Openness to life and body image/changes?
I’m struggling with my weight and body image. I know this is not uncommon, but I do feel like it’s uniquely difficult from a Catholic perspective.
I tend to gain a LOT of weight with pregnancy and have large babies. I wasn’t super thin before having kids and each pregnancy has left me with an extra ten pounds, even after working hard to lose the weight. Plus breastfeeding makes it especially difficult to restrict calories without impacting my supply.
I’m currently pregnant with #3 and desperate to try to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight after this. But every healthy weight loss plan has one thing in common: TIME. Slow, steady weight loss is the only sustainable way.
And as a Catholic, I don’t really have the luxury of time. We do practice NFP to space my pregnancies for health reasons, but the vain reason of “I want to lose weight” doesn’t seem like a just reason to TTA for years.
It also feels discouraging that even if I do the work to lose the weight, I will likely have to do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. Not only with weight loss but with pelvic floor and ab repair, etc.
It makes me jealous of my secular friends who know they are done with children, who have their body back to themselves (no pregnancy/breastfeeding), and have all the years in the world ahead of them to focus on fitness.
I’ve just never felt so low and ugly and I’m desperate not to feel this way anymore.