Begin to Lose Weight After Pregnancy
lose weight after pregnancy
Hi, My name is Tammy, and I am here to help new moms with losing weight. If you found this webpage, it is a good thing since I have put together several ideas and quick steps you can use to lose weight after pregnancy.
For a new mom, it can be extremely difficult to find the time to lose weight, since after all, you are spending most of your time looking after your new baby. Getting in shape is often put on the back burner, especially since your free time each day is limited – not to mention how exhausted you continue to feel all the time! I know, I have been there!
If this is the case for you, take time to ask yourself the question – Is losing weight a realistic goal at this point?
I am here to tell you – Yes, it is!
Sure, you will probably get off to a slow start at first, but with some patience, you CAN lose weight without thinking you will collapse.
I have put together some quick tips for you so that you can start getting back to your old self again.
Setting Aside Time for Yourself Each Day
Every new mother knows how important it is to take care of your loved ones and your new baby, but you can’t really do either one if you are not feeling good or taking care of yourself too. I have found that it is easiest to start off small, by trying to set aside 20 minutes for exercise each day. Explain to your spouse, friends and relatives how you will feel better physically if you can have this time each day to start getting in shape, and see if you can get them to look after the baby during this time so you can workout. Some of the newer health clubs offer new mothers infant care when you sign up, and some even have Children’s Clubs.
If you can’t make that happen, then try to start doing some home workouts during the times that your baby is sleeping.
A lot of new moms feel like they have not had a workout if they haven’t worked out for an hour or more, but try not to concentrate on how long you work out for during this period. It is more important to stay consistent and to get something done every day, than it is to get a great workout. Even a 10 or 15 minute workout will do wonders for your overall energy levels.
Try to Eat Healthier
The real key to getitng your body to shed that excess fat and water that you gained during your pregnancy is to start eating more calories each day. The more you eat, the more your body will burn, especially if you take in a couple of sources of high-protein 2 or 3 times per day. You will need even more calories if you decided to breast feed your baby, since your baby is taking the bulk of your vitamins and minerals from you every time it breast feeds.
What happens if you don’t eat enough? Your metabolism will slow down, and it will be harder to get the vitamins and nutrients you need to feel better every day. Try and eat more than half of your calories from healthy foods, which is a good rule of thumb. If you are taking in too many calories from fast food or ice cream, your energy levels will suffer, and your baby will not be getting what it needs to grow up healthy.
I have found that it is best to try and eat smaller meals every 2 to 3 hours throughout the day, while making it a priority to eat something nutritious each time. Try to keep your calcium high by eating cheeses, yogurt, and dark green leafy vegetables. This will help keep your metabolism burning fat throughout the day, and will provide you with the much needed nutrients you need for higher energy levels. Also try and focus on eating whole grains, fresh fruit, and lean sources of protein to keep you and your baby healthy.
Look for Others to Connect With
Losing weight after pregnancy can be just too difficult to do alone, so try and find others online that are going through the same thing. There are all kinds of online communities that you can become a part of, and other support networks now for new moms. Many of these online forums offer baby sitting services or can tell you where to go, and are great to look to for daily inspiration when things get tough. Don’t forget how valuable your friends and family are too, and how they can help to take care of your newborn so you can have time for yourself.
By taking the time to read about the problems that other new moms are going through and what they have done to overcome their problems, you will be able to share and learn about what works and what doesn’t during this difficult period. You will feel when you know that you are not alone, and many new moms like sharing their secrets for success.
Lose Weight with Your Baby
I found out that I could lose weight after pregnancy – and have fun too – when I took my baby with me when I was exercising. I also found it particularly comforting to connect with other new moms in online forums, and schedule time to do things with them, like swimming with the babies and going for stroller walks together. Believe it or not, there are also workout classes now where moms can bring their babies with them at some workout places.
Some new moms would rather spend more alone time with their newborn, and you can go for long walks and push them in their stroller for a fantastic workout. It can be fun to visit new places for these walks, like going to the mall, taking a trip to the zoo, or going to some nearby parks where you can change it up. I really looked forward to going to different places every week, and found it a lot more exciting than just spending every day in my neighborhood. Once the baby is up and walking, you can play with them on the playground and let them walk part of the way.
Figuring out How To Sleep Better
This may be the most challenging part of being a new mom, and I can’t over-emphasize how important it is to TRY. You will feel more refreshed mentally and physically if you can try and get some good rest every day, and even getting a solid hour or two while the baby is sleeping can dramatically improve your attitude.
Your body has already been through a lot of stress with your pregnancy, and having a new baby will take a toll on your energy levels fast. I always found that my spouse or friends would be willing to look after the baby for 2 or 3 times each week while I got a full 8 hours of sleep.
