Just a Mum feeling fat and sad

Edit: Hi everyone, I just checked this post (I had been a bit afraid as I was worried that I would get lots of “stop making excuses” comments) and I was still feeling a bit fragile.

But, by and large most of your comments have been so kind and generous and I just really wanted to say thank-you to everyone who took the time to be supportive of me on a day when I really needed that. It has really meant a lot.

I haven’t talked to my husband about this - I swear he means well, he’s just a bit oblivious and honestly probably thought he was just helping. But thanks to all the people who stuck up for me and validated my feelings of being really hurt and let down by his response. I’m going to try and calm my internal emotions down before I raise it with him.

As for my son - today he got on the scale again (I swear he just likes seeing the screen light up blue. Again I told him he was perfect and then he asked me (I swear this kid!) “why are you not perfect?” To which I replied “well you know I think I’m perfect” and he replied “yeah you are perfect”So there we are. Partial progress.

Thanks again everyone, I’ll try to reply to some of the comments, but if I don’t get to you please know that I really do appreciate everyone’s time and support.

Original Post:

Hi all, sorry for being a bit of a downer. Just needed to cry into the void so to speak.

Started this morning, I was having a shower and my 4 year old came into the bathroom and weighed himself on the scale. He asked how much he weighed and I replied with “it says you’re perfect” which is my standard response. Then when I got out he asked how much I weighed. I got on and said “it says I’m perfect too” to which he looked at me skeptically and I asked “you don’t think I’m perfect?” And then e he poked me in the tummy he replied kind of laughingly (and definitely not meanly - he’s a sweet kid) “no, you’ve got a big belly”.

Well I must have looked a bit shocked/upset because he quickly said “no you’ve got a little tummy like me”. So we glossed over it and got on with our day but then this evening I told my husband, kind of as a joke and a few minutes after it he says, “but is there any surgery you could get, because your stomach’s never gone back completely after having kids?”. Well I just about started crying. I explained that no, there wasn’t as I didn’t have diastasis recti (where the abs stay separated). He said he wasn’t calling me fat and I don’t think he was but it took a lot of effort to not just start crying.

So here I am, just having the whinge. It’s just hard you know, the last few years have been tough. Tough birth, tough recovery which meant it was really hard getting back to exercise (couldn’t really for a year), a pandemic, endless daycare germs that keep setting progress back often for months at a time. A husband who works long hours and a demanding job of my own.

Then this time last year, I was the fittest I’d been before having kids, doing 10km races, looking better, weighing less. Then I got Covid, couldn’t exercise for 6 months and then spent another 6 just getting back now, to a low baseline so I can start to push again. Meanwhile the weight came back on. So here I am, fat, unfit and with my family seeing and thinking it out loud.

I know I just need to keep committing and showing up but it’s really hard and sometimes I feel so discouraged. I feel like this idea that one day I’ll get it together, be fit, be thinner, is just a mirage and I’ll never get there.

Anyway sorry to be a depressing moaner but just needed to vent, even if it is to random people on the internet.

Time for a cry and an early night I think…