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Sometimes that stubborn baby weight won’t budge, even if you are breastfeeding like crazy, working out and trying to eat healthily. With new year’s upon us, I thought I would put together a tutorial on HOW you can get that baby weight to budge this year, without making intense, strict resolutions that won’t last long. These are resolutions per se, but some changes you can work into your life that will really help you budge the baby weight and lose it for good. If you are breastfeeding, I have some SPECIFIC tips for you on diet, and your workout will not affect your supply. I have a specific program for breastfeeding mamas called The Postpartum Cure, which heals the body and nourishes your body for weight loss while breastfeeding. It all comes in an app, and I’ll mention some more details later!
Sometimes eating healthy and exercising don’t do the trick. It is depressing for a minute, but if you take a look at your diet and exercise plan, all we need to do is make a few minor tweaks to have your dropping weight. There’s one point I want you to realize, and that is,
my current diet and workout plan is not working.
The reason I need you to accept this is that MANY mamas remain stuck in their idea that their fabulous PLAN should be working…but let’s look at the results as proof it isn’t. Have you lost the baby weight you wanted? If your answer is, “No.” Then we need to make changes and accept that a new plan is required. Take some time to meditate on this, so you can accept the changes I am going to suggest.
If you keep doing what you are doing, that baby weight won’t budge.
Here’s your plan to budge that baby weight for good:
Change Your Workout Plan:
Let’s dive into changing your workout plan to really make sure you are going to budge that baby weight. I am going to assume you are doing HIIT workouts first.
HIIT workouts are usually around 20 minutes, give or take 10 minutes. HIIT workouts are FABULOUS for maintaining muscle and helping you burn fat and calories throughout the day after. BUT, and this is a big BUT, most people are not working hard enough to make it a HIIT workout. High intensity means literally breathing hard AND feeling the burn. A HIIT workout isn’t jumping around, kinda breathing hard and putting your time in. HIIT workouts are really hard and should leave you sore the next day. You should be sweating and barely able to catch your breath. Are you working this hard?? If so, great. I will get to what to do next. If not, you need to AMP IT UP! Your 20 minutes should feel like death most of the time. Sucking air, burning muscles and sweat dripping. That is a HIIT workout. Burpees, jump squats, squat presses and compound movements that use lots of muscles are great for HIIT. Throw in sprints and kettlebell swings for 40-50 seconds of intense work, followed by maybe 20 seconds of rest, and that is a HIIT workout. Your first step is to make sure you are doing HIIT intensely.
Second, if you are working really hard, then you are probably overestimating your calorie burn. The tough aspect of HIIT workouts is that they don’t burn as many calories as you might think. You are only working out for 25-30 minutes. You can only burn so many calories in 40 seconds of work each time. So, if you work really hard for 15 minutes, you are probably only burning around 150 calories, even though it feels really hard. You can either double the time you are doing your HIITs or add in walking to really make a change to budge that baby weight. Up your calorie burn total, and you can start getting into the negative energy balance, which is what you need to burn fat. If you add in walking/jogging with the stroller for 30 minutes, you will get another 300 calories or so burned! Or, if you go to a gym, hop on a cardio machine for at least 30 minutes to add in more calories burned, and more fat burned because slower-state cardio will burn fat. This way you are using up your carbs with the HIIT workout and using up fat with cardio! Win-win!
Once you’ve made some changes to your workout, you need to make some changes to your diet. Both are really important, but your diet is the key to budging the baby’s weight, in my opinion.
Tweak Your Diet With Calories and Macros:
The first thing you need to do is figure out how much you are eating. It is pretty obvious you are eating too much to lose weight because the way you are eating now, ISN’T WORKING. If you are really eating as healthy and light as you think, you wouldn’t have trouble budging the baby’s weight. So, we are going to fine-tune the AMOUNT you are eating as well as the KIND of calories you are eating.
First, take three days and eat your normal diet, write it down and use My Fitness Pal to track your calories. This will help you get a reality check on how much you are eating.
I am assuming you are healthy, with no underlying issues. If you think you are eating very little (800 calories or so) you need to get some things checked by your doctor. Hormones, thyroid and other issues can slow down your metabolism.
Okay, now that you have your daily average, this average is keeping your baby’s weight on. Reduce this average by about 200 calories a day. This will help you get into a negative energy balance. If you are breastfeeding, this won’t cause an issue with your supply if you follow my next advice on the kind of calories you are eating!
Whether you are breastfeeding or not, the kind of calories you eat is really important to your body functioning optimally and efficiently. If you are eating 800 calories of cookies, chips, Cheetos and burgers, you aren’t gonna feel great, and your body is going to be lacking nutrients. If you are eating 1200 calories of fruits, veggies, lean meats and whole foods, you are gonna feel satiated, have lots of energy and your body is gonna want to let go of MORE FAT! If your body has lots of nutrients, it will be happy to let go of fat because it is fully nourished. If you are eating very little and low-nutrient foods, your body is going to be stressed and less likely to let go of fat. So, you need to look at more than just how many calories, but also change the kind of calories.
If you are concerned about breastfeeding and losing your supply, I have a very popular plan called The Postpartum Cure which is a complete diet and fitness program to heal mamas after a baby. It focuses on healing foods, recipes for milk supply, a meal plan, grocery lists, how to count calories, a 3-week ab rehab and pelvic floor restore program and more! It ALSO COMES IN AN APP!! This makes it super easy to navigate through recipes and watch the videos of information.
Protein is super helpful with weight loss after a baby. It helps maintain your muscle, so as you reduce calories your body burns fat, not muscle tissues. It also helps keep you full and satiated, which is why I created Milk Dust!
I am SO EXCITED to share that I am launching Milk Dust, the only protein powder that pumps up your milk supply with a special lactation blend, while also curbing sugar cravings!! There are no other clean, super nutrient-dense protein powders like this, and I would love for you to sign up for the pre-sale lists, where I am offering the first batch at a discount!!
Getting the baby’s weight to budge can seem overwhelming and depressing. Especially if you’ve been eating healthy and working out for months, with no immediate results. All you need is to make some simple changes and stick to those changes long enough to see the baby’s weight melt off.
The baby’s weight will budge, it just takes a bit of a reality check that your current nutrition and fitness plan isn’t working. You have to accept that factor in order to make positive changes to see results!
If you haven’t yet, check out all our courses, programs, challenges, & recipe book!
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