Baby Bulge

Dear Beauty Obsession,
I just wanted to say Congratulations on expecting your 2nd baby! I haven’t been on BH much in recent months so I didn’t realise you were pregnant!

Danni, sorry if I strayed away from the original topic, but I wasn’t sure if there was another post just on BO’s pending arrival. Congratulations on the recent birth of your baby too!

Thanks ladies for your advice, it’s really handy I have started walking each day recently I go for about 40 minutes in the morning it started only because bubs was hard to settle in the morning but it seems to be the main way to loose the weight, and a big thankyou for the extra confidence I’m the first out of ALL of my friends to have a baby so I don’t know what I should be expecting in the body department I guess the fact that I am impatient doesn’t help either with weight loss =) Thanks for all the tips I’m going to combine them all and give it a go. xxx

Congrats on the new bub Danni 🙂 The best way to lose the weight is to do it slowly and sensibly. From my own personal experience it took me about 9 months to gain the weight and 9 months to lose the baby weight and that was with a combination of exercise, bf and eating good foods with the ocassional treat. I did a lot of walking with my baby in the stroller which was great for me emotionally and physically and also great for the bub as well as it got her out of the house and helped settle here. I’m about to have my second baby soon and will be keen to shift the kilos and get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.

Hi Heavenly Beauties,
I just had my first baby 12 weeks ago and managed to gain a (very) unwanted 10kgs i just want to know if anyone has any tips to help loose it, as other mothers know free time is scarce and I can’t just pop off to the gym they way I did before. PLEASE HELP.

I find that whatever I eat I usually stay around the same weight, sometimes when I try to cut down I just end up craving again and eat more in the end therefore putting more weight on. So exercise has been the only way in order to keep my weight down. I find that walking is really good in losing weight. Just 2 to 3 times a week for about 30-40 minutes is great. If you cannot leave the home then try a treadmill in front of the tv or something. You can get cheap treadmills from ebay if money is an issue.

I find that sit ups usually don’t make my stomach smaller, but overall loss of weight from the whole body makes it smaller.

Also add a multivitamin to your daily diet as this can help control cravings. Cravings are usually because you need some sort of nutrition. Eg, if you are craving chocolate, you may really just need vitamins that come from fruit. Swiss women is a good multivitamin but best taken after eating.

Hey!! =)
Congratulations on your bundle of joy! Welcome to motherhood! All those other salutations too lol!
I have a 17 month old baby boy and I was freaked when I peaked at an extra 17 kilos just before he was born! For a 22 year old thats a nightmare lol
Only lost about 5 in the first couple of days (counting when he came out too haha) and then another 2 or 3 in the following week. Are you breastfeeding? I found this helped me lose kilos just from the sheer energy your body uses to produce milk. But then it backfired as I became starving and therefore ate way more than I probably needed to.
Midwives and drs recommend no exercise for up to 6 weeks, so you should be ok to start some from home now. I have lost a bit more weight, I didnt really do much tho besides a half hour walk with bubba a couple of times a week.
What I find worked really well was doing 5 days (up to 7 max) of protein only. Based on the Dukan diet, but without the hassle of having to do the whole scenario for months on end.

** So I’d start my mornings with bacon and eggs, and this is great as you can eat AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE! woohoo! lol
I usually at 2 eggs and a few slices of bacon. No sauces tho.

** Then for lunch I’d just have some yoghurt. Ok… lot of yoghurt! I found if I ate lots for breakfast, I wasnt so hungry at lunch. Try to choose a low or no fat yoghurt, but its not absolutely necessary.

** Dinner was tricky as you generally are not allowed veges or sauces or anything nice lol not even a nice salad!
I cooked up diced chicken breast, browned it with some onion and garlic and diced bacon. Then as the chicken is almost cooked, stir in as much Philly spreadable (or cooking) cream! Its great because you’re not really supposed to have cheese, but you can have Philadelphia! It makes a filling meal if you heap your plate up, and its not so bad as just eating a piece of boring plain chicken!

I lost 4 kilos in the week and my husband lost 6!

Once you drop a few kilos its easy to keep it off with some gentle exercise like a walk.Or perhaps do 3 reps of 20 crunches of a night, before you drop into bed.

Hope this helps! x Kristie

Hi Heavenly Beauties,
I just had my first baby 12 weeks ago and managed to gain a (very) unwanted 10kgs i just want to know if anyone has any tips to help loose it, as other mothers know free time is scarce and I can’t just pop off to the gym they way I did before. PLEASE HELP.

Ooh, Congratulations Danni! How exciting. The safest way to lose weight and maintain your energy (which you so need to care for and look after both yourself and bub) is slowly. It will happen – especially if you can be active. I used to try and go for a daily walk with my bub. In the evening is a good time as it settles them and relaxes you. Even if you feel really tired it’s worth doing as it energises you.
Lots of luck x

Your tummy will never be quite the same. Whilst I got back to my prepregnancy weight my tummy was quite wobbly compared to before. It annoyed me at first but then eventually I had to accept it.

Are you breast feeding? If so, have you found that you are ravinously hungry? You need to eat regularly to fuel your body but make sure that you eat well. I got in the habbit of eating crappy carbs (ie i craved cakes and biscuits) thinking that I could eat anything. Initially the weight did fall off me but as time has gone on it has crept back on and then some. So eat plenty of fruit and veges, things like vitawheats and cheese, musli bars as opposed to crappy carbs like cakes, biscuits and chips. If you are breast feeding then unfortunately nows not the time to diet so just eat really well.

The best exercise you can do for now is walking. I used to walk absolutely everywhere and found that helped. Bub loved being in the pram so it was a win win for the both of us.

I used to be obsessed with ab work – I loved situps and planks and all of those exercises…yet since the birth of my bub (he’ll be 1 next week) i have done maybe 20 sit ups. It seems that there is always something more important to do. I have just recently bought some zumba dvd’s so i am hoping to do one of them a day either if he is asleep, or maybe if he is awake he will like to have a little boogie too.

All bubs are different, so it might not be the same for you, but i know a lot of bubs in my mothers group started to get into slightly more predictable sleep routines around 3 months so yours might be on the verge of that as well. I dont know whether Isaac was going through a groth spurt or what but around this age he was sleep 12 hours through the night and another 6-8 guring the day (not solidly – he’d wake 3 times a night for feed but go down straight away and his day naps were 2-3 hours). If your bub does establish some predicability you might be able to fit a quick workout in during one of their naps…but to be honest, i was always so swamped with house work or making meals, i rarely did.

As difficult as it can be to accept your new body, it does eventually return to an acceptable level so try not to stress too much about it and enjoy your little bub. From about 6 months they will need full on attention all the time so thats where you will be getting all your exercise from!