How old is your baby? Well if you are like me after having a baby, there’s only a certain amount of time that passes before you feel embarrassed or silly saying, “I just had a baby” as your excuse as to why you are out of shape. It’s been said that it takes your body at least 1 year to be back to “normal” after having a baby. But, there are so many factors that decide what your shape will be. For me, I worked my butt off to get the weight off without compromising “supply” for nursing. That meant I couldn’t restrict my calories so aggressively to strip the fat off as fast as I would want. And let’s be honest here people, there is that slight mental advantage where you do allow for indulgences as you have that excuse for being out of shape, right?
But sometimes you just have to face it, take control, and get yourself back to healthy with no more excuses.
So what is the best way to lose the baby fat? And FAST! I mean I need it gone next week! Right? I know, I’ve been there! Assuming you have checked with your doctor and are in the clear to go for it, it can be a huge variable depending on your situation. But in general, it’s all trial and error in figuring out how to lose the weight.
I always get asked for help from people to lose weight. It’s a loaded question- because there are so many variables. Also, honesty is something some people don’t want to honestly admit all the time how they may not be living up to their end of the deal on exercise, or their diet is all over the board, or how they think a “this won’t hurt” bite of that won’t hurt their efforts. Well, it does.
As we get older, I tend to find that what worked for me last year, may not work exactly this year. General problems that people come across is they put so much ‘weight’ into the exercise portion of their results. Yes, exercise IS important, but I have seen many bodies come my way who exercise all the time, and they still look the same. The topic of your choice of exercise, is a WHOLE other topic. General rule and guideline we’ll go with right now, is to make sure you are exercising 5-6 times a week, both weight resistance and cardio.
When it comes to really transforming your body, your results are mostly dependent on what you do with your nutrition. You can try and take any fatloss pill to accelerate or stimulate fatloss, but that still doesn’t work if your nutrition is a mess.
TRUTHS
-YES, “that” will derail your efforts! – We nibble extra calories all the time and don’t think they add up, but seriously just having a couple hundred calories each day, adds up. Not to mention the off the wagon of blowing this day may play on your mind as you binge on all the goodies you have wanted because you will start again Monday.
– Water IS important! Generally try to get about 80-100oz a day.
– It IS important to measure! Get the measuring spoons, cups, and scale out because you will be amazed at what an actual serving is!
MY SUGGESTED/RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES:
1) Figure out what your daily caloric intake should be for a low activity day. This is the lowest amount of calories you will eat per day, and no, it’s not 1200 calories for everyone.
*Average a couple hundred extra calories on top of your low calorie range, and eat that amount about every 3-4 days in rotation.
2) Suggest dividing up 5-6 mini meals. Get away from calling them 3 meals and a snack. The brain will work more efficiently if you can keep it easier to count. Suggest keeping your mini-meals about the same amount of calories each time you eat.
3) Be sure to pair up your food with a carb/protein/fat almost every meal you eat. Generally have your starchy carbs in your morning meals and have your fibrous carbs in your afternoon/evening meals. Be sure to keep good fats in your diet and sometimes in each meal. Be careful to not have too much of a serving of the fats when you do, use your caloric range on each meal to guide you on how much.
4) If you stay up late, then you need to eat! If you are a night owl, gage that your last meal should be about 3 hours before bedtime. If you go to bed at 1am, then yes, you can eat at 10pm. Be sure to choose a fibrous carb and protein in this time. Or straight protein works well here too. If you aren’t sure what to have, go basic with greens and lean meat. Or you can make it easy and fix a protein shake.
These are some basic guidelines and the mistakes people tend to make when looking to lose the weight.
Important to get your vitamins, Omega’s, and suggest CLL.
I’m not a nutritionist, just a fitness professional. Just sharing what I have learned along the way.