Losing Weight Post Baby

If you’ve been finding it hard to lose your baby weight, you’re not alone. Each week Sam and his crew receive hundreds of questions from mums with newborns and infants, asking how to get back to their pre-baby weight. So many mums tell us they didn’t expect it to be so hard because ‘everyone’ said the baby weight would just fall off during breastfeeding and their tummy would ‘snap back’ naturally.

If you’re struggling to get back to your pre-baby weight. It’s also fairly normal if you’re still wearing your maternity clothes several months after having your baby. The good news is that it’s never too late to make small, healthy changes to encourage your postnatal body to let that old baby weight go – your body just needs a gentle little nudge in the right direction.

Lots of mums worry that there might be something wrong with them if they can’t fit into their pre-baby clothes as soon as they’ve given birth – especially because all those yummy mummies on Instagram seem to ‘snap back’ so easily! The truth is that not everyone loses all their baby weight straight away.

F/24/5'3 [205lbs > 109lbs = 94lbs] (11 Months) Post Baby Weight Loss, 30lbs Under Pre Baby Weight!

We know it’s not always easy, but losing baby weight CAN be simple. From postnatal exercise to healthy eating, the best way to strengthen and flatten your post-baby tummy muscles, right through to free lose baby weight recipes and, of course, the number #1 way to ditch that extra baby weight once and for all, Sam Wood and 28’s resident postnatal physio, Chloe Lorback share their top tips to get you back on the road to feeling like your old self again.

Everyone knows sleep plays an important role in losing weight, but we also know that sleep is often compromised when you have a young baby! If you find you are making nutritious food choices, you’ve cut out unhealthy snacks and you’re getting regular exercise, but you’re still not losing your extra baby weight, it might be time to look carefully at the quality of your sleep.

If your baby is still waking several times a night, it might be time to chat with the maternal child health nurse to help you with some sleep strategies.

Having A Baby After Weight Loss Surgery And Getting Back Into Shape

Every baby is different, so don’t panic if your baby isn’t sleeping through the night but it seems like everyone else’s baby is. My cheeky boys woke once or twice a night for the first 9 months of their lives. Just when I was at my wit’s end, they suddenly slept through. Those extra hours of uninterrupted sleep each night made all the difference to my energy, and that’s when I noticed the last few kilos dropped off. Plus because I felt more energy I found much more motivation to exercise.

It might be time to take a closer look at your portions. Have you recently weaned or dropped a feed, but haven’t adjusted your portion sizes down? How about snacks? Sometimes, when you feel too tired to prepare meals, or you’re bored, it’s easy to find yourself snacking throughout the day. All these snacks add up though, so if your baby weight isn’t budging, skip some of the snacks, or swap them for fresh, simple cut up veggies or a small piece of fruit.

Breastfeeding definitely warrants an extra snack or two but when your bub starts solids, this often coincides with a drop in feeds. So you might need to reduce your portion sizes to match the reduced calories being used to produce breast milk.

Patricia Lopez's Weight Loss Journey After Having Fourth Child

It’s important to avoid dehydration, for a few reasons. Firstly, dehydration can sometimes be misinterpreted as feeling hungry. Secondly, some studies say your body needs between 2 – 4 litres per day (depending on your size and weight) to keep your metabolic processes working effectively. So make sure you are drinking at least 2L of water daily and carry your water bottle with you everywhere so you can sip regularly during the day. Don’t wait until you feel thirsty, as thirst can be a poor indicator of whether you’re sufficiently hydrated.

A simple way of checking if your body is well hydrated is to check the colour of your pee, if it’s pale yellow, that’s a good sign, and if it’s dark, it’s not!

Are you doing the same exercises, day in, day out? If you walk the same 15-minute circuit each day, eventually your body gets used to it and expends minimal energy to complete it. It’s important to mix up your exercise routine, including cardio, strength and core work, so keep your body guessing and keep churning through those calories.

