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When my daughter died, I gained at least 80 pounds. I ate my way through grief. I loved comfort food, coupled with a total inability to fully function and cook, I would eat ice cream for dinner followed by a candy bar (yummmm, chocolate).
I remember standing in front of the oven and trying to cook when my sister in law came three weeks later. I just couldn’t put it together. So for the next year and a half, we lived off of fast food and convenience food.
I had plenty of baby weight to show for my pregnancy, but no living baby.
“It’s hard to lose the weight after pregnancy,” I constantly hear. Internally, I roll my eyes. Try losing it without the baby. I wasn’t breastfeeding, or later running after a toddler.
I have to admit, I barely paid attention to my weight for the first year. My baby was dead. It didn’t matter what I weighed or looked like.
Then I tried to get pregnant and miscarried after months of trying. I knew I had a problem. I faced reality when it came to my weight. I’m not even close to healthy.
It’s a new focus, but lately I’ve been working on losing all that weight. I get so impatient because I want it to come off this month so I’ll be healthy to try again.
But anyone that’s ever tried to lose weight knows it doesn’t happen that way. It’s a long process.
I struggle with having days where I think I eat too much, or eat the wrong things, and mentally beat myself up over it.
This month, my Grandma died. I was so close to her, and after everything calmed down and I had time at home, I found myself wanting to stuff my face constantly, and eat my way through grief again.
I know it’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m finally ready to lose this baby weight. Anyone else gain weight after your baby died? How did you lose it?
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About Kristine
My daughter has been gone 5 years and I still struggle with losing the weight I gained with her. My subsequent pregancies I gained and lost the weight I gained, but I never lost her baby weight. If you figure out a way let me know.lol. I just wanted you to know that you are not alone in this struggle.
Wow, this topic has been on my mind for months. I’ve been planning to write about it, too. I didn’t gain much after I lost my twins 11 months ago (tomorrow), but I became very aware that when emotions ran high in the months after – especially around TTC discussions with my husband – I wanted to eat my pain away. In the last couple of months, I became really uncomfortable in my skin, and with post-pregnancy body shape changes and a few extra pounds causing my clothes to fit in way that made me very unhappy with how I look and feel. I’m on my second week of Weight Watchers Online, and it’s helping.
Hugs!
I did gain weight after I lost my son. I am now trying to lose it again the good ol fashion way by eating healthy and exercising. I’ve found I really like swimming laps because it allows me to think while I exercise and I have good long talks with God.
I was not a slim person when we lost our daughter but after I gained even more weight. Like you said, what do I care, I’m just trying to function here the best way I can. I finally was able to lose weight and was relatively small for me, still big by medical standards, but good enough to have a healthy rainbow. However, a bout with postpartum had me gaining all that weight back and then some. Good luck on your weight loss goals and prayers for a healthy rainbow too.
I lost my son 5 months ago and within a week I lost all my pregnancy weight because I was so in shock and just couldn’t eat. Then the weeks later, I slowly gained it all back plus some. I found comfort in food and going to get fast food was easier than cooking. I couldn’t work up the energy to clean or cook. I’m still struggling with this. I feel like I’m ready to lose the weight, but now I’m pregnant again and can’t really do too much. So next year I’ll have 2 baby weights to get off. It’s very hard carrying around this post baby body with no baby.
This has been on my mind a ton lately. I just lost my son two weeks ago. Having the baby weight without the baby has really been a struggle. I haven’t talked with anyone about it because I was worried people would think I was superficial. “You lost a child and you’re worried about your weight?”…that kind of thing. I have quietly started doing weight watchers online. I did it a few years ago and had a lot of success so I thought I would try it again. It works well for me. They have an app for your phone that makes it even more convenient and it’s very affordable. Just the habit of tracking what you are eating makes you so much more aware. The last two days I’ve been wanting to just stuff my face all the time to distract myself, but I’ve been fighting it for the most part. Going for walks with my dogs helps too.
