When I was pregnant, I steadily put on 2 pounds a month after the first trimester -- 2 lbs. in April, 2 lbs. in May, 2 lbs. in June. When I came home from the hospital, I weighed exactly as much as I did before I got pregnant. Just over 6 pounds gone in one day -- not a recommended method for weight loss, however. Anyway, in the past year or so my weight has fluctuated slightly, but I'm more or less back where I started, which is 15 pounds more than I should be. (This is all weight that I gained in my 20s, so discreetly that I don't even remember it happening. One day I just realized that all of my clothes were 2 sizes bigger than they used to be and that I had giant hips full of jello.) I have made very lame attempts at shedding the pounds before, but as much as I'd love to blame it on some metabolic disorder or strange fat-creating disease it comes down to the fact that I am *extremely* lazy and have a love of chocolate that borders on obsession. But for the past week I've been making strides. I'm trying to change my habits slowly, without making a formal commitment that I will only break down the line. For example, last week I exercised every day. I didn't always do my infomercial-obtained workout like I'd planned, but I moved my body at sweat-inducing levels for at least 30 minutes every day. That is *very* impressive for me. Now, I also had chocolate in some form every day and since I had a couple of social events to attend, I also had a few alcoholic bevvies along the way, not to mention the evening that I had half of a giant bag of Doritos for dinner... But, I worked out everyday, which I am very proud of.

This week, I'm trying to slowly start improving my diet. I've started using FitDay, where I can enter in every morsel of food I consume and the online calculator will tell me how much of a pig I'm being. Today, even factoring in a glass of wine that I plan to have with dinner I will have stayed under 1700 calories (assuming, of course, that I don't slather my steamed broccoli in butter and manage to stay away from the ice cream afterwards). That's probably an obscenely high amount for Atkins/South Beach/vomitting Hollywood waifs, but I think it's a healthy, yet still weight-loss inducing amount for me. My goal is to lose the 15 pounds by New Year. That means I have to lose .8 pounds a week from now until then. Of course, I have voices in my head telling me that there is no way I will succeed, but I'm trying not to listen to them. They're the same ones reminding me about the Hagen-Daaz in the freezer...

Oh, I hear you. I think I'm back at my pre-baby weight (although I refuse to think about it because thinking of how I got there is painful) but I could still stand to lose about 10-15 pounds. But everytime I want to try, first my laziness gets the better of me, and secondly, all advice points to not working on weight loss when you're trying to get pregnant. So as much as I want to lose weight, I want so many many times more to gain back some baby-inside-me weight. :)

Zarqa -- Of course, I'd love to have the ultimate "good reason" for gaining weight again! I'm hoping that getting fit again will help with that. When I got pg. with Lydia, I was 6 wks. into a new fitness regime (not quite as intense as this one, but pretty regular), so I'm hoping this will have a similar effect ;-) At any rate, being inactive and eating lots of junk hasn't seemed to help things.

GM -- Bod-wise I'm not too far off from Bridget in the first movie! (I think Renee went a little over the top with the pudginess factor in the second one.) I'll try not to get that whiny and pathetic about my weight, though. There are lots more important things to stress about, like my hair color and my fall wardrobe... ;-)

Somehow, thanks to the grief diet, I actually weigh less now than I did prior to both of my more recent pregnancies. Each time, I had lost weight and conceived. So now, I'm just waiting for that kind of luck again. Yeah, right!
But I have tried using my treadmill more often, it is sort of relaxing in a way.