felt high for the first time in months.
I was still cut open down below, but I didn’t care. I walked into the gym and I beelined for the treadmill, my old friend. It felt like a long time since I had been on the treadmill, but I couldn’t have been more excited. As I stepped on, I thought, “I’m about to fucking murder this gym.” I put on some gangsta, ghetto-ass hip-hop music, like Lil Jon, Lil Scrappy, and Dr. Dre, and I just started sprinting. “Ahhhhh, Kendra is back!” That was the day that brought me back to life.
I was just so happy to be running and be out of the house and be listening to rap music instead of lullabies and nursery rhymes. I had my identity back, and that is the one thing I needed. I needed to put my headphones on and listen to some gangsta music. My pulse quickened to the beats and I remembered who I was. For thirty minutes, I wasn’t a mom. I was just a chick on the treadmill trying to sweat off some pounds. I was back!
When I first got on the treadmill, I ran harder and better than I ever had in my entire life. Even though I hadn’t run in several months, I was sprinting like I was in the greatest shape of my life. I felt like Forrest Gump. I could have run across America, I had so much energy and motivation. I felt like that was the way to be me again. I had a destination but I knew I couldn’t get there overnight. So every time I ran, I ran more than I ever had in my life. I felt great.
I felt so good I went back the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day. It became a routine. The second Hank got back from practice I was going to the gym for thirty to forty-five minutes. I was going to murder the gym, then going to the tanning salon in the middle of winter and getting my tan on. It was like I had been stuck in this black hole and then one little trip to the doctor triggered me right out of it.
My first point of focus was my mental well-being. But as soon as I got my smile back, I started paying attention to the rest of my body. I knew I had put on weight, and I knew I didn’t look that good or feel that good anymore. So I needed to fix it. I wasn’t worried about my belly—that’s where my baby came from and I wasn’t surprised to see it had gotten bigger. I was honest about the fact that my stomach wasn’t going to go back to being a six-pack again any time soon; I’m not Gisele Bündchen. I wasn’t stressing about that. I was stressing about my back. I hate my back. It’s always been a “problem spot” but being pregnant made it that much worse. It’s boxy. And my boobs got too big and made me look bigger than I actually am. Especially when my milk came in. Then my neck area got big, so combine that with the fact that my back exploded and I just looked like a giant Volvo. I gained a lot of weight in my back, upper and lower. Most women hate their arms and legs, but I hated my back. From top to bottom and left to right (especially under my armpits—my traps), I felt like I had wings.
Although I was sweating it out daily on the treadmill and painted over the rest with a spray tan, I couldn’t shake the baby weight no matter how many miles I ran or what diet plan I was on. Let me tell you, there’s nothing babyish about baby weight. This stuff is a monster. I had Freshology delivering all my meals, I was running on the treadmill, I was barely drinking, and I was breast-feeding. Losing weight should have been easy! But contrary to some of the Hollywood moms who flaunt their bikini bodies just weeks after giving birth, it wasn’t.
Five months into motherhood, I still couldn’t shed the weight. I was feeling better about myself and more optimistic since getting back to the gym, but the number on the scale still wasn’t budging. I ended up throwing away the scale because it became my enemy! I weighed about 140 pounds the day the baby came out of me, and five months later, I still weighed 140 pounds. This really started to anger me because
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