Women & Belly Fat After the Baby

Women should balance exercise and a healthy diet postpartum to loose the pregnancy pounds safely. Loosing weight after delivery starts with an understanding of pregnancy weight gain and staying healthy throughout the pregnancy. To regain your pre-pregnancy figure, you should alter your diet and exercise routine slightly to not hinder the recovery process, especially if you are a breast-feeding mother.

Postpartum Weight Loss

WebMD.com notes that the average weight gain in a healthy pregnancy should be 25 to 35 pounds. This is calculated by adding the approximate weight of the baby, placenta, amniotic fluid, breast tissue, blood supply, uterus increase and the fat stores for the delivery and breast-feeding. After delivery, you will immediately lose approximately 12 pounds. Over the next few weeks, your will lose 5 more pounds because of the loss of excess water. After that, you will loose another 4 to 5 pounds per month if you breast-feed. You may lose up to 20 pounds--almost all the weight gained during your pregnancy--within the first month of delivery without burning fat.

Minimizing Stress and Maximizing Rest

Effectively minimizing stress is a key to loosing weight after delivery. Maintain a healthy diet, allow time to recuperate before becoming active again, set aside short periods of alone time to recharge and enlist the help of friends and family to reduce stress.

Adequate sleep is also an important part of stress management, the postpartum recovery process and weight loss. Nurse practitioner Diane E. Judge, writing in the Women's Health section of "Journal Watch" on Jan. 10, 2008, asserts that inadequate sleep after delivery is directly correlated with weight retention. However, sleep is one of the hardest things to get enough of while caring for a newborn, especially for nursing mothers. If you are tied to the breast-feeding schedule, take naps while your newborn sleeps.

Exercising

It can be tempting to burn postpartum belly fat quickly after giving birth. According to MyStomachExercises.com, there are several ways you can loose weight postpartum: Maintain a healthy diet and exercise regularly throughout the pregnancy and "pull in" the abs as though sucking in to button a tight pair of jeans shortly and periodically after delivery to help reduce the uterus to its normal size.

However, you should not begin to walk or use machinery for weeks, even months, after delivery. Such premature, postpartum exercising slows the recovery process, prevents incisions from healing, often results in dangerously low iron levels and is especially harmful for breast-feeding mothers because it can affect lactation.

Dieting

Generally, during pregnancy and after giving birth, women need to supply their bodies with fatty acids, antioxidants and fiber, and avoid sugars and flour. It is ideal to consume whole, organic foods. If you are breast-feeding, you must consume more calories to balance the calories that are burned during lactation.

Breastfeeding

Breast-feeding contributes greatly to postpartum weight loss. Lactation burns more calories than are generally taken in and uses the body fat stored during pregnancy. If you nurse frequently and for longer periods, you will loose weight quicker than women who nurse sporadically.