Worried About Postpartum Diet and Postpartum Weight Loss?

Here's the skinny on postpartum diet, postpartum weight loss, and body after baby.

Nourish yourself as you nourish your baby. This includes nourishing food, but also nourishing relationships and activities.

Wait at least 8 weeks before you try to lose weight. Allow your body time to readjust to its non-pregnant state.

Improve your postpartum diet with whole foods.

Love your body!

Create a postpartum exercise routine.

Take it Slow, Mama!

Replenish your strength after the birth. You just grew and pushed out a baby! Do not go on a crash diet!

There are so many intense emotions and experiences during the early postpartum period. You need time to process them and to adjust to motherhood.

You are dealing with a new sleep schedule, the needs of your baby, and a changing relationship with your partner.

Don't be critical of yourself if you're not fitting back into your pre-pregnancy jeans within a few weeks, or months.

While many women do go back to the same size and shape they were before pregnancy and birth, many do not.

Your focus at this tender time is not on diet and exercise and this is as it should be.

Becoming a mother is a HUGE transition. Be easy with yourself and don't try to do to much at once.

Improve your Postpartum Diet with Whole Foods

If you didn't improve your diet during pregnancy this is a good time start.

• Concentrate on making nutrient dense foods the mainstay of your postpartum diet--natural, organic, local, and as close to their original state as possible. Focus on the quality of the food more than on the quantity that you are eating.

• Cut out sugar, alcohol(I know, nine months of abstaining and you're dying for a drink), processed grains, white flour, and pasta.

• Instead eat whole grains. Try grains you've never tried before like quinoa, millet, barley, and bulghur wheat.

• Eat more protein and less carbs.

• Eat more greens--kale, spinach, swiss chard, bok choy, and any dark leafy greens.

• Eat good fats--nuts, nut butters, organic raw dairy and butter, fish, or a fish oil supplement, organic grass-fed meats, organic free-range eggs.

• Stock your home with only quality whole foods. Better yet have someone else go out and buy it for you:) You will be much less apt to eat the junk when it's not in your home.

• Eat fresh fruits instead of dessert.

• Continue taking a quality prenatal vitamin. This is good for your health as well as your baby's.

• Farm markets can be a great way to obtain locally grown fresh foods. It can be a wonderful experience to take your baby in a sling or carrier to the market. Older babies love to look around at all the sights and sounds as you walk through the market.

• Drink lots of water--drink whenever you stop to nurse your baby.

• Learn to read your hunger signals. If you are constantly feeling hungry or waking up in the night because your stomach is rumbling, than eat more. If you are feeling stuffed after meals cut back a bit. A good rule of thumb is to eat only until you are two-thirds full. Allow a little room in there!

Be Radical and Love your Body the Way it is!

Learning to love and accept your body after baby is a challenge that we all face. In this society we are constantly BOMBARDED with images of celebrities that have babies and within weeks are super thin again!

Remember they have access to things that you probably don't. TIME for one (they have nannies care for their children), personal trainers, fancy exercise equipment, personal chefs and shoppers to buy and prepare their food, and special clothing and make-up artists. Oh yes--and COSMETIC SURGERY!

You may decide that at this time in your life you have other priorities than making your body look a certain way.

AND THAT'S OKAY. YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO DO IT ALL! You don't have to look like a "yummy mummy" to be and feel beautiful, sexy, and worthy as a mother.

Take a look at the website The Shape of a Mother. It will give you perspective and let you know that you are not alone!

Eating a healthy postpartum diet is one way to take good care of yourself as a mother and as a person. Lovingly feed yourself every day with nutritious whole foods.

After a few months if you are still unhappy with your postpartum weight, you can diet gently structuring your postpartum diet according to the above Whole Foods principles.

And then, hate to break to to ya, but you'll probably have to exercise to shed the extra pounds.

But postpartum exercise can make you feel fabulous! You can do it with or without your baby. It will boost your mood, your immune system, and improve your overall health, in addition to helping you lose the postpartum weight.

Take Time for Yourself!

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