15 Effective Ways To Lose Weight After Pregnancy {Naturally}

Stay hydrated

Drinking lots of water after your delivery could prevent you from getting dehydrated. Besides this, staying hydrated might help to bolster your metabolism and fill up space in your stomach. This could prevent you from eating more.

Generally, you could drink 8 to 10 glasses of water per day to stay hydrated. However, you could even decide the amount of water to drink by the color of your urine. People who drink enough fluids have relatively clear urine.

The government article talks about a study held in Indonesia.

Breastfeeding

Generally, breastfeeding mothers might not want to lose weight quickly. This is because weight loss may reduce the amount of milk you produce.

At the same time, several studies have even shown how breastfeeding could help you to lose weight. So you could lose approximately 1 ½ pound of weight per week. This amount might not adversely affect the milk supply or even your health.

This governmental study concludes positively of the weight loss effects in breastfeeding women.

Avoid liquor consumption

Avoiding alcohol consumption may help you to reduce your weight after delivery. Moreover, since you are breastfeeding your baby, you should avoid liquor consumption to maintain his or her health. Alcohol consumption of more than 30 grams each day could directly affect your weight gain and might also lead to obesity.

This CDC article talks more about alcohol consumption during breastfeeding.

Stay active

Staying active might even assist you in weight loss delivery. However, you should not confuse staying active with exercising. Both these terms are quite different.

If you stay active, then it does not mean that you exercise. On the other hand, staying active may refer to preventing yourself from sitting idle or lying all day. Some of the tips which you might follow to stay active are as follows.

• You might perform some of the household chores.
• You could go for a walk with your baby in the stroller.
• You may even opt for a lift instead of the stairs, especially after the C-section.
• You could go out to the supermarket to purchase food and groceries.
• It may be helpful to move around as much as possible.

Take the required sleep

The mothers may have erratic sleep schedules after their delivery. This may be primarily because it is difficult to sleep while you take care of your baby at night.

However, chronic partial sleep loss or even less sleep might be associated with the risk of weight gain. A study has even shown how women who slept for five hours or less at night were more likely to hold on to their pregnancy weight.

The reason behind less sleep may be that when you are tired and do not get the required rest, then your body releases stress hormones like cortisol. The stress hormones could promote weight gain.

Not only this, but when you get less sleep, you might become tired and not take good care of yourself. You may not choose a healthy diet and eat junk food. So you should always strive to get as much sleep as possible and catch on to many naps during the day and go to bed early.

Breastfeeding & Sleep are discussed here.

Consume more nutrients

After your delivery, you may strive to get more nutrients from your food. This could be achieved if you add food from all five groups to your food diet.

The five groups may include dairy, fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein. A good diet that consists of all the nutrients may help you to get nourishment and attain weight loss at the same time.

More on the overall weight loss process here.

Eat-in small installments

Different studies suggest how the ladies should spread their meals in the entire day instead of taking two or three large meals a day.

Taking four to five small meals in a day could help you to lose weight. However, it is also important to check your portion sizes.

For this, the females may track their portion size with the help of a food tracking application. You could include healthy snacks into your diet like yogurt, nuts, protein bar, fresh fruit, or hummus. Then, you could make a food schedule to consume these snacks in four to five meals.

This study might answer your doubts if you have any.

Avoid skipping meals

Skipping meals can never help in weight loss. On the other hand, if you skip meals right after your delivery, then it might adversely affect the process of calorie burning in your body.

This could in turn harm your weight loss process. Moreover, skipping meals after pregnancy is not good for breastfeeding mothers. If you skip meals after delivery, then it may even affect your postpartum recovery process.

The importance of breakfast is being talked about here.

Exercise

One of the best methods to lose pregnancy weight is to exercise regularly. With the help of regular exercise, you could lose fat instead of muscle. Moreover, a combination of regular exercise and a healthy diet may be one of the best ways that could help you to sacrifice your extra weight.

When you are ready to lose weight, you could eat a little less and exercise a little more. However, it may be difficult to lose weight quickly.

This is because rapid weight loss is not even a healthy option for your body.
Exercise or physical activity may contribute to 15 to 30% of the energy expenditure in the entire day. So a moderate workout session of 30 to 40 minutes in a single day for at least five days a week could be helpful for you. But you may not always opt for rigorous and complex exercises.

Simple or brisk exercises like jogging could even be sufficient for weight loss. However, you should always consult your doctor before beginning any exercise.

Here are a few exercise samples.

Prevent from consuming calories

Consuming more calories and fat may result in more weight instead of reducing weight. So you should avoid certain foods to lose weight, especially those are rich in calories and fat.

You may limit the drinks that have added sugar and calories in them, like sodas and juices. Not only this, but women may even avoid products that have artificial sweeteners in them.

So, you might always prefer whole fruit over fruit juices. Fruit juices could contain additional calories that might increase your weight. On the other hand, whole fruits may provide you with all the required nutrients, vitamins, and fiber that will help you to be full even without taking additional calories.

You could even prevent yourself from consuming calories by limiting saturated fat, trans fat, and sugar-related food items.

This article discusses binge eating disorders.

Always prefer homemade food

You may always prefer homemade food over the food of restaurants. The reason behind this can simply be stated that homemade food is prepared from good quality ingredients and is hygienic. Not only this, but you could even customize the food according to your nutritional requirements.

Eating homemade food might help you to reduce the intake of calories and augment the intake of nutrients. So it becomes easy to reduce your weight.

Food safety for a pregnant woman is discussed here.

Continuing Breastfeeding Regularly

One of the major reasons why you might not be able to lose weight after pregnancy could be because you may have stopped breastfeeding quite soon. At the same time, if you eat a healthy and balanced diet post-pregnancy then breastfeeding could help you to lose weight.

The major reason behind this is because the process of breastfeeding may help you to burn calories and hence lose weight. However, if you are a working mom and do not have time, then you might not be able to breastfeed your baby quite often. Hence this might become a concerning issue for your weight loss process.

Stressing A Lot

If you stress a lot about your pregnancy weight, then this might even harm your post-delivery weight loss process. This is because when you stress a lot or are tensed, then your body may augment the production of certain hormones like cortisol. Cortisol in turn may enhance your weight due to its special element of bolstering your appetite. So, when you stress more, you eat more and hence, gain more weight.

Eating Too Much Of A Certain Food

As we all know, an excess of different nutrients and vitamins or even certain foods could prove to be harmful to your body’s health. At the same time, it might even inhibit your weight loss process. So no matter if you want to eat a healthy diet, you should not eat the different food items in excessive quantities. These food items could include fruits, vegetables, nuts, almonds, etc.

By Not Skipping The Breakfast

After delivery, you might not have time to eat breakfast. This could be because in the morning you may have to take care of your baby and prepare breakfast for your husband at the same time. So, you may think to skip your breakfast and make it to lunch.

However, this is one of the biggest mistakes that you make which could affect your post-delivery weight loss process significantly. The reason behind this is because a good and healthy breakfast in the morning could help to boost your metabolism for the rest of the day.
Hence, if you want to lose your stubborn fat after your pregnancy, then it could be possible only after your willpower and determination.