Among the constant diaper changes and feedings, a big focus of new moms is how to lose the baby weight they’ve gained while pregnant. Most women hope that when they have their baby, they will magically lose the 40 extra pounds they’ve gained in labor and will instantly appear at their pre-pregnancy weight the next day.
However, it typically doesn’t work like this. While I fully understand and support focusing on your health and fitness, remember that this is not the most important thing after you have your baby. The beautiful baby you now have is, and should be, your primary focus and meeting their needs is your #1 job.
That being said, it’s still important to make sure you take care of yourself and stay as healthy as possible, so that you can be the best mom you can be. There are some very simple steps you can take to lose your baby weight fast.
Minimize Your Weight Gain While Pregnant
I understand that this can be much easier said than done, but it is very important to have a focus on your health and wellness while pregnant. If you don’t gain as much weight when you’re pregnant, you don’t have as much to lose after delivery. At the beginning of my pregnancy with my first son, I was advised to keep my pregnancy weight down because it would overall cause less complications and keep both me and my baby healthier during my pregnancy and delivery.
This advice proved to be very helpful. As I’ve mentioned in Calling All Mamas, I only gained about 17-20 pounds with my first son, and currently, following the same advice, I am 28 weeks with my second son and have only gained about 8 pounds. My first son was born at 6 pounds, 1 ounce and was perfectly healthy during and after delivery. To this day, he has still never had any real health issues. My second pregnancy has gone very similarly to the first by following virtually the same guidelines.
Nutrition
I follow a gluten-free, dairy-free lifestyle, for the most part. I am much more strictly non-gluten than non-dairy because I know the limits that I am able to have without getting sick from dairy. For example, I know I can have cheese and every once in a while I can have greek yogurt, but I absolutely can’t drink milk or have ice cream.
Following these lifestyles limits a lot of what you can eat, but not in a bad way. It limits a lot of junk food, including donuts, ice cream, etc. Instead, I eat peanut butter banana toast, and fruit popsicles. It’s about changing your mindset and not looking at it as a limitation, but rather, just a modification to enjoy something healthier.
By the way, if you choose to switch to gluten-free, dairy-free, you will likely notice that a lot of other symptoms you may experience while pregnant, like headaches, fatigue, digestive issues, etc. could clear up. A lot of people are actually intolerant to these substances and don’t know it.
Fitness
I have mentioned in many other articles the importance of working out and being active while pregnant, but it is too important not to mention again. Your body is creating human life and the many benefits of exercise can only help to encourage healthy development for both you and baby.
Just getting out everyday and taking a quick 20-30 minute walk has amazing benefits for your body. The increased oxygen intake and blood flow, and influx of endorphins will make you feel considerably better every day of your pregnancy. If you really want to maximize the benefits of exercise, incorporate weight lifting, but DON’T GO OVERBOARD! Being careful and using lighter weights with more reps is ideal when pregnant, especially if your doctor places weight restrictions on you.
The important thing to focus on is maintaining and building muscle, especially the muscles that will support your growing belly and those that will help you while in labor. Coincidentally, those same muscles that support your core and your back, are the ones that will help tighten your tummy after you deliver. After I had my first son, the nurses couldn’t get over the fact that as soon as I delivered, my stomach was almost completely flat and I was up and moving around minutes later.
If you think about it, if you wait until after you have your baby to start getting toned and getting fit, then you have to start at square one after delivery, which is virtually impossible because of the limited exercise you can do during the first 6 weeks postpartum. However, if you start to tone and tighten while you’re still pregnant, after you deliver and no longer have a baby to carry around, your muscles that are used to being toned can tighten more because they are no longer being stretched around baby. In that case, your muscles will retract, making your stomach flatter.
Breastfeeding
If you’ve read my post on How to Be Successful With Breastfeeding, then you know the importance for you and your baby to breastfeed. But one of the other benefits of breastfeeding is that it can help you lose your baby weight very quickly.
On average, breastfeeding burns about 20 calories per ounce of breastmilk, so the amount your baby eats per day determines how many calories you can burn. For example, if your baby is eating 20-30 ounces a day, your body is burning approximately 400-600 calories a day to produce the milk. As you can see, this can be very beneficial when trying to lose baby weight and not being able to exercise extensively.
