And otherwise titled, the final volume. On the day that Duke turned four months old, I technically hit my pre-baby weight and called it a day. I always used to fluctuate a good five pounds, and full disclosure, I'm at the high end of the fluctuation, but while I'm still nursing, I feel really comfortable right here. All my pre-baby clothes fit and that was the primary driver.

To see where I started, the After Baby Body Volume One which includes pre-baby and immediately after pregnancy, is here.

It took exactly four months to lose 50lbs and in those months, there were some slow losing weeks, and some wicked fast losing weeks and a few weeks that were at a dead stop that had me feeling pretty defeated.

Before I had Duke, when I was really hot, hovering around 170lbs and tersely reminding myself that this whole thing is a GD miracle, I was really afraid I wouldn't lose the weight. I've never tried to lose a substantial amount of weight before + I have a nutritive diet based almost entirely on sugar + no sense of self control. I had the Lord's Prayer on repeat in my mind, especially that bit, you know, about deliver me from my temptations. Please Lord, deliver me from all the Sour Patch Kids and Swedish Fish that you saw fit to put on the grocery shelves.

I really wanted to be one of those people who just exhaled once and somehow lost the weight, but it didn't happen that way. I had to do the thing that we all have to do -- I traded Twizzlers for salad and tried not to cry.

But seriously, I quit the carbs, swapped actual spaghetti for spaghetti squash and walked for an hour every.single.day. Around Thanksgiving, I gave up dairy because it's been fucking with my kid's gastrointestinals and producing the kind of stink that A.) competes with his dad and B.) has me asking God to deliver me from that, too. Anyway, since cheese is a love second only to candy, I think that helped burn through the final pounds. And now, here we are, mostly back in business.

I will say that even though the scale is back into familiar territory, my body is not the same. Everyone's different, but after carrying a child, I don't think I'm ever going to snap right back because I'm pretty sure that my bones moved locations. My hips are wider, my rib cage is wider, and one sip of soda puffs out the pooch in my stomach that serves as a friendly reminder of where I grew little Duke.  I used to have accidental abs -- you know, they were just there. The magic of youth. Those are gone forever now. But I 10000% acknowledge that I exchanged all this for a perfect healthy baby, and I'd do it again a hundred times. Isn't the human body magical? Seriously though.

So, let's  do a list to make things concrete. Here's what worked for me.

• I gave up anything white. White flour, white rice, white bread, white sugar, white pasta. Goodbye. And I mostly gave up their brown counterparts, too. 
• I walked every day. 
• I exclusively breastfeed. Jury's still out on if this helps, but it definitely didn't hurt.
• I wear my baby all the time. Cleaning my house, running errands and going for walks -- I put that 15lb burrito in a carrier and strap him on. 
• I went back to work. Hear me out on this -- it made me busy and gives me less opportunity to think about food. It also makes me happy, which I think is a secret, key ingredient to weight loss. 

***

So that's it - that's the story of how I lost the weight. I had being young-ish on my side (I'm not sure that having your first baby at 28 is considered young, but being 28 is still young in the grand scheme of life, I guess) and I dieted. That's the secret.