hungry, and I don’t get hung up on the rest. I’d talked about the practice of this sort of eating, and adopted some of Geneen Roth’s principles to my life, I’d never actually done it so completely until I got pregnant.

All the same,  I don’t know that this is all much more than just how my body is reacting to being pregnant, to say nothing of all of the extra work it’s doing to help make this baby, which is much more likely. But still, I haven’t had any self-loathing or regrets or weirdness about what I’ve put in my mouth in months.

I’ve got four months to go, and the last three is really when the pounds can pack on. I’m sure I’ll enjoy every pound, though I’m hoping I continue not to give it all much thought. After seeing our daughter the other day, and knowing that my body is doing exactly what it needs to be doing without any additional mindfuck from me, it’s inspiration enough to be happy with what I have.

Rolls and all.