Now there is a balance to this calorie burn, because a lot of times your hunger will increase tremendously while breastfeeding because of this increase in calorie expenditure. In other words, your body knows you need additional calories in order to produce milk in the first place and will send you more hunger cues to maintain this balance. But if you maintain a healthy diet and don’t go overboard with your increase in calories, breastfeeding can be beneficial to helping you lose weight.
Nutrition
Now whether or not you choose to breastfeed, your nutrition and diet is very important when trying to lose your baby weight.
For Those That Choose to Breastfeed:
Nutrition is vitally important when breastfeeding and unfortunately, many women think that because they’re breastfeeding, similar to when they’re pregnant, they can eat whatever they want and as much as they want. However, you really should be focusing on maximizing your healing body, as well as eating foods that encourage milk production. Because as we learned earlier, the more milk you produce, the more calories you burn.
The biggest thing you can do to increase your milk supply is to drink more water. After all, your body uses water to make breastmilk, so if you aren’t drinking a lot of extra water, your body will steal it from other sources within your body and leave you dehydrated. As an added bonus, water is calorie free. Therefore, you can increase your milk production without taking in a lot of extra calories.
The same thing goes for hydrating foods. Foods like celery, watermelon, and cucumber have high water content, and therefore have the same low-calorie, high milk-producing capabilities.
Other foods, like oatmeal, almonds, and Mother’s Milk Tea can help you produce more milk as well. For more information on how to increase milk supply, check out my article How to Be Successful With Breastfeeding.
For Those That Choose Not to Breastfeed:
Nutrition also plays a huge role in losing your baby weight. Focusing on hydrating foods is beneficial for you too because, as we discussed earlier, they are low-calorie foods that keep your body hydrated. When your body is dehydrated, it tends to hold on to water, and makes you bloated because your body starts to think that water is not an available resource and tries to conserve what it can.
Increasing your water intake and your intake of hydrating foods can fight this bloating effect and flush out toxins, and other substances that prevent you from losing weight. Your body also functions better when it’s hydrated, so your metabolism and other factors that help you lose weight function more efficiently as well.
Other foods you want to focus on are fruits, vegetables and protein that provide nutrients your body needs to recover from delivery and support your new role as a mom. Those sleepless nights and hours on your feet can’t be supplied by caffeine and cookies alone. Focus on high energy foods like protein to fuel your days. Read Are You Getting Enough Protein In Your Diet? to find out how to increase your protein intake.
Exercise
Exercise is crucial when it comes to losing weight after baby, but be careful! Always listen to your healthcare provider when it comes to when you can exercise and how much you can exercise after baby. Most doctors will tell you not do to anything strenuous for 6 weeks after delivery and then they will clear you for physical activity. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be a couch potato for 6 weeks. There are some very low-intensity exercises you can do, as long as your doctor hasn’t placed additional restrictions on you.
Some of the best exercises you can do are actually recommended to do during the 6 first weeks after delivery. I remember when I had my first son, I received a booklet with tons of information on what to expect after having a baby. Included were core strengthening exercises that would not only tighten and tone your abdomen, also help shrink your uterus back down to normal size. These are very important exercises and aid in your ability to get back to a normal state where you can exercise without limits.
Depending on what kind of delivery you have and whether you have any complications, walking can be another great exercise to do in the first 6 weeks postpartum. The best part about walking as an exercise is that you can easily control the intensity and duration without any additional equipment. Many people don’t realize that walking can also help tighten tummy muscles. If you stand up straight and pull in your stomach, you can tone your abdominals even more.
Once you get the all clear from your doctor, start slow. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day and your new postpartum body is something you have to retrain. It’s not all going to come back as quickly as before you got pregnant, and it may not even work exactly the same as it did before. You have to give yourself time to understand your new body and learn how it works.
A great place to start is to follow my Total Body Workouts. They target and tone multiple body parts, increasing stamina and tightening all of those areas that need a little extra attention after having your baby.
Patience
One of the most important things to remember is to have patience after having a baby. Remember, your body just created this amazing creature and that takes a huge toll. You may not be starting from ground zero, if you follow my advice about staying active while pregnant, but you are still working through setbacks and delays. But regardless of where you’re at, your body is beautiful and amazing and worth celebrating no matter what you see in the mirror. Take comfort in the fact that at this point in your life, your body is primarily serving another purpose and you can get back in shape eventually. With hard work and dedication, it will happen! Be proactive and focused on yours and your baby’s health and happiness first and foremost and get support from those you love. And always remember, you are an amazing mom and you are beautiful, no matter what!