Sunday 3 February 2008

Tummy Mummy


I’m having a particularly bloated, rounded, fat tummy kind of day. Make that month. Or few months.


I’m genetically pre-disposed to be the shape of an ‘apple’. My mum is, all her sisters are, my grandmother was, as were all her sisters. It’s great for my behind; with my tummy being round the rest of me therefore isn’t ‘pear’. It does suck though to always look a bit pregnant, especially when you’re not and you’d actually like to be.

I’m tipping the scales today at my heaviest natural weight [excluding when I was pregnant and shortly after]. I take a little comfort in knowing I was this exact same weight when I fell pregnant with Peanut - maybe it’s lucky?

Half of me wants to find the self-discipline to diet, the other half knows I’m trying to get pregnant so that’s not a sensible thing to do. Hopefully soon enough my tummy will no longer be fat, it will be pregnant. When that happens the pressure will be lifted from my shoulders - at least for a year anyway.

When I’m happy I eat more, not loads, just more rubbish and bigger portion sizes. It’s as if I relax and believe I can do what I want without it have any consequence. When I’m stressed I go off food and anxiety burns it all off anyway. This time last year I was at my skinniest, coincidentally I was also in the middle of major stress.

Since we worked through our ‘debt-awakening’ last summer, my boosted feelings of security and confidence have caused me to take my eye off the ball [and transfer my eye to the junk aisle]. The result being that I’ve kinda let myself go a bit.

It’s probably not enough for anybody else to particularly notice but, in myself, I feel huge. I hate having to dress to hide my tummy and I hate my clothes feeling tight. But do I hate it enough to stop eating?

The lazy side of me wishes I could find out I was pregnant tomorrow so I could postpone worrying about it. The other side of me knows I should eat sensibly for pregnancy anyway.

My other worry is, when I was pregnant with Peanut I used it as a license to eat whatever I wanted, and I ended up feeling enormous by the end. I promised myself I would have a much better second pregnancy; one where I actually looked like a yummy-mummy with a neat bump, rather than the size of a truck with a face like a soccer ball.

Part of me thinks [knows?] I eat crap and drink caffeine to prop up my adrenal glands, which are probably exhausted. Going without all that rubbish will probably be like going cold turkey, dramatic perhaps but most likely true.

Why can’t I find the willpower to live a healthier way? Why is it easier to be lazy, rather than setting a good example to Peanut? Why am I beating myself up about my body image, rather than cherishing and fuelling the only body I have? What message am I sending my daughter, apart from eat rubbish and then trouble yourself over it?

Chocolate bar or piece of fruit anyone?

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