Postpartum "After" Pics
/A couple months ago I decided to join a 30 day challenge.
I’ve always hated 30 day “Before and after picture” competitions. Cough, excuse me, challenges. But that’s what it is, right? A competition. After all, prizes are offered. Someone wins. So, it’s a competition. Right?
I know how most of these competitions go. They’re “won” by the people who made the biggest visible changes. The after pictures that makes us go “wow”. The after picture that shows how much smaller someone has become, or how cut they’ve become. Yes, there are some that don’t do it that way, but the majority of them do.
I’ve always been frustrated with 30 day photo challenges because while we see two pictures side by side, what we don’t see is the whole picture. We see the before picture, the after picture, and read a short snippet how life has miraculously changed in 30 days… but what about the rest of the story?
The problem with pictures is that they are literally just a snapshot. Just like on social media where most people only post their highlight reels, before and after pictures only give us a snapshot into ONE thing.
How our bodies look.
Gross. I hate even writing that. But it’s true, so why mince words? And it’s also true that how our bodies look can be a real motivating factor for change (which is one of the reasons I use progress photos with many of my clients). Sometimes, for some people, it’s the only motivating factor for change. And sometimes, for some people it may be the catalyst, only leading to the desire for a real health change.
The part of me who has spent years hating and pushing her body looks at these pictures and wonders why I never am able to see changes like that. Whether I stick to the prescribed program 100% or go completely off the rails. My day 1 and day 30 pictures generally see the same amount of “progress”. The part of me who has begun to care and tentatively love her body is skeptical. What is going on with that person that they saw that much difference in 30 days?
Did they have a lot of weight to lose and just start their health journey? After all, someone who hasn’t been eating well or moving their body at all can see dramatic physical results in a short period of time.
Are they naturally thin and is it easy for them to put on muscle? Someone who is already thinner and has won the genetic “lottery” so to speak (well, this generation’s lottery, but that’s another subject) might decide to pull out all the stops and go full final-week figure competitor to really make their muscles pop. And while the pictures look good, is that really sustainable?
When I see 30-day competition before and after pictures, I always want to know what happened to the rest of the challengers. How did they change? What kind of impact did 30 days (only 30 days) make on their life? Was it a positive experience? Or, do they see the massive changes posted on social media by one person with the barely legible note on bottom (results not typical) and feel like they somehow failed?
I wonder:
What about the person who is inspired by the 30 day challenge, but spends the first 14 days figuring out how to get started? Sure, he might be 14 days “behind” everyone, but he’s 14 days in to a new journey. Let’s lift him up, not push him down because he didn’t’ make as much visible progress.
What about the new (pandemic) mom who has been told she needs to get her body back by society, but is trying to juggle her career, taking care of her family, keeping a small human alive, and taking care of herself? It’s amazing she’s shown up every day! Let’s clap her up!
What about the guy who uses the challenge as a catalyst for small changes? An extra serving of vegetable each day, parking a little further away at work, only putting one packet of sugar in his coffee instead of three? You might not see a difference right away from those little changes, but they add up!
What about…
As you can see, I struggle with snapshots from such a short period of time. What about after the “after”? What happened before the “before”?
And yet, here I am. Posting a before and after picture. Because I do feel strongly that while they don’t tell the whole story, pictures can tell us so much.
So as you look at my picture, let me tell you want you can’t see:
You can’t see a first time mom who gave birth during the first peak of a pandemic. Whose baby was shut off from society on day one in the hospital
You can’t see a mom who learned to care for a newborn without outside help, while being consistently told her how lucky she was that because of the pandemic, she was able to be left alone
You can’t see the new mom who has known for months that she should probably schedule time with someone to evaluate postpartum hip pain, but doesn’t know when she could possibly make that happen
You can’t see the woman who had to choose daily between being physically active, keeping her business alive, and keeping the house clean
You can’t see the (now laid-off) fitness instructor who had to “begin again” by modifying every exercise in the book
You can’t see the woman who finally felt she was making progress, only to reach a plateau she doesn’t know how to break because she doesn’t want to endanger her nursing relationship with her baby
You can’t see… There are so many things you can’t see in these pictures.
So maybe you don’t see huge visible changes in 30 days. But 30 days, plus 30 days, plus 30 days… and eventually the changes both inside and out are evident.
Day 1 vs. Day 365
So why did I choose to do this 30 day challenge? I didn’t enter this competition to win prizes, but to take 30 days to honestly evaluate myself.
Where I am, how far I’ve come, and how far I need to go. The path ahead feels so long, and there are days when I see the progress (or not) from the past 30 days where the work seems pointless. But as I said before, “30 days, plus 30 days, plus 30 days…”
Honest self-evaluation is often the most challenging. It’s easy to either go super negative, or obliviously positive, but taking the time to do right is completely worth it.
So yes, I entered a 30 day competition. Cough, excuse me, challenge. But really, it was a competition with myself. And overall, I did okay.
BONUS RESOURCES
Postpartum Motivation
We Can Do Hard Things
Body Image and Pregnancy
Love Yourself, Even When it’s Hard
Giving Up Negative Self-Talk
Weight Loss vs. Body Fat Loss