*If you are here thinking that in this post, there is some short-cut to lose weight, sorry, this article is not about any diet. This is an article about weight loss for new mothers.
It is just for like-minded women in similar situations supporting each other though a weight-loss and fitness journey!*
Are you a new mother trying to lose weight? Is your youngest child at least 6 months old?
Then please join me in this 60-day weight loss challenge.
*Disclaimer: Please check with your doctor before you do anything. This article is not intended to give you medical advice.*
Update:
Thanks to my awesome new friends S, G, M in the motivation group I started, we are on our way to get our new fit bodies.
1-month checkpoint – Lost 3 kgs!
60 days done, yayy! Party?? 😉 I just lost 2 more kgs.
So, overall in this challenge I lost 5 kgs, but not as much as I wanted because I really could not work out much because of our regular mom lives. But I feel much fit than I was before. Anyway, this is just a start to a healthy lifestyle and positive future.
Have you started your weight-loss journey yet?
Weight-loss is difficult for a second-time mom
After my first child, I lost all the baby weight in about 4 to 6 months. I am a second-time mom, my son was born last October and I have not lost my baby weight yet. With the second child, I retained all the 15 kgs that I gained and even put on 2 more kgs unfortunately.
I hear from some people that losing weight after having a boy baby is difficult and it takes time. And still some other people say that you should lose weight easily if you diet.
I feel that our ability to lose weight also depends on our age, body type and many other factors. With age losing weight becomes difficult. To complicate things, I have hypothyroidism too.
My doctor advised me not to diet till the time I breastfeed the baby. But she said that I can exercise after 6 months from delivery as I had a cesarean operation for the second baby also.
No fitness
At one point I was going through my cycle and felt so weak. My toddler asked me to take her to the park one evening and I took her. After playing for a while, she wanted me to pick her up as her little legs were paining from all the running around.
I tried to hold her for sometime, but quickly put her down. It was so painful. I was astonished at myself and wondered if it really was me or was it a 100-year-old woman? This is when I realized I should get fit, for the sake of my kid. To play with her.
We take care of our family, but do not make time for ourselves. This is the bitter truth.
No motivation
I confess that I wanted to start losing weight from a long time, thinking that in the next two months I will lose this much or that much.
But I did not exercise or even control my diet. Then after two months I would again think that I can start in the next month. As expected, as before I was stuck at the same weight because of my inactivity.
To add to this problem, I stress-eat. I do not have time to sit down and have a proper lunch as I constantly run around my two little ones. So, to avoid feeling hungry, I keep snacking on biscuits and other junk food.
Living in the US does not help this problem. It is very easy to get delicious snacks that you will be totally addicted to.
I started using bread and butter a lot as my time-savers and those Costco’s biscuits are my biggest enemy.
Resolution
Recently, a friend shared a picture on a social networking website. That picture also had me in it and I was shocked to see myself looking so round!
Then I realized that I have been unconsciously avoiding sharing photos for that reason… just to avoid looking at my obese-self. This is when I finally decided that the time is never right to start losing weight if we keep postponing it.
I really believe that if we put our mind to something, we will achieve it sooner than later. But I lack motivation.
Help me, help yourself!
So, here I am. I need your help. If you are here, then you need my help too. It will be a win-win for us! We can keep each other motivated.
I want to start this weight-loss journey to feel happy about myself. In the process, if I make new friends and they too achieve their weight-loss goals, I would be more than happy. I would be beside myself that I made a difference 🙂
Did you notice that I did not ask family members to help me? This is because we tend to strive for our goals without cheating if we are accountable to someone outside our family. Don’t you agree?
Our brain thinks that this is exciting and would tend to keep us on track with new energy. We are tricking ourselves in a positive way 😀
Now, let us come to our plan.
Lose 10 kgs in 60 days?
Ideally, I would like to lose 10 kgs in the next couple of months. But, let us see if we can lose at least 5 kgs in two months 🙂 Deal?
I plan to take food as usual, no dramatic changes except cutting back on sugar.
And **Drink plently of water** in between meals and before a meal.
My daily food intake is something like:
- Tea at 7 am.
- 2 dosas/oats porridge/corn flakes for breakfast at 9 am.
- Rice and Dal/veggies for lunch.
- Tea and biscuits at 5 pm.
- 2 dosas or upma and fruits for dinner
I admit that I tend to eat a lot of junk in the evening. I devour a lot of biscuits, sweets and fried items if they are around.
So, my plan for this is “not to keep any junk in sight“. Instead I will try and consciously munch on fruits.
I am not saying you should follow this diet, but just do anything you do usually while keeping in mind that we should consume a little lesser than our body needs to burn fat.
And strictly no to leftover foods. Just because they will be wasted, sometimes we eat leftover food. But our bodies are getting wasted by that. So, no to it!
Please give me any suggestions you have for the diet too.
Exercise
Now that our diet part is over, we should talk about exercise.
I know, with little ones at home, we won’t have much time to spare. But, we need to make some time for ourselves.
All I am talking about is ‘just’ 30 minutes.
– 15 minutes of yoga (5 minutes warm up and 10 minute Surya namaskar) or any other ‘stomach, arms and legs-aimed’ exercises. We can keep alternating the exercises to keep it interesting.
– 15 minutes or more brisk walking.
I am planning to follow a few stomach-targeting exercises from Youtube. If you need the links, please let me know.
If you can hit the gym, please do! If you can do some cycling outside, go for it! You can use a power meter for bicycles to track your progress. It will motivate you to increase your cycling efforts so you can burn more calories.
I can say that we won’t reduce weight quickly, but if we stick to this plan we will surely lose the baby weight.
Do you have any other suggestions for this?
Coming to our motivation part
We should keep it interesting for ourselves. If something is new, we will do it with excitement.
So, here is the plan.
Plan
1. We can check our weight only every two weeks. Note it in your personal diary.
2. If possible, wear the same dress, stand in the same spot, and take a picture of yourself every two weeks. Store them along with your diary.
3. Mid-way through the challenge, that is after one month, treat yourself to an outing or whatever you like to do.
4. On the last day, let’s see if we can catch up for coffee and treat ourselves 🙂 (If this is geographically feasible)
When we check our weight, we can ignore it if we keep it to ourselves, so to keep ourselves accountable, we share our details with each other.
Does this plan sound good to you? Do you have any other suggestions? Please let me know.
Let’s work on it together and have a great time becoming healthy and happy.
I am planning to start this challenge on August 16, 2017. Are you in? Please comment below and let’s catch up 🙂
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