I gained while pregnant then gained after the loss because of all the lasagna and such that people brought over. Plus, I think my body was still preparing to breastfeed hormonally, and I was actually hungry. Having the weight, clothes not fitting, etc, felt like a terrible slap-in-the-face reminder that my son died. After about 6 months, I finally started going to a gym and find I can zone out, get some of the angst out, and generally feel better. It also will make my body stronger (not just thinner) for the next pregnancy, if I have the nerve to try again. I also did a detox diet for about a week that helped me get out of the habit of feeding my face when I didn’t need to, and to stop craving the comfort foods. That was especially helpful. I’ve lost 6 pounds in the last month, going the slow but steady route. Best part is the emotional boost from exercising. I’m still not ‘happy’, but much more grounded. Wishing you and your readers peace and health.
I am a naturally slim person, but I do have deep ugly stretch marks from my pregnancy. My muscles never closed on my belly after pregnancy so my belly is odd shaped. I know how it feels to have a post baby body but no baby. I actually lost alot of weight after my baby was born because I felt so much guilt over losing him. I hated my body for not delivering a healthy baby like it was supposed to. I wouldn’t let the body I hated so much enjoy food because I felt I didn’t deserve to eat when my baby was gone. I felt guilty for being alive when he was gone. These are issues that I have had to learn deal with and overcome since I lost him a little over a year ago. I am now at a healthy weight again although as many baby loss mommys feel I still struggle with guilt over my body failing my baby.
thank you for writing this article. i think its an issue we all deal with. we allowed our bodies to grow and expand to suit the needs of our child inside. I’ve always had weight issue because food just loves to stick to my hips and my butt. lucky for me i am curvaceous but I’ve never been as big as i was when i was pregnant. for once i didn’t care how i ate. i ate why i wanted, what she wanted. and we loved it. every bight was a kick. me and my child had hiccup communication. when she was hungry and my body needed food i would hiccup a few times. if i needed water it would be 2 hiccups. and after i ate id get a one hiccup ‘thank you’ every single day. every single time. so i ate, and my baby danced. and we were happy. but now that I’m on the other side, in a world i never dreamed of being on… i found it hard to even eat at first. food just isn’t the same. there was no longer any excitement to it. it was feeding me and me alone. it wasn’t nurturing my baby. so i lost. but then i ate, because i started missing that feeling of being pregnant and enjoying food. so i ate more.. and I’ve been teetering along a line of a weight i would never allow myself to be. its been hard. and i feel selfish for caring so much about my appearance. but thats all I’m left with so i can’t help it.
I’ve done fasts in the past. and I’m usually pretty healthy. I’ve been vegan for quite some time so that helps me not go too far into junk food land but there are still ways to enjoy some fried sloppy goodness. i decided to finally fast again. I’m doing the lemonade diet/ the Master Cleanse. have you heard of it? its not for everyone, but I’ve got the willpower and at least its a goal i can work towards. not only do you lose weight but it clears the mind, repairs the body and gives you new energy that you wouldn’t believe you’d get from being on a liquid fast.. I’m not suggesting it to you but maybe you can look into it sometime if you’re interested.
think positive. snack on things that are enjoyable but not full of fat. i love pickle or carrots with a variety of hummus. avocado with sea salt on rye.. tomato onion and cream cheese on bread.. vegetable soups.. simple roasted veggies in the over with olive oil garlic and sea salt drizzled on top. stay away from boxes of products with names on them. turn more to simple veggie home made dishes. even veggie lasagna would be better. nuts, seeds, dried fruits. a big delicious salad with a dijon balsamic dressing you can make at home and for cheaper too. look into changing your lifestyle so that food won’t be a problem and you can pig out every so often if you want to and still be ok. it will actually make you feel like your working towards something and it may lift up your spirits to know that you’re working hard to better yourself. your child would want a healthy momma no matter what.
i have a lot more food ideas for you that you probably wouldn’t think about and if you ever want to talk food recipes or loss you are welcome to email me! justiceforvylette@gmail.com
( ps my name is jackie. and i lost my baby~*Vylette Moon*~ 11.28.11 – 12.03.11 to midwife malpractice…)
Four miscarriages in 8 months = 50 pounds of what I’ve been calling “non-baby weight” due to grief-induced emotional eating, and a complete lack of desire to get off my ass for just about any reason. Feeling poorly about my body certainly does not help the depression and grief, but I just haven’t been able to crawl out of this slump yet. It’s also hard to focus on dieting when, in the back of my mind, I’m hoping I’ll get pregnant and it will be a moot point. Thanks for writing about this and giving a voice to what many of use are going through.
