The incredible shrinking pants!

Breastfeeding is an excellent excuse for eating just one more piece of bread, one more helping of lasagna, or one more serving of dessert. When pregnant a woman needs approximately three to five hundred extra calories per day; when breastfeeding she needs about three to five hundred more per day than when she is pregnant. Notice that the wave of thought never goes to: gee, I’m breastfeeding, so therefore I can have another helping of salad! Yippee! It seems to me that an increase in calorie intake equals extra room for carbohydrates and chocolate!

I gained very little weight with this last pregnancy and most of it came off quickly. There remains that last five pounds, however, that clings tenaciously to my midsection. The jeans that I purchased right before I found out I was pregnant with my littlest baby are still difficult to wear. There is plenty ‘o room in the waist, but they are terribly tight in the posterior which causes my still-larger rump to go numb. Yep. It’s actually rather painful. Only one pair out of the four I own stay up without a belt or without making my tuckus ache. (By the way, spell check doesn’t like the word: tuckus).

What a vicious cycle: get hungry + eat = have numb cheeks + cry from pain = stress eat. One would think the numbness would deter a person from eating, but in reality it probably exacerbates the problem. Maybe I should just buy some new jeans. First, I need to change my pants before both legs go numb and I fall down.