Laura Lost 81 Pounds Post Baby

Sometimes your body just isn’t quite ready yet for the stress and strain of exercise, and you just need to give yourself a bit more time before you embark on your weight loss mission. Common reasons to wait a bit longer before exercising more include having had a complicated delivery, having difficulty with breastfeeding or having limited support around you.

There really isn’t a “normal” when it comes to losing your baby weight. As with all things, some women seem to snap back quicker, while others take longer. How fast you lose your baby weight and get your pre-baby shape back doesn’t seem to be impacted by your pre-pregnancy fitness or your age, so it’s important to know that the only ‘normal’ is that everyone loses baby weight at different speeds.

No pregnancy is ever exactly the same, so it stands to reason that no postnatal weight loss journey is the same either.

How To Lose Baby Weight And Reclaim Your Body!

Of course, it’s important to have some kind of a guideline, so we generally recommend it can take about 9 months to get back to something like your pre-baby shape. After all, if it took 9 months to grow your baby, and your body went through 9 months of

Physical changes, inside and out, then we would expect you to take at least 9 months to feel like you’re getting back to your pre-pregnancy shape.

TIP: Try to incorporate more incidental activity into your day, it is such an easy way to burn a few more calories without really trying!

Want To Lose Weight After Pregnancy? You Can Go To A Women's Gym!

It’s a miracle to grow a human in our tummy; but along with this amazing miracle and a wonderful bundle of joy comes some physical changes that we don’t enjoy, like stretched skin and muscles, and all that extra weight our body wanted us to gain to ensure we could feed our bubba. And, although we feel proud of our bodies for creating a beautiful, nurturing home for our babies, we want that extra weight gone… now! Do your best to see your post-pregnancy weight loss as a marathon, not a sprint. Be patient. The good news is that it’s a marathon you WILL win, as long as you have the right coaches by your side… like Sam and me!Chloe

Over the past 20 years, a lot of my female training clients used to worry that building muscle meant getting bulky – but it doesn’t have to. Lean muscles don’t add bulk. It’s actually really difficult for women to bulk up, but a bit of extra muscle tone looks and feels great.

After 8 weeks: Assuming you’ve gotten the all-clear to return to exercise from your doctor (which is usually 6-8 weeks postnatal), start off with gentle, low impact postnatal training to get back into the groove of exercise, so your joints and muscles can get acclimatized to being active again.

Realistic Things To Know About Weight Loss After Having A Baby

After 3 months: it’s usually safe to start adding some resistance to your post-baby workouts. Start slowly and add weight-bearing load gradually. Listen to your body, and if anything hurts, stop immediately.

After 6 months: you may feel ready to try 28-minute HIIT resistance workouts. High-intensity interval training is a quick, easy and effective way to tone up and lose weight. But, before you try HIIT after having a baby, you’ll need to strengthen your physical foundations with postnatal-safe low impact exercises and light weights. 

ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR BODY: Lifting weights and HIIT will add pressure to your pelvic floor muscles, so if your pelvic floor still feels weak, or if you are experiencing any sense of pelvic heaviness or incontinence while exercising, delay adding weights or impact to your routine for a bit longer. 

How I'm Losing Weight After Baby

When you are tired, it can be easy to reach for sugary snacks, coffee or soft drinks to give you a quick energy kick. If you want to feel healthier, have more energy and lose weight, replace sugary snacks with healthier options. Here are a few quick ideas for you:

I love that at 32, with two children, I am currently the fittest and healthiest I’ve ever been. The 28 program is so fantastic and it really is just our way of life now.My transformation is about more than lost kilos, centimetres and clothes sizes. It’s about being the best version of myself, for myself and my family.Terleah, 28er

Losing weight after pregnancy will usually happen fairly naturally once you are making nutritious food choices and you’ve started to move your body more regularly.

How I Lost My Baby Weight (and How You Can, Too!)

It’s any small physical activity you might do in your daily life that isn’t specifically ‘working out’. For