8 tips for every mom to lose the baby weight for good.
A woman’s body changes naturally during and after pregnancy. While pregnant, your weight gain includes the baby, placenta, amniotic fluid, breast tissue, blood, uterus enlargement, and extra fat deposits. After giving birth, not only that you have a wider waist and hip and stretch marks but also extra weight.
Achieving a weight loss plan after giving birth is a struggle. You are just recovering from childbirth, you’re taking care of the newborn and you’re adjusting to the new routine. Who would have time to think of losing weight? However, it’s important to gain a healthy weight again after giving birth. It means losing the baby weight, the extra weight gain during pregnancy that results in fats.
If you are looking for tips to lose the baby weight for good, here are some ways you can try to get back to that pre-baby body.
Exercise
Once your doctor gives you permission, you should try to become physically active again. Crunches, squats, pelvic tilts, and lunges are some exercises you can try for weight loss and a flat stomach. You can also first try modified exercises while holding the baby before doing more intensive workouts or going back to a gym in Sydney. If you have a certain activity that you enjoy doing even before pregnancy, go for it. Find what will suit you, whether it’s simply walking, jogging, or cycling.
Moving around can give you a lot of benefits after pregnancy. Aside from burning calories, exercise reduces your risk of diabetes and several types of cancer, as well as improves your heart health.
If possible, breastfeed
Breast Milk provides the best nutrition, supports the immune system, and reduces the risk of diseases in your baby. With the many benefits associated with it, the World Health Organization highly recommends exclusive breastfeeding of the newborn within 6 months of life.
Aside from being an ideal way of feeding infants, breastfeeding has also been shown to help new mothers to lose weight. To produce milk, the body burns extra calories. Even so, the amount you will lose will still depend on other factors like your eating habits and activity level. It isn’t always a fast process. The effect on your body may not be visible during the first three months, but with the hormones released during breastfeeding that help shrink your uterus, your belly will look slimmer.
Don’t crash diets
Your post-baby diet has a lot to do with your postpartum weight loss. Certainly, crash diets won’t work. It will only hurt your body, and you will be gambling your health with this. What you need is a healthy and well-balanced diet.
Crash diets are low-calorie meal plans that are designed to lose weight as quickly as possible. But it doesn’t mean that it will work for you as a new mom. After delivery, you still need good nutrition to heal and recover. You may even require more calories to support your baby’s breastfeeding needs.
Avoid processed food
When trying to lose weight and breastfeeding at the same time, keep the processed food away from your kitchen. Processed food may be helpful when you need something fast to prepare and cook, but it’s not good for you. This kind of food is very high in added sugars, salt, fats, and calories, the stuff you want to avoid when losing weight. Research also shows that consuming processed food is associated with more addictive eating habits.
Eat fibre- and protein-rich food
You do need a healthy meal as a mom. Having a protein- and fibre-rich diet is a good option to keep you energized and help you recover. These foods give you the nutrients you need and help you lose weight while eating healthy.
Both protein- and fibre-rich food make you feel fuller which can help you decrease your appetite and avoid overeating. When combined with exercise, a high-protein diet also helps build lean muscle. Food that are sources of healthy protein include legumes, eggs, lean meats, nuts, and dairy. Meanwhile, healthy grains and vegetables are high in fibres.
Drink enough water
Drinking a lot of water prevents dehydration. This is important for breastfeeding moms so they can replace the fluids lost during milk production.
Additionally, drinking water increases your sense of fullness by filling you up without adding extra calories. It also speeds up your metabolism and satiates your cravings which both aid in losing weight.
Control your cravings
Eating healthy may not be enough. When trying to lose weight, learning how to say no to unhealthy food that you crave is also important. Breastfeeding makes you hungry most of the time, but you should not always respond when the urge strikes. If you do, make sure that it’s a healthy snack you’re having. Avoid fried and processed foods, sugary drinks, chips, and alcohol. Otherwise, all your other efforts to take back that pre-baby body will be useless.
Other healthy alternatives to manage cravings include drinking water and eating protein-rich food.
Get enough sleep
This is a difficult task for new moms. A complete 8-hour sleep is sometimes impossible when you have to change nappies in the middle of the night and breastfeed the little one. Nevertheless, you should still aim to get enough sleep. Lack of sleep can lead to both weight gain and difficulty in losing weight.
You can try asking for help from friends and families to increase your sleep duration. Taking a nap whenever you can, especially when the baby sleeps, is also a good strategy.