Beating the Pregnancy Belly Fat

Beating the Pregnancy Belly Fat

This is a subject that is VERY close to home for us - we have a 1 year old and a 3 year old, so we KNOW just how stressful a time it can be to have kids, especially for the first time, and keeping control of your weight is the last thing you need to be worried about! By the way - if you think I'm only talking about the ladies here when I say "Pregnancy belly fat" - I'm not! I'm talking about that sympathy pregnancy belly fat too - it's amazing what an effect pregnancy has on the whole household. The fact is, especially when it's your first baby, it's a stressful time - I'm surprised you have time to read this article...

But I'm glad you are reading this - I want to talk about a few things that I have observed over the last few years that may help with your stress level... I probably should say that I am NOT a doctor, but we have just been through this ourselves, and we've beaten our share of pregnancy belly fat together - if you have any health issues, talk with your doctor for sure, but these pointers can still be useful.

First - pregnancy belly fat is all part of the game! So stop beating yourself up about it. No matter how much other people have told you before pregnancy, nothing can really prepare you for the experience. It's an emotional time, as well as a very tiring time - nobody gets enough sleep and then there's all the preparations to worry about, decorating the nursery, getting to check ups, is the bag packed, and so on. This is not the right time to add "beat the belly fat" to your personal to-do list. You should enjoy the new parenting experience as much as possible - weight loss can wait for a while! It can be distressing to see your carefully sculpted body expanding at this time, but you need to know that all everyone else sees is a beautiful pregnant woman.

Second - stop trying to keep your diet under control. Sure, you need to make sure that you are getting enough nutrients and vitamins and so on, but just listen to your body as well. So what if it demands a few extra calories every hour or so for a while? - Your body really does know best at this time and a little extra pregnancy belly fat (or anywhere else!) is all a part of it.

Third - and this is one that I WISH someone had told us before the event - you are not made of rubber and your body does not magically snap back into shape after the baby arrives!! You've just been carrying an extra person around for the last nine months and recovery takes a little while - no matter HOW flat your stomach was beforehand, that bump is not going to disappear overnight. Again - don't worry about it, just listen to your body and give yourself a chance to recover naturally. You're going to have enough to deal with from sleep deprivation and the new schedule that your baby is going to impose on your life. This is not the right time to start running 5 miles a day!

Fourth - so the baby's here and everyone's home so now it must be time to get back to normal right? Not necessarily! This is different for everyone, but again, I have to say listening to your body is the best plan. Pregnancy is a pretty dramatic experience for your body - mentally as well as physically - especially as a lot of people are having them later on in life when things are not so resilient - so give yourself a chance to recover properly. And if you are planning to have your kids close together (as we did, although some people go even closer!) then you might want to just forget about weight loss altogether and concentrate on just surviving for a couple of years! That might sound a bit strong, but you have to think - if you put yourself through the mill and get rid of all the pregnancy belly fat this time - how excited will you be about the next one??

Finally - the babies are sleeping through the night, nursing is down to a manageable schedule or even finished with and you are starting to feel more human and equipped to face exercise again. At this point, it is very tempting - especially if you were particularly fit beforehand - to launch into a brutal exercise and diet regime. My advice? - Don't do it! You've just been through a lot in the last couple of years and you probably haven't exercised regularly in a while. You are may well be sick of carrying that pregnancy belly fat around in the family - men keep their sympathy belly fat too - but setting yourself up for failure is not the answer.

Start slowly - a little gentle exercise for 10-20 minutes a day a few times per week can work miracles. And give yourself a doable plan - don't commit to a 5am run every day and then quit on day 3 - that will just make you feel even worse about yourself and not do anything for the belly fat. We have a yoga DVD that we work out to a few times per week - it's a 90 minute DVD and we've only ever made it to 18 minutes so far, but even that 18 minutes is starting to make a big difference. The main thing is that you start to rearrange your lifestyle to become the healthy you - but now the healthy you with a family and then the pregnancy belly fat will go very quickly.

One of the best ways to go about this is to find a program that has been laid out for you and follow that. There are many out there on the internet and elsewhere, but one that I am very excited about is called Strip That Fat - this is something that can be followed at any level, no matter how fit or unfit you are to start with or how much weight you want to lose, and, because it is a "lifestyle" program, you will be able to keep the weight off long term as well. Better still - you can get everyone in your family on this plan - doing this as a group will always be more fun and therefore more enjoyable - and therefore more successful!

The bottom line? Enjoy being pregnant, enjoy your new baby and, when the time is right, enjoy getting back into shape and beating that pregnancy belly fat - and a program like Strip That Fat can only help! Weight loss does not have to be hard or miserable - what's the point in being fit and unhappy when you can be fit and VERY happy??