September 2008 - The Parklander Magazine

FOR MOMS
By Cheryl Pangborn
I’m jumping up on my soapbox today and you all get to hear about it! It
seems lately, with so many celebrities giving birth, we are deluged with
miraculous stories of their post baby weight loss victories. Let me get
this straight, am I supposed to be touched and inspired by Ms.
Hollywood “so and so” who lost 40 lbs like four days after she gave birth
How does this equate to us outside of Tinsel Town in the real world It
simply does not. We read magazines, we ooh and ahh and say things like
“wow, she looks great!” However, her baby’s only two weeks old.
Remember that very stressful time when you had a screaming newborn
in tow and everything in your life was turned upside down. Then, to
make matters worse, when you finally did get to shower, and put on
actual clothing as opposed to your bathrobe, your
wardrobe world came crashing down around you.
You’re a realist, so you carefully chose a pair of shorts
that were somewhat big on you “pre pregnancy” and to
your dismay, you found that those zipper teeth just
would not meet! How discouraging is that! Wearing
maternity clothes after birth is just not cool. It made
me want to start running
a five mile
marathon
right then
and there, but due to sleep deprivation, I was too tired and opted to eat a
gallon of ice cream instead.
Here’s the thing— while I think it’s wonderful that these Hollywood
stars can get back into a size four in four weeks, I don’t think they have
any excuse not to! Let’s face it, if you’re like me, you lost your post baby
weight with what I like to call the “Triple S”: sneakers, stroller, and
sidewalk. That is about all the exercise I could fit into my new life as a
mom. I had no personal trainer. I had no home gym. I huffed it around
my neighborhood in the dead of summer, sweating buckets (probably
weeping from postpartum depression) and most likely dehydrated from
losing all that water, pushing that baby stroller. My first child would
only stop crying if I was pushing him in the stroller, so that worked to
my weight loss advantage.
I should also mention that I didn’t have a personal chef at my disposal to
make me perfectly calculated portions of lean meat and veggies for every
meal. Like most of us normal folk, I had to get to the grocery store
myself, shop in a record eight minutes time (which is about all a
newborn will allow) and somehow make my choices healthy ones. For a
while I thought I might never cook an actual meal again, which didn’t
concern me as much as it did my husband!
I think it’s high time we stopped applauding these unrealistic situations
and start cheering for all the regular moms out there who somehow
managed to get back into shape without all the bells and whistles. We are
the moms who wake up before the sun comes up to work out, the ones
who struggle to eat healthy meals when we are just too tired to care. We
are the amazing stories of success! We manage to reach our goals with
sheer willpower and determination, amazingly without a personal chef, a
personal trainer, a home gym, or a live-in nanny to help us along. I say
let’s give it up for the “real” amazing ladies that we are, stroller pushing,
yogurt eating, hard working, tired but determined, hot looking mamas!
52 SEPTEMBER 2008