The struggle of losing weight after my first pregnancy

I wanna write something about my fitness journey. But I don't want to make a "Category" on my blog about fitness because I don't think I can handle the pressure of keeping myself fit and healthy. And I don't want to put in a very catchy title, because honestly, losing weight is not easy.

Just a little background, I got pregnant and gave birth on 2018. I was around 47.5kg before I got pregnant, and I think my highest weight during pregnancy was around 59kg. The reason was that I had one tiny gallstone when I was pregnant, and it made it very hard for me to eat a lot, and if I don't give my tummy a break (from eating), it'd hurt like hell.

After I gave birth:

I've been keeping track of my weight, but I didn't restrict my food, nor did I exercise for more than a year. The reason was that I was breastfeeding my child for 1yr and 3mos. Breastfeeding helped me lose my weight. Probably around 9mos, my weight was around 48kg. But breastfeeding also makes you wanna eat more. For some reasons, I was always hungry. (Note: You're allowed to eat 500cals more daily when you're breastfeeding.)

When I stopped breastfeeding my child, I still wanna keep on eating, it was the habit of eating without restrictions while I was breastfeeding that made me do it. I gained more weight as the weeks pass by, until I was around 51kg. So a month after I stopped breastfeeding, I decided to start working out.

Body Composition:

We have a weighing scale that also computes your body fat, muscles, protein, and other important information about your body. I found out that my body fat was really high. Of course, I was pregnant and I breastfed my baby, so this was natural. My muscle percentage was quite low too. So even though I am not that heavy, I find my body composition alarming.

My goal was to go back to my body composition before I got pregnant. I got really nice values back then, even now, I still haven't achieved it. And I still can't believe those were my body composition back then, I'm envious of my old self. HAHA.

Look at these values! This was me before I got pregnant.

And this is me, just very recently. I've lost quite some weight, mostly body fat, and a bit of muscles.

Weight is really just a number. You have to check your body composition to know if you are healthy. Some may be very "light" but is mostly composed of body fat and too few muscles. That's not healthy at all.

If you start dieting by not eating anything or by starving yourself, you will see it in your body composition that you are not doing well. If you're doing a healthy diet, you will see it in your body composition as well.

Muscles are heavier than fat. So don't be alarmed if you gained weight instead of losing weight. You have to check if you've gained more muscles instead. When you have more muscles, it means that your body can burn more calories even while at rest. If you also don't want to look very old, exercise! If you have more muscles, it makes you look young. If you don't use your muscles, you will eventually lose it, and will cause your skin to sag - making you look old.