Losing The Weight After Child Birth: A Myth or Not?

A Little Peek into A friend's Diary.

... October 7, 2010 (about 13 months after Sally's birth).
I woke up this morning feeling a little bit bloated after yesterday's party, brushed my teeth after rushing through a prayer and then headed for the bath. Before stepping into the bath, I checked my weight with the bath scales and it read 229 pounds. I really should do something about this. Will talk to Megan later today about my weight and what to do.

... November 10, 2010 (after a month of 'fruit alone' diet)
Checked my weight again today: 228 pounds!

... January 2nd, 2011 (after a 'one meal a day' diet plan)
Checked my weight today: 215 pounds. Finally some progress! I will treat myself a little bit today to celebrate this success, even though small.

... March 13th 2011.
Checked my weight today: 220 pounds. My goodness! What is going on? I really should do something about this.

The above was 4 years ago.

I am sure a lot of women can relate to this; especially those that gave birth over a year ago. Your weight may not be as high as my friend's but it is still up there and you are wondering if it is even possible to lose weight remarkably after child birth or to lose that stomach fat, for that matter. In the bid to help ourselves, we go into all kinds of programs to lose weight, but after wards we find out that we gain the weight back in a couple of days to weeks. Some women still struggle to lose weight gained for pregnancies that occurred 5 or more years ago. Some have altogether given up on losing weight completely after having tried 'heaven and earth' to lose weight after childbirth. My friend, who has the above diary, asked me one day,''Peo, is it even possible to successfully achieve this?'' Before I answer that question, let us take a look at the cause of weight gain during pregnancy in hope that it would help us understand why it is so difficult to lose it afterwards.

Pregnancy

During pregnancy, women develop all sorts of cravings. It could be for any kind of food at any time of the day. In addition, because the baby also needs food for growth and development, the mother eats way more than what she normally eats. Some women actually try to watch their weight but after one or two episodes of impending hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), they decide to start eating more so as not to lose the baby. So, women generally take in a lot of food during this period, thinking that ''I'll get rid of the weight as soon as I drop this baby''. Also, during pregnancy, the hormone responsible for maintaining the pregnancy till term, progesterone, enhances water absorption which further adds to weight gain. Other hormones as well, increase fat deposition during pregnancy. This is just to say a little on the physiology of pregnancy as it relates to weight gain.

Afterwards

After the baby is born, the very first thing on your mind wouldn't be to lose weight; you can count on that. It would be to sleep! You would hardly have enough rest at night because you have to wake up almost every hour and a half to feed the baby (either with breast milk or formula). This could go on for about six months. At the back of our minds, however, we still have the intention to lose the weight. For those women who breast feed their babies exclusively, it is a bit worse because they have to eat and drink sufficiently if they want to give quality and good quantity of milk to their babies. 'You can't give what you don't have' and 'garbage in, garbage out.' Don't get me wrong and think I am against exclusive breast feeding because I am not. I am an advocate of exclusive breast feeding in the first six months of life and I know its importance. Exclusive breast feeding in the first six months of life is the best for the baby because it reduces certain health risks to the barest minimum. However, to continuously have sufficient and quality milk to give your baby for six months, you need to eat well and drink sufficiently. This could, of course, add to your weight gain unfortunately.

A Myth or Not?

The answer to that question is ''It is not a myth. You can actually lose the weight.'' I am sure you are happy to hear this. So what is the key or secret? The 'key' consists of two words: Balance and Optimization. Let's start with Balance. Most women, in the bid to lose weight, enter into really extreme and potentially harmful weight loss plans, such as 'one meal a day diet (like my friend whose diary we peeked at above), 'no carbs' diet, 'only fruits diet,' excessively vigorous exercise. Eating a meal a day would mean you would be hungry for most of the day. Also, you need energy which you get from carbohydrate. So a total 'no carbohydrate' diet is not wise to embark upon. Excessively vigorous exercise can break down your muscle cells which then release certain substances that can shut down your kidneys acutely (this is in extreme cases). The key to this is a healthy balance of both diet and exercise. You can start like this: eat 3 healthy meals (no excess salt like in junk food, no processed foods) of small/moderate quantity a day and exercise 5 times a week (an hour and a half per session) not vigorously. You would be surprised at how much weight you would lose. If at any time of the day, you feel like eating something in between your meals, you can snack on an apple. It is low in calories and has fiber in its skin which is healthy for you and doesn't cause weight gain. If however, you want to lose more weight (especially belly fat) and maintain your weight loss, you need to optimize your body.

Optimization means to create an environment in your body that would allow your naturally occurring fat lowering hormone which is already present in your body, to work. In other words, putting your body in the position that would allow the naturally occurring fat reducing hormone to take effect. This hormone is called leptin and the great part is that women have twice the amount of leptin that men have. Leptin is produced by your fat cells and it is the hormone that also lowers your appetite. It is the basis of optimization. Few weight loss program developers have grasped this truth and used it to put together weight loss programs that if you follow, you would not only lose weight remarkably, you would also maintain the weight loss.

I wish you good luck in your all your endeavors.


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