Singer Cassie Fine is opening up about her battle to lose the 60 pounds of weight she gained while pregnant with her daughter. Back in December 2019, Cassie and her husband, Alex Fine, welcomed their first child into the world.
And while the couple is madly in love with their little girl, the new mom admitted her journey towards losing her baby weight was “depressing.” In an op-ed for Almost Home, Cassie admitted that while it was hard for her to publicly share her before and after photos, “becoming a mother and experiencing how amazing the female body is,” she “felt it necessary to share.”
Cassie Details ‘Depressing’ Postpartum Weight Loss Journey
The before-photo was taken one month postpartum and it was the only photo she let her husband take of her during her postpartum journey. As she shared, she was 30-pounds heavier in the before photo than she was in the after photo which was taken eight months postpartum.
She shared that it was hard for her to even allow Alex to take a photo of what her body looked like one-month postpartum because she “didn’t even recognize” herself in the mirror. “It made me cringe. I just wanted to do the work and wake up one day and be back to my normal self. No before picture!”
Now, Cassie says she realizes the importance of taking the before picture, even if it’s just for you. And that’s when she begins to explain why.
“So to rewind a bit, I had my daughter Frankie on December 6th, 2019. I gained a total of 60lbs. Yes! I thoroughly enjoyed my pregnancy, lol. I lost 20 pounds within the first couple of weeks which I was told was normal and then another 10 gradually over the next two to three weeks.”
As the new mom continued, when she had 30 more pounds to go, she started working out again once she was cleared by her doctor. She “went pretty hard at first” and by mid-March, “I was down another 15 and feeling pretty good,” Cassie wrote.
“I had a bit of unexplained anxiety, but I was able to work through it, and down another 15 meant I only had 15 pounds to go to get back to my pre-baby weight. That only lasted a couple of weeks and out of nowhere, I gained the 15 back. I was right back to where I started.”
This frustrated Cassie, but instead of getting down on herself, she visited her doctor to see if they could give her an explanation for her sudden weight gain. And the did.
“After a few weeks of bloodwork, I found out that I had something called postpartum thyroiditis. Basically my thyroid was hyper for a short period, hence the anxiety and weight loss, and then slowed down causing me to gain [the] weight back,” Cassie explained. “From what my doctor told me it’s not super common. About 5 to 10-percent of women experience it within the first year after childbirth.”
But even though Cassie got the answers she was looking for, the following three months proved to be “confusing” and “depressing” for the singer. She changed her diet, paid attention to the food she reacted negatively too, and eventually started loosely following an autoimmune diet in fear that her thyroiditis would turn into Hashimoto’s Disease.
“I had completely lost my mind, but I’m glad that I did. I needed to understand what was happening with my body. I went from creating and bringing life into this world to trying whatever I could to get back to feeling like myself again. It wasn’t about my weight anymore, it was about being happy, feeling good, and not developing a disorder I’ve never heard of.”
It was three months later, and through more bloodwork, that Cassie was able to get her thyroid working properly again. But it was only then that she was able to get consistent with her workouts again.
“Once I started to become more consistent, I started to see and feel the results very slowly but it was happening,” she continued. “I know a lot of people think, well she’s married to a personal trainer, it shouldn’t be hard for her or she should be in shape, she has no excuse, but I was unhappy with myself. Sh*t happens, I’m human. Truth be told, Alex spent those months in quarantine with me trying to drag me out of my slump to work out because he wanted me to be happy again, but more often than not, I didn’t budge.”
Nonetheless, eventually and at her own pace, Cassie got back into the swing of things. And now, she’s at a point in her postpartum journey she can be proud of.
In the end, Cassie admitted that she wanted to share her story because she wanted it to be a reminder that no two journeys are the same. “Gaining that much weight in pregnancy had many negative physical effects on my body. I spent a lot of time Sports Rehab LA trying to correct my back pains from the weight and neck pains from breastfeeding and constantly looking down at the baby.”
It was once she got her core strength back that a lot of her pain went away. “Consistency was key,” she wrote. “The program that Alex designed for me was the best gift he could have given me besides Frankie, of course.”
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And while it was far from easy, Cassie says she’s glad she didn’t give up and now she’s in better shape than ever before. “As women, (not all of us, but a decent amount) we put so much pressure on ourselves to look a certain way when I think what we should be focused on is our overall health and happiness.” And as she continued, “working out has given me a place to get rid of any negative energy and emotions that I might have, boost my serotonin, and practice discipline.”
In the end, Cassie says no matter what your goals are, just “choose to be healthy” because, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters to the little one you just brought into the world.