Hi, sweet friends.

I shared Baby Gray’s One Year Update yesterday, and today I’m sharing my postpartum fitness update….

(This post contains affiliated links.)

Postpartum Fitness Update | One Year — My first postpartum workout at 6 weeks postpartum | Yesterday’s workout

I always feel like I need to share a disclaimer before I talk about losing weight postpartum. So, here it is:

You don’t need to lose weight to be worthy.

You don’t need to lose weight to be lovable.

You don’t need to lose weight to be a good mom.

If you feel like you need to lose the baby weight in order to feel like YOURSELF again, you’ve come to the right place.

I’ve had 3 babies.

I’ve grown 3 lives inside my body, from cells to infants. My body has carried and cradled and protected my babies. I’ve nourished them with milk that my body made from scratch.

To say that I am thankful for and proud of my body is a vast understatement. I am proud in my bones. I am so thankful it hurts.

When words fall flat, I turn to action.

Sweating daily and eating well and treating my body with the devotion it deserves fill in the blanks.

This is more than a How To Lose The Baby Weight post. This post is a love letter to my body.

It’s also is an invitation to you. It’s permission to put yourself – your body and your health – first for an hour or so every day.

It’s all too easy to look at my “before” and “after” photos and assume it wasn’t hard.

Losing the baby weight the third time around was SO DAMN HARD.

It was soul-crushing at times. It was tedious and unrelenting.

I’m not special. I don’t have the secret to weight loss. I don’t have a shake to share or a pill to sell you. (Don’t buy any of those, please. You’ll waste your money and your time.)

There is no secret.

It’s about sweat and hard work and then more sweat. It’s about not counting on motivation because that always runs out. It’s about waking up early, while the rest of the world sleeps, and turning on the treadmill or pounding the pavement outside.

It’s about scheduling my workouts like I do Dr. appointments for my children. Writing them in my planner in pen, setting an alarm on my phone.

It’s about doing it anyway. Even when I’m tired and cranky and feeling heavy and slow. Even when my workout clothes don’t fit the way they used to. Even when my breath is thick with the first step and my heart races faster than my feet.

It’s about loving myself through it. It’s about knowing when it’s time for yoga and rest.

I’m not going to tell you which workouts to do or what food to eat. I’ve shared those posts before.

Here’s what I’m going to tell you…

Find something that makes your body feel good. Choose a way to workout that you’ll stick with. Not one that you will love every time, (I’m telling you, that workout doesn’t exist.), but a workout that makes you feel better once you’re finished.

For me, that’s running and yoga and Shred.

You need to find out what makes you feel good, strong and challenged.

My biggest advice?

Don’t expect it to be easy. It’s not.

It’ll break you. But then, it’ll build you.

Stick with it, even when you don’t want to. Especially when you don’t want to.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. Show yourself grace, then show up tomorrow.

Take progress pictures. You’ll be shocked at how far you’ve come.

Love your body through it all.