Doing your make
up in front of your vanity mirror, with lights shining upon you, getting ready
for an event, you realize one thing: pregnancy has really changed you a lot.
Trying a new and exciting hairdo or changing
the clothes in your wardrobe are decisions that will not switch attention from
the obvious: your body has changed a lot after giving childbirth.
The TV and
internet images of shapely celebrities who have quickly returned into full
shape in no time at all make you feel like you never want to look in the mirror
again. But be confident: there are some efficient and realistic advices that
will help you regain the figure of your youth. Although the most apparent way
to lose weight after your pregnancy would be a diet, nutritionists warn you
that a great cut in calorie consumption is not the best solution – especially
if you are breastfeeding. Thus, while breastfeeding, you should be eating a
minimum of 1,800 calories a day, any less having negative effects both on yourself
and on your baby. The good news is that breastfeeding burns calories, thus
helping mothers lose some of the extra weight from during pregnancy.
But if diet is
not recommended immediately after giving birth, physical exercise is. Experts
state this can not only help you with your extra weight, but also it will help
increase your level of energy and fight off postnatal depression. But as physical activity after childbirth is still a
delicate topic, one must be very careful what type of exercises it does. One of
the easiest and safest ways of starting a post-birth exercise routine is to
take walks. And this can also involve your baby, as it can be turned into
walking stroller workouts. After that, progression of your workouts should
consider an inversed evolution of the workouts you did during pregnancy – by
adding the types of exercises you did in your third semester of pregnancy and
work your way backwards.
Also, you
should not neglect strength training exercises to build a strong core, an area
many women neglect both during their pregnancy as well as afterwards. During
pregnancy, the core muscles are all stretched out, as you spend nine months
with carrying extra weight in that region. The best way to rebuild a strong
core is to start simple with pelvic tilts, a modified sit-up, together with
squeezing and tightening your behind, then relaxing again.
This repeated
type of exercise can help you build your core and strengthen your back.
However, a quick word of advice: it doesn’t matter how desperate you are to
lose your extra pounds, experts caution against activities that can stress your
joints – jogging doing jumps – for at least two months after pregnancy. When
carrying, you produce a hormone named relaxing, which makes joints loose and
more vulnerable to injury, and there are still large quantities of relaxing in
your blood some couple of weeks after giving birth. Also, any other suspicious
symptoms during your postpartum exercising should be immediately reported to
your physician.
