Thursday, September 13, 2012

Weight loss after delivery - When to start

After piling on pregnancy pounds many new mothers are anxious to lose all the extra weight they are carrying as fast as possible. Some may think of working out or watching their diets as soon as the day they deliver. But trust me, weight loss should be the last thing on your mind during the first few months after delivery. Here are a few pointers -

  1. Check with your doc before resuming any exercise
  2. Take care of your diet and don't cut back calories. At the same time don't over-indulge
  3. Generally after your 6 weeks post partum checkup, you can resume mild physical exercises in case of normal delivery.
  4. In case of C-section delivery, general advise is to wait for 3 months before resuming exercise.
  5. Easy paced walks can be resumed as long as it feels comfortable.
  6. It is more important to eat well and have some sleep as the demands of new-born and breast-feeding can be very tiring.
  7. Some weight also starts coming off as you breast-feed your baby, but this is gradual and may take 2-3 months to see visible changes.
  8. Take your doc's approval or wait for 4-5 months before resuming crunches and weight training exercises for C-section cases.
  9. Go easy on your work-out routine as you resume it after delivery. Build momentum gradually.
  10. Have faith that you will lose all the extra weight. Belief is very important to see results, even though it seems like a herculean task. You put on all this weight in 9 months, give yourself that much time at least to regain your former figure.


No comments:

Post a Comment