Posts by Maria Martinez69

I'm 31, about 5'8", and hit the 198 lb mark during pregnancy. It’s been two months now and I’m still stuck at 180 lbs. I’ve started strength training again, but haven't quite found the motivation for cardio yet. The weird thing is, the scale isn't budging, but the inches are dropping and the cellulite is actually starting to fade. My plan is to lean out first, then focus on bulking up to regain—or hopefully exceed—my old muscle mass. Honestly, it's a struggle looking in the mirror right now because I'm so used to my "old self," but if I'm being fair to myself, I am pretty happy with how much my body has recovered in just two months.

I haven't exactly been on a diet since my last update—between the stress at work and keeping up with my classes, I just didn't have the mental bandwidth for it. But I’ve finally started hitting a calorie deficit, and things are slowly starting to move in the right direction. I’m crossing my fingers that in two months I might actually be able to post a photo in a bikini, or at least something with significantly less clothing. Anyway, here’s a shot from today; I decided to focus on the back and biceps.

Hey everyone! I’ve been lurking here for a while, reading all your posts, so I figured it was finally time to actually jump in and contribute. I don't really have any old photos to show what I looked like before—I barely managed to dig these up—but here goes nothing. Before I started hitting the gym regularly, I was hovering around 130 lbs. Honestly? I was the definition of "skinny fat"—no curves anywhere, just flat. Then I started training consistently and eating *everything* in sight, which bumped me up to about 167 lbs. Yeah, okay, looking at the scale, that's definitely heavy for my height (5'7"), but I'm actually more confident now than I've ever been. The chest situation hasn't changed much, but my glutes and legs? Let's just say I finally have something to fill out my jeans. Since I've put on quite a bit of extra weight along the way, I started a calorie deficit about a week ago, and let me tell you, the cravings have been real. Sorry for the clothed shots; I'm still a little too self-conscious to strip down just yet, but I’m planning to post some new ones in a month or two with less clothing and hopefully some visible progress. Posting this mostly just to give myself a little kick in the pants...
The first two are from before the gym era...