DivyaMany women struggle to achieve a healthy weight and losing weight after pregnancy. During pregnancy, a woman may gain 11.5 to 16 kg. Too much weight gain results in too much fat. This is called “baby weight,” and it’s very common. There are adverse effects of keeping this excess weight. They are:
- Increased risk of being overweight.
- Diabetes and heart disease risk increases.
- Complications in later pregnancies may arise.
- Higher health risks for women with gestational diabetes.
How to lose weight after delivery? Here are some tips you can use for losing weight after pregnancy.
[Read Top 10 Post Pregnancy Belts]
Losing Weight After Pregnancy – 16 Tips
1. Post-delivery weight loss can take time
The research found that women retain an average of 0.5–3 kg of their pregnancy weight gain even after 12 months.
Another study found that 40% kept more than 2.5 kg of the weight they had gained during pregnancy, while 14–20% of women retained more than 5 kg.
Depending on the weight gained during pregnancy you may expect that over one to two years you may lose around 4.5 kg. If you had added on more weight, you may find yourself to be a few pounds heavier than you were pre-pregnancy.
With a good diet and exercise, you can achieve any level of weight loss after delivery.
The target of how to lose belly fat after c-section must be to return to a healthy weight range.
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2. Crash diets are very low-calorie diets that aim to losing weight after pregnancy in a very short time.
After delivery, your body needs healthy and nutritious food to heal and recover. If you are breastfeeding, you require more calories than normal. Hence a low-calorie diet that will be lacking in important nutrients will leave you feeling tired. This is the opposite of what you need when you have to take care of a new-born.
If your weight is at present stable, decreasing your calorie intake by 500 calories per day will stimulate a weight loss of about 0.5 kg per week.
It has been found that this amount of weight loss after delivery has no negative effects on milk production or the baby’s growth for breastfeeding babies.
3. Breastfeeding leads to the mother’s losing weight after pregnancy
Other benefits of breastfeeding are-
- It contains all the nutrients a baby needs to grow in the first six months of life.
- It contains important antibodies that help the baby fight viruses and bacteria.
- The uterus contract and become normal faster after birth.
- Breastfed infants have a lower risk of lung conditions, skin conditions, obesity, diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome.
- Women who breastfeed have lower risks of type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and postnatal depression.
In the first three months, you may not have any weight loss after c-section. You may even gain some weight due to increased calorie intake and reduced physical activity during lactation.
Diet and exercise will help you losing weight after pregnancy if you are not breastfeeding.
[Read Benefits of Breastfeeding]
4. Count your calories
It will help you ensure that you are getting enough calories to provide you with lots of energy and nutrition. Keeping a food diary can help you keep track of the food that you have eaten.
Many mobile apps help you do the same. These will help in limiting the quantity of food and eating healthier and more nutritious foods, which support losing weight after pregnancy.
5. Eat fibrous food
This helps with losing weight after pregnancy. Soluble fiber helps you feel fuller for a long time as they slow down digestion and reduce hunger hormone levels.
They also get fermented into short-chain fatty acids in the gut. These help increase levels of fullness hormones. These also affect digestion and may help you reduce calorie intake and rapid weight loss after pregnancy.
6. Protein inclusion in your diet boosts metabolism and decreases appetite
Studies show that the body uses more energy to digest it than other types of foods. This results in more calorie burn and hence losing weight after pregnancy.
Protein is also able to suppress appetite by increasing the fullness hormones. Healthy sources include lean meats, eggs, fish, legumes, nuts, seeds, and dairy.
7. Eat healthy snacks
The foods you have around you can have a big effect on what you eat and help you in rapid weight loss after pregnancy.
Usually, the homes of obese individuals tend to be stocked with food that’s less healthy than the food in the homes of people in a healthy weight range
Keep snacks like cut vegetables, nuts, fruit, and yogurt handy. The fruit is associated with a lower body mass index. So only keeping fruit is sufficient as these will help lose weight after pregnancy. Avoid having unhealthy food as it increases weight.
