After finally getting through a pregnancy and welcoming a new child into the world, many mothers are keen to get started on shedding the baby weight as soon as possible. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be a deeply stressful task, and there’s no need to dive into extreme fad diets.
Here are a few simple and positive ways to help lose that baby weight:
Breastfeed
If you can breastfeed, do. Aside from some of the well-publicised health benefits for your baby[1], breastfeeding can also help you to lose weight too.[2]
This might seem counter-intuitive at first, as mothers who breastfeed need to consume extra calories to produce their milk. It all evens out though when you consider that breastfeeding typically burns more calories per day than you’ll need to add to your diet.
What this means is that, as long as you’re eating close to your maintenance calorie needs, you’ll be in enough of a caloric deficit to be able to shift some weight simply by breastfeeding alone.
An even more surprising twist is that a 2012 study found breastfeeding could help prevent obesity in women even 30 years on.[3]
Take up weight training
Weight training doesn’t just do a great job of burning calories during a workout. It also preserves and develops additional lean muscle mass above and beyond what a calorie restriction diet or cardio routine alone would do.[4]
Having more muscle on your frame means you’ll burn more calories while in a resting state[5], which of course means that weightlifting has a great effect on fat loss. You’ll burn calories during the workout and then, as your muscle mass increases, you’ll start to burn more calories when inactive too.
Take your baby for a stroll
Here you get to kill two birds with one stone. On one hand, you can begin to show your baby the wonders of the outside world and get them some fresh air. On the other, you benefit from some good steady-state cardio.
By walking with your baby for an hour, you’ll burn anywhere between 147-232 calories[6], while also getting your blood flowing and improving your cardiovascular fitness.
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[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK52687/
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19064514
[3] http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v37/n5/full/ijo201276a.html
[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10204826
[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8175496
[6] http://www.livestrong.com/article/311997-calories-burned-pushing-a-stroller/