I even used ear plugs when I needed to, when I knew that the baby was being looked after by someone that knew what they were doing. This made a big improvement in my overall health when I did this, and I am sure it will for you too.
if this is just not possible at first, especially for breast feeding moms, just try and get the naps throughout the day that we talked about earlier. 20 minute naps are really valuable, and before you know it, the baby will be sleeping more and so will you.
How To Lose Belly Fat
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It can be difficult to lose belly fat, and it is well-known in the medical community that having a large amount of belly fat can put stress on your organs. When you have a lot of abdominal fat, it is normal to expect that your organs are also storing a large amount of fat internally, so losing this fat will improve your overall health.
There are a lot of health related diseases that are known to accompany large stores of abdominal fat, including diabetes, hypertension, cancer, insulin resistance and sometimes stroke. It is important to try and lose belly fat in natural way, or else you could end up making these conditions worse.
Men will typically experience higher levels of belly fat if they are not working out on a semi-regular basis or if they are not eating healthy. Of course, age plays a big part in accumulating fat around the belly for both men and women, but this does not mean that you can’t lose it – because you can. Many women are concerned that they won’t be able to lose belly fat because their metabolism has slowed down after menopause, but I can assure you that by taking a few steps each day, the weight can be lost.
To lose belly fat, you only have to take 2 magic steps each day – exercise and eat better. Getting rid of fat is easy – if you can find a way to do both on a consistent basis.
A lot of folks believe that you can somehow lose belly fat or double chin fat by “spot reducing” – but it is just NOT possible. You still hear some people promoting this outdated term, but our bodies and the fat on it do not work that way. You have to reduce the overall fat of your body if you want to get rid of fat around these areas. For each person, where their body tends to store fat is a personal thing – but it is important to get it in your mind that losing fat only occurs on an overall basis.
The best thing about trying to lose belly fat and double chin fat in most cases is that it they are the first places where it is noticeable that you are losing fat.
Diet to Lose Belly Fat
A lot of folks trying to lose fat don’t understand that eating less calories will cause your body to burn less calories. This is exactly why starving yourself will only work for a few days, and then will stop working.
This is important, because your body has a survival mechanism which will kick in after 3 or 4 days of restricting your calories, and it will begin burning fewer and fewer calories overall. The other important thing that you must know is that when your body is not getting enough calories, whenever you do eat, it will store a much higher proportion of the calories that you take in as fat. What you end up doing when you are restricting your calories is burning less and saving more as fat. Your body will even burn muscle before it eats fat, because it is easier for your body to convert protein to energy.
How many calories you need to take in to maintain your organs and tissues is related to your age, gender, and size.
• For example, a 45 year old man that is slightly overweight, has an average build, and exercises moderately 3 times per week will need about 2,600 calories to maintain his weight every day. The same man who is 65 years old will need about 5% less calories.
o He will need to take in approximately 2,000 calories each day to lose weight.
o He will need to take in approximately 1,700 calories every day to dramatically lose weight.
• A 45 year old woman of average build will needs 2,400 calories per day to maintain, about 1,900 calories to lose weight and 1,800 calories every day to lose weight dramatically. A woman who is 65 years old needs just about 6% less calories to per day to maintain what she has.
A calorie counter is a particularly useful tool to help lose belly fat. You can download them from several places right on the internet, and you can start to develop a diet based on how many calories it takes you to maintain your current weight. A typical rule of thumb to start with is to start a diet with 5% less calories than it takes you to maintain.
Muscle burns more calories than fat does (nearly 3 times more), so as you start to get in better shape, your efforts will snowball, and you lose weight faster. The hardest part is to START losing fat, and making small changes to your diet by eating a few more healthy things and adding a few minutes of exercise is the best way for most people.
Even eating one healthy meal a day and exercising for 10 minutes will get you on the right track.
One of the most effective ways to get your body to lose belly fat is to begin with exercise and some resistance training. Beginners should only start with body weight resistance, while folks that have an intermediate or advanced level of exercise in their background can use strength machines and free weights.
• Push-Ups – Start with your hands at shoulder width, elevate your body to arm’s length keeping your torso straight. Beginners can start on their knees, with a pillow beneath for comfort. Intermediates should start on their toes. Work up to 25 push-ups, and if you can only do 1 or 2 to start with, pat yourself on the back – it is a start, and that is the most important thing.
• Free Standing Twists – Stand upright with your hands on hips, and your feet shoulder width. Twist your body to the right, then to the left – keeping your feet from moving. Work up to 100 twists.
This exercise is one of the fastest ways to lose belly fat because your obliques are much larger than the abs are, and will burn more calories.
• Free Standing Squats – Standing erect with your feet about shoulder width apart, and your arms extended straight out in front of you, perform a full squat until your thighs are parallel with the ground. Keep your back straight, and feel the burn in your thighs. Work up to 100 squats.
