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While all your life you have tried not to put on those unwanted pounds, there comes a time in your life when your gynec recommends that you should put on some weight for a healthy pregnancy. With supporting the baby being your utmost priority, you heed to the advice without any qualms. But once you actually start putting on weight, you’re now growing conscious about your changing body image.
“What if I am unable to lose weight after pregnancy?” The question haunts almost every pregnant woman more often than you think. This immediately gets you to the next common concern in pregnancy, “how much weight can I expect to lose after giving birth?” And you end up asking friends, pestering your gynecologist, or even google it all up on the Internet like you just did.
Take a deep breath and relax! It really isn’t as bad as you make it out to be. You want to make sure that you’re back in shape after your child birth, eat nutritious food and do mild exercises regularly during your pregnancy, to start with.
Putting on weight when you are pregnant doesn’t mean that you’re hogging on potato chips, french fries, or the cheese sticks all that you want. It has to be healthy weight gain if you want to make it any easier for you to lose weight after the pregnancy. But you must understand that it does take a little time.
Although it’s okay to long to get back to your pre-pregnancy weight after you’ve settled into your routine after child birth, but be sure that you’re not getting yourself onto any rigorous exercising regime or restrictive diets, no matter how tempted you might be. In fact, it is important that you take a go-ahead from your doctor before you even begin exercising after your pregnancy. Understand that your body needs some time to heal after the childbirth experience.
Even after a month or so, if household work and cooking seems like too much, instead of stressing yourself out, you can always opt for healthy home delivery services without having to resort to unhealthy restaurant food. Nutrisystem is one of my favorite delivery services of all time. You can check out this link to know about their ongoing discounts or coupons.
Once your body has gained enough strength, after 5-6 months maybe, you can see which diet plan works best and check with your doctor if it will be okay for you to start with it.
Mayo Clinic suggests that losing weight after pregnancy is no different than any other person who’s trying to lose weight. Moderate exercise and nutrient-rich diet goes a long way but there’s no substitute for patience.
The only way losing weight can be a little different from those of others is, you need to be cautious about not pushing yourself too hard even in your post-partum phase, like you used to take care of this when you used to exercise in your pregnancy.
Walking is the best way for you to get started. After that you can switch to some abdomen strengthening exercises that must have stretched when you were pregnant. Maintain a 20-30 minutes of moderately difficult workout routine, making sure that you’re not skipping your warm-up or cool down for every workout.
Still if you’re looking for a specific answer to how much should you be losing after giving birth to your child, it sure varies a lot depending on your baby’s size.
According to The American Pregnancy Association, the average weight of a baby is usually between seven and weight pounds. The weight of placenta is around 1-2 pounds at the time of delivery. In addition to this, you can include the 1-2 pounds approximately for the amniotic fluid. So the total amount a woman normally loses immediately after her delivery comes out to 10 to 12 pounds.
Moving forward, it is a scientifically proven fact that mothers who prolong their nursing period as directed by their gynecs are more likely to lose weight than the ones who give up nursing their child early. When you are breast-feeding, 2000 calories daily is your essential requirement every day.
The nutrition of the baby suffers only when the mother is malnourished. But if you are not consuming sufficient calories when you’re nursing regularly, it will make you feel drowned and lacking in energy. A study published in the “US National Library of Medicine” found that nursing contributes a great deal to the lower post-partum retention of weight, irrespective of pre-pregnancy BMI of the mother. In this study, women usually got back to their pre-pregnancy weight six month post-partum.
A puritan soul at heart, Marcia Calleiro is a work-from-home writer who decided to go against the American dream of materialism and settle in the peaceful state of Michigan with her family. Calleiro is a weight loss enthusiast and loves going on long walks in the fields. She orders from diet meal delivery services as they serve fresh, tasty and nutritious food. She is currently a contributor to the Preemie Twins Website, a site which offers substantial information to the new mommies-to- be about pregnancy, giving birth and staying healthy, all at once.