Running and the spare tire

My mother told me there's an old saying in India that a woman receives a new body once she gives birth. The thinking being that everything in a woman's body changes. As I mentioned in a previous post the 'new' body is treated with a lot of care. Supposedly joints are soft and bones are softened and one loses essential minerals. Essentially, it's as if both the woman and her baby are newly born.

To an extent I can agree with the above statement (even Western allopathic medicine concedes that women shed up to 10% of their brain cells during pregnancy), but I was not entirely in love with the old body's love handles. Having given up 17 pounds of said new body to running and breastfeeding I am very proud of my new body. Now, however to the point of this entry. Despite every effort from me to convince my brain that my legs are perfectly capable of carrying me as far as I need to go and there being no fathomable way in which I could ever utilize it, my body refuses to shed the spare tyre I've been carrying around since before Tara was born. In all fairness the spare tire is deflated and saggy... (sounds sexy doesn't it?). Not to be too disparaging of myself, when I meet someone new they're always surprised that I have an eleven month old baby. (Happy Eleven Month Birthday baby boy!)

If I am extremely careful with my diet and running... i.e. running 20 miles each week and skipping carbs for dinner, I wake up with a flat belly in about a week's time. Sounds great except that a week or so of this regimen and my willpower screams bloody murder and I end up making a beeline for every possible sugary carb in sight. And the 'binge' (not in a bulimic sense) lasts about three days by which point the sane me reigns in my willpower and I'm back to my spare tyre-y self. One cause of said caving of willpower could also be MSH's upcoming USMLE Step 1. He writes in less than two weeks and if I was a nail-biter I would have bitten them to the raw by now.

So how does one get rid of the spare tire for good? I haven't done found the answer, but if I was to pontificate I'd say that I keep up the running and not cut the carbs completely at dinnertime. Also, I should go easy on myself until after MSH writes his exam.