Give yourself a break and don’t try to snap back to your pre-pregnancy weight right away. Slow and steady wins the race.
After giving birth, it may be hard to get back to your old shape. It doesn’t help to see all the tabloid stories about star mothers who snap back to their old form, seemingly overnight.
They are not good examples. You don’t know how they achieved their weight loss and what harm they did to themselves by doing it quickly.
It’s better to keep you and your baby healthy, choosing a regimen that's doable and safe, while combining a healthy diet with exercise.
Give yourself time
When returning to your pre-pregnancy weight, slow and steady wins the race. If you lose weight too quickly after childbirth, you might experience problems such as a decline in energy and nutritional deficiencies. Give yourself six months to return to your earlier weight, but wait at least six weeks after giving birth, until your first checkup, before even attempting to slim down.
Don’t crash and burn
Crash diets can cause you to crash and burn — and the weight you lose this way may be muscle instead of fat.
A reasoned approach to diet can include:
- Not skipping meals (missing meals reduces your energy and doesn’t help you lose weight)
- Eating well-balanced meals
- Having healthy snacks between meals, such as apple slices, carrot sticks, and pepper strips
- Drinking plenty of water to keep you hydrated and help you feel full
- Maximizing nutrition for yourself and your baby with “super foods,” such as DHA-packed cold-water fish (DHA is an essential omega-3 fatty acid), sources of calcium such as milk and eggs, and lean meats
- Choosing broiled or baked rather than fried foods
- Limiting sugar, salt and fat
Breastfeeding
Another reason to be careful with how fast you lose weight is that a sudden loss may affect how much milk you produce if you’re breastfeeding.
And, depending who you listen to, breastfeeding may actually help you to lose weight as you impart calories to baby. Besides passing on other benefits to baby, such as a boost to his/her immune system, breastfeeding allows you to add about 300 calories a day to your diet — more, of course, if you have twins.
Pump it up
Pursue fitness in a reasonable and regular fashion, incorporating aerobic, strengthening and stretching exercises. Not only can you burn calories and stay strong, exercise can help deal with depression, stress and sleep issues.
Exercise doesn’t just mean going to the gym. Lugging around a baby all day and pushing a stroller can easily play their part.
The most important thing is to not get frustrated. With a new baby, it might be hard to find 30 minutes at a time to exercise, so shoot for 10 or 20, and build up the exercise intervals as you can.