• Calf Raises – With your toes on the edge of a step or stair, rise as far as you can and hold it for a two-count and then lower your heels until they touch the ground, or until you feel a good stretch. Beginners can start by doing both calves at the same time, while holding on to a rail or a wall nearby. Work up to 100 calf raises.
• Sports Walking – Beginners should walk at a moderate pace for 20 or 30 minutes per day. As you become conditioned, pick up the pace.
If these exercises are easy for you, then it is probably time to start thinking about joining a gym or fitness center in your area where you can get some help from a fitness trainer. When you start to lose belly fat, you will notice your pants and shirts fitting better, and you will know that you have really got your body working efficiently.
Ways to Lose Weight Fast: Three Quick Tips
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There are a lot of ways to lose weight fast, but many of them are over-hyped diets that make you lose water weight, or so called “easy weight loss programs” where 9 out of 10 people end up gaining the weight back with 6 months (the yo-yo effect).
This article focuses on 3 ways to lose weight fast that actually work, and that bring long-term results. If you are concerned about trying a weight loss plan where you might end up gaining the weight back, then it is lucky you found this page. Out of the top 10% of diets that help people to get the weight off, and keep it off, there are common factors that you will learn here. Once you know these secrets, you will be able to apply even the most basic weight loss tips and see the lasting results that most people end up missing.
Tip 1: The Right Mindset
The most important factor in the successful ways to lose weight fast is making sure that you plant firmly in your mind what you are going to accomplish, and making a decision to do it. For this to actually work for you, you have to pick a specific weight that you want to get to, and write it down. This will become your motivating goal, and your goals become much more likely to become your reality the more times you write them down.
This is a scientific fact. Your subconscious mind will figure out ways to accomplish your goal when you are not consciously thinking about it. You determine your reality, and studies have shown that by writing your goals down, you are more than 80% more likely to reach those goals. If you are unwilling to at least write down your goals, it is unlikely that you will reach them.
Having this certainty in wanting your goal, and putting a number to the weight that you want to achieve, will cement firmly in your mind that this is something that you are GOING TO ACCOMPLISH. Reading your goal 3 times in the morning will make this pull you toward your goal even more.
Tip 2: Training With Resistance
Now that you know one of the ways to lose weight fast, it is time for our second tip. To burn more calories, you have to have more muscle, and that is why resistance training is more important than doing endless hours of cardio. When you start building muscle, your body will burn far more calories at rest than you can burn in the gym on the treadmill for an hour each day.
Believe me, I have tried doing endless hours of cardio, but it does not boost your metabolism, and burns your energy stores so you won’t feel like working out. Starting to do resistance training is not about becoming Conan The Barbarian. We are just talking about lifting weights that are a little more than what you can lift right now. If you can only bench press 10 pounds for 10 reps, then that is where you start. By progressively strengthening your muscles and bones by resistance training, you will unlock a much faster way of losing weight than by starving yourself or running on the treadmill endlessly. This develops lean muscle mass, which burns fat and saves your muscle glycogen – the sugar in your muscles.
This will help you to burn fat almost immediately, and your body will be working to keep your body healthy and lean in a natural way. It is also important to do cardiovascular exercise 3 times per week, but only for 10 minutes or so to start, and you will achieve even greater results if you alternate days between cardio and resistance training.
Tip 3: Re-Program Your Metabolism To Burn Fat Every Day
The endocrine system inside of your body controls your metabolism, and it can be adjusted like a thermostat. Your endocrine system is controlled by what you put into it, and how high the stress levels are in your body. To reprogram your endocrine system to burn fat, you have to feed it healthy food like protein and vegetables, and start cutting back on processed foods and foods that are high in sugar and non-healthy fats.
By maintaining a diet that does not have any protein or vegetables, and that is high in sugars and unhealthy fats, your body will store pretty much everything you eat as adipose tissue – making you fatter. On the other end of the spectrum, if you start dieting to the extreme, this will cause your body stress as well, making it harder to lose weight and bodyfat.
To achieve a good balance, you have to reduce your mental stress levels by taking mental breaks throughout the day, getting plenty of rest at night, and feeding your body good food that it can utilize for energy and rebuilding, instead of storing empty calories as fat. By just clearing your mind for 5 minutes and thinking about pleasant places you like to go to, you will lower your stress levels. Try this 3 times a day at first, and see if you can work up to 15 minutes.
By feeding your body high quality foods, reducing your stress, and avoiding extreme dieting and cardio, you will reprogram your body to burn fat for energy all day long – even when you are sleeping. If all of this is new to you, start by replacing one meal per day with healthy food, and start by resistance training for just 5 minutes. Each day, replace more and more of your food intake with healthy foods, and start to increase the minutes of resistance training and cardio that you do. You will be amazed with the results!
These three simple ways to lose weight fast will make you one of those people that lose weight and keep it off – and will have your friends and loved one’s wondering what your secrets are.
