After having a baby most women want to jump back into the shape they were in before they had the baby. While that is definitely a good goal to set, we have to keep some things in mind along the way. Your hormones are not in the same place post pregnancy as they were beforehand. Estrogen and progesterone are low, and oxytocin is up. Certain muscles are likely weaker or strained because of the pregnancy. So the first thing I recommend doing is checking in with yourself and noticing what changes have come about.
Find Your New Pace
Life is different now. You have new stressors, and new priorities. These things may shift how you used to approach your gym sessions and nutrition sessions. That’s totally okay. Particularly when it comes to the first couple months, I would suggest giving yourself an onboarding back to fitness. Don’t jump right back into high intensity programs as your body isn’t ready for it.
Your schedule is most likely very different and sporadic. Rather than trying to force an unrealistic regimen, create one that is more flexible. If you used to go to the gym 5 days a week, lower it down to 2-3. Doing less doesn’t mean you are getting less results. Any individual can achieve a superior physique with just 2-3 days of training a week.
The biggest factor we want to take into account is preventing injury, and maximizing your recovery, especially during this period. You’ll be running off of less sleep for the next couple months.
Increase Your Daily Movement
Don’t feel the need to be in a gym. Not only are there plenty of at home workout programs you can do to strengthen your body, even just going for walks and finding gaps in the day to move will go a long way to getting you back on track. Take your baby for long walks, and find ways to just stay active while you are at home. Increasing your step count can also help give you a target to make sure you are moving.
Follow a Full Body Program
If you are able to get a workout in, cater those workouts towards being full body. That way, if you miss a workout, it doesn’t throw off your program. If it’s body part specific and you end up missing one workout, it’ll throw your entire schedule off so a full body workout still allows you to make sure you are hitting everything.
Being able to include resistance training will help burn more calories at rest, and send a signal to your body to use the calories you are taking in. If you are in a deficit to try and lose some excess weight, resistance training is even more important to help keep the muscle you currently have.
Have a Solid Nutrition Foundation
You don’t need to count calories per se, but start incorporating the staples that get you back to a deficit.
- Stick to whole, mostly unprocessed foods. This will give you higher volume meals leaving you fuller for longer. Processed foods are made to be super palatable and encourage overconsumption.
- Make sure to include 1-2 fistful veggie sizes to every meal. It will help you hit those micronutrients your body needs, and further increase fullness.
- Include a palm size serving of protein with every meal. This will help retain and build any muscle you may have lost, as well as also help with many metabolic processes in the body.
You don’t need as many calories now that you aren’t carrying the baby, but you do want to still be consuming plenty of high quality foods. Following the above recommendations will help start to create that deficit to lose weight. Most importantly, listen to your body. It may respond differently to diet, exercise, and food, so make choices you can adhere to, and keep you and the baby healthy over the long term.
Sleep!
I know this will not be easy to always get, but make sleep the number one priority! None of the above are of any use if you are not allowing yourself the time to recover. Getting good sleep, when you are able, is the key for any of the above tips to work most effectively! We can’t expect to get back to 100% if our sleep isn't a big focus. I would rather you do skip a workout if it meant getting higher quality sleep, then trying to squeeze it in.
Overall, have compassion for yourself. Your body and mind just went through some huge changes. You can absolutely get your body into a place where you feel good, but it may take some time. Reaching our goals is a journey, and sustainable success is about doing the small things consistently.