After I had my first baby, I was able to loose the weight and subsequently was in the best shape of my life even for babies #2 and #3. Then we moved, I was alone with 3 kids for 7 month, left our support system, became pregnant and then Amelia was stillborn the same year my husband lost his job and I was pregnant again with #5. I was pregnant for 80 weeks, almost in a row and all I could do was eat. I am still working on the baby weight, but it is hard. Even with a nursing baby who is now a toddler, the pounds stay on. Stress in your life stays in your body, and unfortunately is a survival mechanism. Don’t blame yourself too much. Yes, change needs to happen, but it takes time.
I still have 30+ I need to loose, but now I am a decade older and it is even harder. I try to be realistic but life has dealt all of us some hard blows and I know, for me, I did what helped at the time. I remember eating pounds of smarties until my teeth hurt. I just didn’t care about being healthy at the time.
5 years ago I lost my 3 week old son unexpectedly. I also have two living children ( one older and one younger) so I can attest to the fact that losing the baby weight after a loss is a whole different ball game. I felt like I had to get the weight off before I could try again as well so that I was as healthy as possible. I first joined a gym, but that only helped to a point. The combination that finally worked was weight watchers plus personal training. After my third ( living and healthy) child, I also saw a naturopathic doctor which has helped with some of the lingering health effects of the grieving process.
I had the very opposite problem unfortunately… The pregnancy that I had when my son died was very unhealthy due to how sick he was and how sick I became. He grew so I developed my belly but I actually lost 20 lbs in the first 18 weeks and the. Lost him shortly after that. It continued after he passed because I was so depressed I couldn’t remember to eat so I looked frail and sickly. I finally gained the healthy weight back with help from healthy excersize and did conceive again. We are currently riding that roller coaster. But this time I haven’t lost any weight thankfully. Still working in gaining though. Good luck and prayers for all of us <3
Even though I could hardly eat for six weeks after my son died, I haven’t lost anything. Since then, I’ve alternated between manic phases where I obsessively cook gluten free, grain free, sugar free, processed-foods-free and depressed periods where we order pizza or grab cheeseburgers. I feel so overwhelmed its hard to even know where to start. Some days I feel like I have survived the worst thing ever, and so I can do anything. Other days I feel so defeated I’m not sure I even remember how to take care of myself any more.
I think I’m at the place where I just need to decide what I want to do and then do it. I’m determined to loose this weight before TTC again, I just need to try.
This has started coming up recently for me. In the last year and a half I’ve lost two baby’s, both at 18-19 weeks along. By that time for both pregnancies I was showing and I loved my baby belly. I need to lose weight, need to get healthy for me and for my husband and my future children. I hit a block, I don’t want to lose the weight, I want to be pregnant, and even this morning took a pregnancy test thinking that maybe I might be, perhaps that’s why I was feeling bloated or what not. But I’m not pregnant and that kind of makes me sad. I want to be pregnant, but I also want to get healthy and go back to school. I feel like I walk down a very thin road and can stray often from it. I need to get myself healthy, there’s no question about it, I just don’t know how to get out of this rut.
It was one area which I dealt with last after I lost my son at 22 weeks and 2 days pregnancy. Sure, I comfort ate and drank my way through some very difficult days and every trigger brought on a meltdown. After seven months, I went back to the gym (I had stopped for four years when I first became pregnant with my daughter) and started once a week for a month. Then I increased it to twice a week and so forth. I was also eating healthy and I noticed that I managed my emotions a lot better when I started a good diet and exercise. The weight loss wasn’t my main goal. I really wanted to stop having those emotional meltdowns and stop being depressed. 10 months after I started my regime, I dropped 25 pounds.
