When you first welcome your little bundle of joy into your home, you will probably feel ridiculously overwhelmed. Although you’ve had nine months to prepare for this moment, the way your life morphs into something unrecognisable is a shock. No longer are you responsible for just yourself. There is another little human being that needs your love, support and care for at least the next eighteen years and beyond. As a responsible parent, your first priority is to find a routine, help your baby sleep each night, and feed as necessary. However, there will also come a time post baby blues, once you have found your new mummy rhythm, when you want to shift some of the baby weight that you are finding hard to get rid of.
Don’t succumb to the fad diets, strict exercise regimens and Instagram boasts of women who regained their figure in ten days. As a new mum, you shouldn’t feel self conscious or worried about your body. You have just given birth, one of the most traumatic experiences anyone can go through physically. Give yourself time to adjust. When ready, you can consider losing weight and toning up in a measured way. Take a look to see how you can lose weight in the most sensible way.
The Gym
The thought of heading to the gym might leave you feeling self conscious and daunted. While there’s no reason to be worried about heading to the gym that you used to frequent regularly before you gave birth, this doesn’t mean there isn’t a mental barrier to overcome. Phone your gym and see if there are any sessions for new mums. Plenty of gyms offer specialist classes like new mum yoga, postnatal aerobics, and even mother and baby pilates.
When you have built up your confidence, you can return to the gym and head to your favourite pieces of equipment. Forget about losing weight for the time being and just have fun working up a bit of a sweat and refamiliarising yourself with the layout of the gym. Give yourself small goals to work towards: you might want to look at how to get better at CrossFit today, check out a spin class tomorrow and then next week focus on your endurance exercises. Before long, you’ll be a regular face at the gym once again, and you will naturally see your body tone up and change as you begin exercising once more.
Food
Being a new mum is tiring. Your new bundle of joy is finding his or her sleep routine, will need regularly feeding throughout the day, and requires all of your attention. Your diet goes out of the window as you need sustenance and you don’t care where it comes from. Fast food and convenience snacks are quick and easy to come by. The thought of slaving over a hot stove to create a well balanced and nutritious meal might fill you with dread.
Instead, consider planning out your meals each week. Your partner can look after the baby for an afternoon while you create some one pot meals that can be frozen and eaten throughout the week. Veggie lasagnes, cottage pies, and stews are perfect for those dinner times when you just want to pop something into the oven. This method will stop you ordering takeaways and can keep you eating less fattening meals.
As a new mum, you may find yourself losing weight initially as your body readjusts to its post birth hormone balance. You still need to eat nutritious and healthy meals. Try and eat the rainbow of fresh fruit and vegetables, add lean meat and fish into your diet and try to remove the white carbs, swapping them instead for whole grains.
Forget The Weight
For a short while, you should forget losing weight as being your motivation to do anything. By simply finding a new healthy routine such as exercising and eating well, you will find that the weight drops slowly anyway. Being at home with your little darling and enjoying watching them develop, grow, smile, and babble should be your top priority. Get in touch with friends, head out to see a movie, catch up over coffee, and find yourself again. Being a mum can be isolating so stay social. Keep your social butterfly status intact and invite friends around to see the new little one. Make friends at new mum groups and enjoy a new side of you. Before you know it, you’ll be losing weight in a sensible way and it won’t even need to be your top priority.
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* Collaborative post
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