Facts About Quick Weight Loss Diets
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As you probably already know or have heard, quick weight loss diets are well-known for creating temporary weight loss – and not the long term weight and fat loss that most people are looking for. These diets are also known as “fad” diets, some of which work to help you lose weight fast by helping your body to rapidly shed water weight, but leaving most dieters wanting to still find a way to lose weight and keep it off permanently.
The truth is that there are no miraculous weight loss tricks or diets that will make you lose weight instantly, but there are a few things that you can do to speed up your weight and fat loss efforts. We will go over them below.
Increase the Amount of Calories Your Body Burns Every Day
For many people, the biggest problem that they are facing is not that they are eating too many calories, it is that they are not eating enough to raise their metabolism. It is important to know the basics about how your metabolism works, so you can take advantage of this knowledge and “trick” your body into burning fat and calories. Your body is intelligent, and it raises your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) in response to the amounts and types of food that you put in it.
Another problem with folks that have tried diet after diet without keeping the weight off is that they tend to go through the “yo-yo” effect, where their weight fluctuates up and down in a large swings, and all the while, their metabolism slows down and is burning very few calories. Sometimes this “yo-yo” dieting effect can slow the metabolic rate to the point where it is burning 30% less calories every day, and this would be the equivalent of 30-60 minutes on a treadmill.
There are a handful of BMR calculators that you can find online, and they will give you a good basic calculation of how many calories that you will need to maintain your current body weight. If you are experiencing higher levels of stress, or have a more demanding job, you will probably need more than what the BMR calculator says. By changing your diet to include high quality sources of protein and vegetables, you will be able to increase your metabolic rate, and burn more calories when you are resting.
It is typical for folks that are starting a weight loss program to experience weight gain at first. Do not quit if you see your weight rising when you change your diet and/or start exercising more. You will be gaining muscle faster than you will be losing fat and water at first, and this is the most common cause of gaining a few pounds when you start. Continue to eat better and exercise more, and after a couple of weeks, your body will increase your metabolism and will burn off the excess weight and more.
Most people find that they can usually lose a pound each week by eating a healthier diet, and cutting back on the sweets and processed foods. If you decide to start exercising, your weight loss could easily be double that.
Start Exercising For Faster Weight Loss
It is common for quick weight loss diets to not include forms of exercise that will speed up your metabolism. These diets typically encourage the dieter to cut back calories, which will only work for a few days, and then the body will begin burning less and less calories throughout the day – and the weight loss gains stop. Not only will you feel drained after trying this type of diet, but you will most likely put the weight back on and then some if you start eating more while the body is burning less.
The best 2 ways to speed up your metabolism is to take in high quality proteins a couple of times each day, and to exercise. By getting into a routine of taking in protein each day and doing some form of exercise, over time your body will burn a lot more calories all day long. I often notice immediately that I can actually feel my body burning more calories within just a day or two of doing both.
The best exercise to start doing is a combination of cardio and resistance training. One or the other by itself only has about half of the fat and weight burning effect of doing both each week. Most people see significant weight loss by doing cardio 4 times a week for 20-30 minutes, and some form of resistance training twice per week. More than that is better, but if you are starting out, just do as much as you can on a consistent basis – even if you can only do 10 minutes of cardio each day.
The benefits from exercise are good all around. By starting to do exercise on a consistent basis, you will increase your lean muscle mass and sleep more soundly throughout the night. Your mood will improve, and you will start feeling stronger. It will also strengthen your organs like your heart, and help to keep you from developing metabolic disorders like diabetes.
Quick weight loss diets just don’t have any of these same health benefits that exercise does.
Completely Forget About Starvation Diets
As we said above, when you starve your body, it will not only quickly adjust and start burning less calories, it will also get sick quicker. Without proper healthy food, your body will not function the way you want it to.
It is common to read about movie stars and famous singers that lost weight quickly by eating nothing but watermelons, or drinking lemonade with maple syrup and cayenne pepper in it. This is only the first part of the story, and what you don’t read about is how quickly these people gained the weight back and then some after they were finished performing their role and stopped these quick weight loss diets.
By putting your body through the stress of these “fad” diets, you not only reduce the calories that your metabolism burns while you are at rest, you will also find that you are irritable, tired, hungry, and dehydrated. In more extreme cases, people who have dieted like this for months or years find that they quickly put on weight as soon as they start taking in calories again. In most cases, however, you can re-program your metabolism to start burning more calories again, but it will not be easy. You will have to take in more protein and exercise until your lean muscle mass starts burning more calories.
To lose the pounds and keep it off, it is best to feed your body plenty of unprocessed and healthy foods each day. If you eat more frequent meals throughout the day, start a moderate exercise program, and take in more vitamins and minerals, you will be well on your way to reaching your long-term weight loss goals – and you will feel great while you are doing it.