Losing Weight After Pregnancy
You could be lucky. I was - just once. When my middle daughter was born I actually weighed 10 pounds less than I had when I’d conceived her. That’s not something you can count on, though, and I can tell you that from experience as well. Most women start their lives as a new mom with an extra 8 to 15 pounds that they didn’t have pre-baby.
There’s a very good reason for that. God designed our bodies with nurture in mind. Part of that weight that you put on during pregnancy was meant to nurture your baby AFTER birth.
While your body requires an extra 300 calories a day to keep up with the nutritional demands of your baby during pregnancy, a breastfeeding mother requires at least 500 extra calories a day to produce enough milk and remain healthy. Your body stores up a little extra nutrition for after the birth just in case there isn’t enough food for its needs when it’s time to feed the new little critter.
If you’re breastfeeding, that’s part of the good news. You’ll automatically be burning an extra five hundred calories a day - which will make it considerably easier for you to lose the extra weight. In fact, you may not need to do anything special at all to lose weight. Just focus on eating a normal, healthy, well-balanced diet. If you’re not breastfeeding, you won’t find it quite as easy. Your focus should still be on healthy eating, with moderate exercise to burn extra calories.
Here’s more good news for new mothers. Exercising is easier. Actually, that’s not quite right. Burning more calories is easier. Walking alone for an hour burns 200 calories. Walking while pushing a stroller ups that figure considerably. Push a stroller uphill, and it’s even higher. You’ll get extra duty out of things you never thought of like lifting the stroller and car seat in and out of the car, carrying the baby up and down stairs and just plain carrying the baby.
Still. If you find yourself with stubborn pounds that simply won’t come off, exercise and a moderate reduction in calories is the way to go. Just like pregnancy isn’t the time for weight loss, just after pregnancy isn’t the time to stress your body further with severe dietary restrictions. Aim for losing about a pound a week, though chances are you’ll find it coming off faster than that. Being a mom is a high-energy proposition!
Lose Weight For Your Wedding Day
Looking “runway perfect” is a wedding day ideal for many women. Some will do just about anything to make their wedding day perfect, including going after quick, fast wedding day weight loss programs. Like a wedding, weight loss takes planning. The same efforts that you put into your wedding planning, taking care to ensure that you have the most lovely flowers, delicious food, and space for your guests to enjoy, is how you should approach your wedding day weight loss. You did not plan your wedding one day and get married the next. So, your weight loss should not be handled like that also.
Like your wedding, your weight loss should lead to a long-term life arrangement. You have decided to make a commitment to someone, and with that, you anticipate having good days and not-so-wonderful days at some point. This, too, holds true for weight loss. It should be a personal commitment to do something that will help you as a person.
There may be some instant gratification that comes along with losing a few pounds quickly, and, of course, there are plenty of ways to do it. From using fat binders that can constrict natural movement or that hold you so tight that you can barely breathe, to not eating for long periods of time. Neither of these is the best for your body, and will quickly wear thin on you emotionally as well.
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Weight Control That Can Work For You
Is weight loss the same as weight control? When you are not in control of something, you find it difficult to maintain it where it is. When you are not in control of your weight, you tend to lose weight or gain weight. So when you are in control of your weight, you would be able to maintain your weight more or less steady or gain or lose it as you will.
Unfortunately with over sixty-five percent of U.S adults being either overweight or obese, majority of the people confuse weight control with weight loss. The confusion is worse confounded because the considerations by which you achieve weight control are the same as those by which you achieve weight loss.
A healthy American woman of medium build and a height of 5’ 4” would weigh about 125 lbs. If she is doing a little or no exercise, she needs 1500 calories per day to maintain that weight. If she were to follow some dietary restriction and reduce her calorie intake by 500 calories per day, she will lose weight at the rate of about 1 lb per week.
A Healthy Diet Starts With Exercise
Many people wonder how they can maintain a healthy weight without starving themselves. It is important for every would be dieter to understand that a healthy diet starts with exercise. Without a solid exercise plan, it will be almost impossible to maintain a weight loss over the long term.
That is because virtually any diet can help you lose weight over the short term. Simply cutting back on calories while maintaining your normal schedule will certainly allow you to lose weight, at least in the short term.
The Problem With Dieting Alone
The problem with this approach, of course, is that it is difficult to maintain. Eventually you will grow tired of the same old restricted calorie diet, and when you stop eating that diet, the weight will quickly return. Worse yet, many yoyo dieters end up gaining more weight than they lost, making it than much more difficult to lose weight the next time. In addition, this type of up and down weight gain and loss has been found to be even more dangerous than being overweight.
The key thing to remember therefore is that a healthy diet starts with exercise. Exercise should be the cornerstone of any diet program, and without a solid exercise plan in place it will be virtually impossible to maintain any weight loss you do achieve through diet alone.
Fortunately, it is not necessary to exercise like a fiend to achieve a healthy weight loss. Studies have shown that you can gain significant health benefits simply by exercising a few times a week, for as little as 20 minutes each day. That means that simply taking a walk around your neighborhood three or four times a year can be remarkably effective.
Take It Easy
Of course more strenuous exercise is always an option, but it is important not to push yourself too soon. If you introduce strenuous exercise into your exercise plan too quickly you could risk an injury, and that could set your diet and exercise plan back further.
For those times when it is too hot, too cold or too rainy to enjoy a walk or a run in the great outdoors, there are a number of excellent pieces of exercise equipment on the market. There are a number of excellent pieces, including the good old exercise bike and treadmill to the newest elliptical trainers and similar equipment.
The most important thing to look for when purchasing exercise equipment is a piece of equipment that you will use. When shopping for such equipment, be sure to remember that a healthy diet starts with exercise, and buy your equipment accordingly. A piece of exercise equipment that is too difficult or too cumbersome to use will quickly become a clothes hanger, and you will not gain the benefits of regular exercise.
Whether you get your exercise through your exercise equipment, the old fashioned way of taking a walk or going for a run, or a combination of both approaches, the most important thing is that you get started and get started as soon as possible. The sooner you start your exercise program the sooner you will be able to reap the many rewards of such a program.
Top 10 Dieting Tips for Summer
As the air starts losing the cold bite of winter, you are happy in anticipation of the summer. You start planning holidays to sea resorts with friends and family. Until that fateful moment when you realize you have been too lax with your body and you are not in shape for the summer activities and swimming trunks or bathing suits cannot accommodate your body any more!
Still don’t despair! Summer weight loss is still possible. Remember that losing weight is influenced to the extent of 70% to 80% by what and how you eat and the balance by the physical activities and exercises. Cut down intake of excess calories which increase fat in the body and exercise the body which will help in to burn body fat and to lose weight.
The following simple natural weight loss suggestions if implemented can help you with summer weight loss and shape up your body to face summer with confidence in a matter of three to four weeks.
