The post-partum body

Women are supposed to gain between 25-35 lbs when they are pregnant. I gained slightly more than this and lost about 1/2 of the weight immediately after Lily was born. However, the rest of the weight is not going away so quickly. I don't actually know how much I weigh these days because I made Scott hide the scale after Lily was born (weighing myself on a daily basis in the early post-partum period was doing nothing for my self-esteem!) In addition, my body is a completely different shape than it normally is (wider hips, bigger boobs, flabbier tummy), even though I've been at this same weight at other times in my life. Some people told me that the weight would just "fall right off" because I was breastfeeding. I know that this is actually the case for some women but it certainly isn't the case for me. Granted, I'm not doing anything about my food intake and I'm probably ingesting lots of calories right now given that we are in the middle of the mountain biking season which means beer, chips, cookies, etc. I'm also not actively working out - sure, we do go biking every weekend but it's not that intensive of a cardio activity (you do burn some calories because you are using tons of muscles as you are basically holding a squat for the whole duration of your riding time). I read somewhere that it usually takes slender women 3-6 months to get to their pre-pregnancy weight, curvier (I refuse to use the word chubby!) women take 6-9 months and heavier women take 9-18 months. I've never been a particular slender woman and I'm prone to gaining weight when I'm not actively watching my food intake and exercising regularly so I'll put myself in the 'curvier' category. I've made an exercise plan for the fall - Lily and I will be attending two weekly "stroller-fit" classes and I'm registered for two other fitness classes at the gym and I plan to start watching what I eat (9 months of not caring about my food intake is starting to carry over into my regular eating habits and I need to nip that in the bud). Here's hoping that I can get back to my pre-pregnancy weight by mid-winter!