8. Avoid added sugar and refined carbohydrates
They are high in calories and are usually low in nutrients. They are associated with an increase in weight, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Food to be avoided – sugary drinks, fruit juice, any type of plain sugar, white flour, sweet spreads, cakes, biscuits, pastries, and other baked items.
It is better to stay away from food that has sugar as one of the first ingredients on the list, as that will help in losing weight after pregnancy. Reduce your sugar intake by avoiding processed foods. Stick to whole foods such as vegetables, legumes, fruits, meats, fish, eggs, nuts, and yogurt. This method shows you how to lose weight after delivery.
9. Avoid highly processed foods
They are high in sugar, unhealthy fats, salt, and calories. All these have an opposite effect on the body. They are weight-increasing foods and are associated with addictive eating patterns.
These foods include fast foods and pre-packed foods like -chips, cookies, baked goods, candy, and ready meals.
Due to availability and marketing, it forms a large part of many people’s nutritional intake. This can be reduced by replacing them with fresh, nutritious food.
10. Abstain from alcohol
This does not help in weight loss after c-section. Research has shown that small amounts of alcohol, such as a glass of red wine, can confer some health benefits. However, when it comes to weight loss, alcohol provides extra calories but no nutrition and may lead to more fat being stored around the organs, known as belly fat.
Alcohol can cause a reduced volume of breast milk temporarily. A small amount of alcohol can also pass through breast milk to your baby There is no known safe level of alcohol for infants.
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11. Start exercising
Cardio, such as walking, jogging, running, cycling, and interval training, helps you burn calories and in losing weight after pregnancy. Exercise improves heart health, reduces the risk and severity of diabetes, and may reduce the risk of cancer. Even just walking around the house in comfortable slippers will help get your blood pumping.
Good nutrition along with exercise helps you lose weight after pregnancy. The amount of aerobic exercise, rather than the intensity, is important for fat loss and heart health. Just going for a walk is a good step
After delivery, your pelvic and stomach areas need time to heal, especially if you have had a c-section birth.
The right time to start exercise depends on the mode of delivery, whether there were any complications, how fit you were before and during pregnancy, and your general health. I hope these weight loss tips after delivery will help you immensely.
Start with gentle exercises like pelvic floor exercises right away. Wait to take on more intense exercises until your body is fully healed and medically safe.
12. Resistance training like weight lifting will help losing weight after pregnancy and retain muscle mass.
A combination of diet and resistance training is the most effective method for reducing weight and improving heart health. There is less bone mineral density loss and muscle loss. Finding time to exercise with a baby can be difficult, but some gyms offer classes for mothers and babies.
13. Drinking enough water is important for anyone trying to losing weight after pregnancy.
Regular drinking of water reduces appetite and calorie intake. For breastfeeding women, staying hydrated is important to replace fluids lost through milk production.
Drinking at least 1–2 liters of water per day will help with losing weight after pregnancy and keep the body hydrated.
14. Getting enough sleep keeps one healthy
Inadequate sleep can harm weight. For new mothers, getting enough sleep can be a problem. So sleep when your baby is sleeping and request your family and friends to help.
15. Group-based weight loss is helpful
People who engage in group-based weight loss tend to losing weight after pregnancy more than those who lose weight alone. Both face-to-face weight loss groups and online communities are helpful.
16. Ask friends and family for help
This will get you a few hours of rest or some exercise because being a new mother can be a challenging role and a lot of work. Less sleep and stress may result in postnatal depression.
[Read How fathers can help in breastfeeding?]
Being healthy will not only allow you to enjoy time with your baby but also make you become an efficient new mom.
The best and most achievable way of losing weight after pregnancy is through a healthy diet, breastfeeding, and exercise.
Hope you liked these tips on losing weight after pregnancy.
Happy Parenting!
