Posts Tagged pregnancy weight
What I See When I Look In The Mirror…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 3rd, 2010
There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when you lose weight with someone close to you. When Suzy and I were on the show neither of us really noticed the changes that were happening physically. It seems like when we see a person everyday we are less likely to notice the changes in appearance that are taking place.
It seems like the last person to see the change in us when we lose weight is us. When I got home from the ranch everyone was telling me how good I looked but when I saw myself in the mirror I saw the old me. In the same way that we may not notice a weight loss in a person close to us, the opposite is also true. It may not be immediately obvious when the same person we saw lose the weight starts to gain it back.
After Jax was born Suzy said she was going to take six weeks and then get back to working out. At the six week mark she started working out again. By this time I had gotten pretty lazy. Suzy would ask if I wanted to go for a walk and I would go begrudgingly. When I saw Suzy working out everyday, I didn’t see her as someone who needed to lose weight. I saw her as someone who was suggesting that I needed to lose weight.
There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. When she said she was unhappy with her weight I couldn’t figure it out. I seriously thought she was crazy. That is when I realized that I was being an enabler. Not just for my wife, but for myself as well.
By not being supportive of her feelings I was basically telling her that her feelings about herself weren’t valid. By telling her she didn’t have to work out I was giving myself permission to not work out as well. Although I was trying to show her that I loved her “just they way she is” I was doing more harm than good. Of course we love the ones closest to us just the way they are. What are you suppose to do when you love them but they don’t necessarily love themselves?
I’m not saying Suzy didn’t love herself, she didn’t love the way she looked. Not supporting her was like nonverbally saying everyday “It’s fine with me if you aren’t happy just don’t bother me with it because I think you look just fine.” Unfortunately that type thinking was more of a reflection upon myself than it was on my wife.
If I could just get Suzy to be happy with not working out and just carrying some extra weight, maybe I could do the same. It is a little sad but a lot of times in relationships if one person decides they need to make a change the other person takes it personal. As if them wanting to improve themselves somehow means that we are lacking.
For me it was “If Suzy wants to lose weight, she must really mean that she wants me to lose weight.” Oh whoas me! How could she be so selfish as to want something better for herself. There must be something wrong with me. Suzy wanted to be healthy and be an example for our kids like we had talked about since before they were born. I wanted to somehow be healthy but not have to put so much effort into it.
In 14 months my wife had 2 babies and I was the one feeling sorry for myself when I looked in the mirror. Selfishness not only sabatoges the ones we love but ourselves as well. When I finally took a good long look in the mirror I realized that I did in fact need to make some changes. Changes in the way I really saw myself, not how I thought others saw me or how my wife saw me but in the person I saw staring back at me in that mirror everyday.
See you tomorrow!
Surprise Surprise….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 2nd, 2010
Rex was quite a surprise for us. As a good friend of mine likes to say,I couldn’t have been more surprised if I woke up with my head stapled to the carpet, when I found out Suzy was pregnant again. Jax, our second son, was definitely not on our schedule.
It was tough on Suzy because she was only a few pounds away from her goal weight again when we found out Jax was on his way. I was doing well too. This time we pretty much just let loose. We were dealing with a 5 month old and we just gave in. Once again Suzy and I packed on the weight together.
The odd thing is that since we were doing it together it wasn’t so bad in our minds. After all, I was just trying to make my wife happy. I guess that is one of the things about having been on the show together. I think it kind of gave us a false confidence. “We may have gained weight, but we can lose it when we want.” It was true that we could lose it when we wanted, but it was going to take a lot longer than when we were living on the ranch.
I talk all the time about how people in the real world shouldn’t expect to see double digit weight loss numbers every week like they see on the show. I know from experience that it takes hours of activity and pretty excessive calorie restriction to get those numbers. Knowing all this, in the back of my mind I thought I should still be able to do that.
I can’t. Not only can I not lose double digits each week, I don’t want to. I don’t want to live on 1200 calories a day the rest of my life. I like to eat food and enjoy it. I don’t want to feel guilty every time I eat something I’m “not suppose to”. I want to be able to go out to eat with my wife and have some bread. I want to enjoy living a healthy life.
After having our second son, Suzy and I decided to make it our goal to be a healthy family. Not a family on a diet with an exercise obsession, but a healthy family. We decided that we would eat healthy as a family and be active as a family. This meant taking the boys with us when we went for walks. It meant working our schedules out so that each of us could get our own workouts in. It meant making healthy meals and staying away from the fast food joints.
Suzy made all of the boys’ baby food. We never bought a jar of baby food from the store. Doing this made us more aware of how we were eating as well. Just before Jax was born we went for a hike. On the way down from the mountains Suzy wanted to stop and get some ice cream at Dairy Queen. Well, I didn’t want her to have to eat ice cream alone so I got some as well.
About 2 minutes after we got our ice cream Rex started squaking in the back seat. He wanted some ice cream. Suzy said “No Rex, this isn’t for little boys.” After she said that we both looked at each other. We couldn’t tell our kids not to do things if we weren’t willing to not do them ourselves. We tossed the ice cream.
We knew that Rex was getting old enough to see what we were doing. We couldn’t fake it anymore. This crazy life of ours has just gotten crazier as the boys get older but we are doing our best to change our family’s legacy when it comes to health.
See you tomorrow!
The Weight Gain…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 1st, 2010
For about a year after the show I did pretty good. I was traveling a lot, making appearances and doing events. It was still pretty easy for me to stay on track. Suzy and I got married September 19th, 2006. After the wedding we were so excited about all of the things we were going to do. We planned to travel, Suzy was being asked to act as a guest correspondent for Access Hollywood, I had more speaking events than I could do, we were ready to enjoy our married life as a “celebrity” couple. It was so much fun.
As I said, we got married on the 19th of September and made all our plans. On November 1st, Suzy was getting ready to go to New York to do a photo shoot and interview. Before she left she went to the store and got a pregnancy test. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t! Less than a month after gettting married, Suzy was pregnant!
Plans changed. Suzy got on a plane and flew to New York. I was at home to think about what we had just found out. I’ll be honest, kids were the last thing on my mind this early into our marriage. Here we had all these big plans and now we had to make some serious adjustments.
I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be a good and supportive husband but I didn’t know what would be the best way for me to do that. Suzy didn’t really enjoy being pregnant. Knowing that she was uncomfortable most of the time, I did what I thought would be the easiest for her. “Oh Honey, you’re not feeling very good? Let me go get you something. What do you want? Tacos, ice cream, want to just go out?”
I turned to food, my lifelong coping mechanism. I was freaking out and I turned to food! Suzy started gaining weight and so did I. The thing is, she was pregnant I was not. It just seemed like the thing to do. Sympathy weight, right? I didn’t even realize that I was beginning to pack on the pounds. My clothes still fit and I was still getting compliments at all of my events. I was oblivious.
It wasn’t until we were on Larry King after Rex was born and then were cut out of a Biggest Loser piece that we did that I realized how big I had gotten. When I saw myself on television again I was shocked. What on earth was I doing? How am I suppose to talk to others about being healthy when I looked like I did. I panicked.
It was time to go back to work. Suzy took some time after Rex was born and then we both started to get back to work. One of our biggest goals as parents is to ensure that out children do not have to struggle like we have with weight. We don’t want them to ever see us on a “diet”. That meant that we had to get things under control immediately.
We bought an amazing stroller and Rex got his first workout, a stroller ride, when he was about a week old. He has been active ever since. We both lost weight and were feeling good. We were adjusting to our new life with baby. When Rex was about 5 months old our lives were about to change yet again. Suzy was pregnant again!
See you tomorrow!