I just want to encourage everyone to take a small step at a time. I had a manageable goal of losing two pounds a month. It’s slow but I knew the weight will stay off if I do it slowly, which it did.
This was a great article. I, too, struggled with not only an inability to lose my baby weight (after our daughter died), but continued to put on weight due to stress/sadness. I then went through 3+ years of unexplained secondary infertility, which included 9 IUIs and 2 IVF cycles (last IVF cycle worked). In 2011, I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy full term baby boy. I still (nearly a year later) have been able to muster the motivation to take these 40 lbs off. I still struggle with sadness and longing for my girl, even after my precious boy. I think, for me, my struggle is not only sadness, but a loss of self-esteem and confidence having lost her…it’s like I feel like a failure and that i will forever have this label on me that reads “had a baby who died.” I used to be so confident and feel so sure about things…now I feel weak and unsure…just lost. I know I’ll get my mojo back one day and lose this weight, but for now i just eat my way to get by. I’m so grateful for my son and try to focus on him vs myself. That helps my happiness level, but sure doesn’t help my weight.
I so agree with your last bit there about being unsure about things, and feeling weak. I definitely succumb to cravings so easily. ugh. Good luck with losing of the weight and everything. I keep reminding myself that losing the weight doesn’t mean I am letting go of my boys. That helps some.
A short answer…
Prozac. For me, the one of the side effects was decreased appetite so the food I ate was so on purpose to the functions I had to do. Having a purpose that meant I had to be mentally and physically sharp helped me make those choices.
Did I ever care what I looked like? NO. Did I care that I was fueled in a way to help people in a way I had commited. YES. Whether is be going back to work or finding a good volunteer position… finding a pattern, and set “safe” foods and commiting to the promise I would try to keep to my OWN children to eat right. That helped. Much love to my fellow loss moms and your journeys.
My plan is to use Weightwatchers. I used it prior to getting pregnant and now that I am in your situation, it is depressing looking at the weight and not having my twins to show for it so as of today I am starting it again. I have been cleared by my doctor that it is safe to get back into shape so that is what I’m doing. Good luck wiht the weight loss and TTC.
I was always so healthy and fit (ran cross-country and track for years). Then, I gained the freshman 15 (or 20) in college. Then, got pregnant and gained about 40 pounds with that. I basically ate whatever I wanted to during pregnancy. Then, after losing my daughter, Lily, at fullterm, I was so sad and felt like I had so much weight with nothing to show for it. It definitely made me roll my eyes too when people complained of losing the weight. I have stretch marks and all this weight, with NOTHING (or should I say nobody) to show for it. I lost a lot of weight about a year after my loss, but then hurt my back and gained a lot back. It’s been such a roller-coaster. I am only 23 and should be in the prime of my life, so want to get this off once and for all!
I haven’t been through what you have but after 4 miscarriages I have gained nearly 40 lbs (I joke 10 lbs per dead baby). The 4th loss was the hardest as we had seen a healthy little bean with a heart beat on 5 ultrasounds and after 15 weeks we thought things were fine. To top things off I don’t conceive easily so it’s secondary infertility AND RPL I’m dealing with which means days that start at 5am and an hour+ drive to the clinic for blood and ultrasound, and then working and going home to pick our dear son up from daycare. Be kind to yourself – I wish you some peace.
When my second son was stillborn after my uterus ruptured, I was told to wait 6 months before TTC. I’m a small person, but I gain a lot when I’m pregnant, so I looked like I was still about 6 months pregnant. It was sheer misery going in public with my older son in my maternity clothes and being asked “Oh, you’re going to have two under age 2?” by cheerful strangers. About 6 weeks after he died, I remembered my stationary recumbent exercise bike. I got on that thing and rode like mad. I sat on it and watched reruns of That 70s Show and laughed while I cried. I got on it at 3 in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. I put on my ipod and cranked up the volume and lost myself in a haze of strong beats and exercise endorphins whenever things got to be too much. I also like Weight Watchers online–I used that last year to finally get rid of the pregnancy weight from my 3rd son….after 6 months of progesterone shots and a year of Zoloft, it wasn’t moving.