They are the genetic lottery winners, those lucky 10% or so who effortlessly jettison their extra pregnancy pounds in just a few months after childbirth. But for the overwhelming majority of us, postpartum weight loss trudges along at a (too) slow, and sometimes not-so-steady pace.


It’s in the Genes: Why It Takes a While to Lose “Baby Weight”

Women store extra energy-reserves late in pregnancy as a hedge against possible disasters that might cause food scarcity. It’s like an insurance policy that has helped us thrive as a species. So, it makes perfect sense that your body would not want to “empty the pantry” in the initial months after childbirth. It’s to our genetic advantage to have emergency stores at the ready.


Change the Channel to Positive Self-Talk

Every woman has a “mommy body” after childbirth. Don’t panic or berate yourself over it. Just realize that these changes in your figure are part of a natural, healthy, transitional phase, and are no cause for alarm. Buying into the myths you may hear about the futility of postpartum weight loss, or idealizing how famous celebrity-moms get super-skinny just months after childbirth will only undermine your commitment to a sound fitness and nutrition program that will safely return you to your pre-pregnancy weight.
Listen to your internal dialog. If you hear your internal critic, mentally change channels.


Weighty Matters: A Healthy Perspective

It’s crucial for postpartum women to remember that only a small portion of the additional weight reflected on the scale can be attributed to extra “baby fat.” If you gained the proper amount of weight during pregnancy, then at four months postpartum you may find yourself 12 pounds or so over your pre-pregnancy weight. But, only 3 to 5 pounds, or only 25 to 40% of the weight gain is extra fat. Fluids and other lean tissue comprise 60% to 75% of your increased postpartum weight.

Resist the inclination to let the numbers on the scale set off a barrage of self-criticism. On reading the scale, we tend to say to ourselves, “Oh no! I have to lose 12 pounds!” as if the entire extra weight is synonymous with extra fat—which it isn’t. You are, after all, operating an around-the-clock milk factory, and that alone requires more breast tissue, fluids, and additional energy stores.


Biological Signals for Probable Weight Loss

Typically, women first lose about half of their pregnancy weight at childbirth and the initial weeks afterward. Then the rate of weight-loss slows to about 2 lbs. per month until two events occur.

First, your menstruation will resume. This signals your body’s completion of that pregnancy cycle, and your readiness, from a biological standpoint, to become pregnant again. Frequently, a woman’s body will begin to transform more rapidly after the first postpartum menses—including weight loss.

The second event precipitating weight loss is weaning. When you stop breast-feeding, your body receives the final biological “message” that you no longer need to “keep the pantry full.” At this point, many women stop retaining fluids, and go down a dress size without effort.


Maintain a Postpartum Healthy Diet

On learning that you were pregnant, you became conscious of sound nutritional guidelines, and you began eating the healthiest and highest-quality food available. You also strove to consume the right amount of calories for your individual metabolism. Now, in your postpartum months, you should continue with these healthy habits.


Caloric Requirements of Postpartum Women

Surprisingly, lactation demands 500 – 600 additional daily calories for the first six months postpartum, which is a substantial increase over the latter part of pregnancy, which only requires an additional 300 calories a day. This means that after childbirth your metabolism expands further, and correspondingly your daily caloric needs increase and stay elevated until your baby no longer relies on your breast-milk for her primary food intake. If you do not breastfeed, then your metabolism returns to its pre-pregnancy level.


Calculating Your Daily Postpartum Caloric Intake

Estimate your caloric needs for breast-feeding:

Because this formula utilizes ideal body weight as it’s baseline, it’s a good guide for postpartum women who want to safely reduce excess body fat weight while breastfeeding.
New mothers should always strive to maximize their nutritional intake by eating generous amounts of vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables, whole-grain breads and cereals; calcium-rich low-fat dairy products; and lean protein-rich foods such as meats, fish, and legumes.


Caloric-Reduction Diets Can Be Harmful

Essentially, dieting is calorie-deprivation over an extended period. For the most part, I’m not a fan of very low-calorie diets, or fad diets, because they often disregard the principals of healthy, balanced food intake. And most diets fall woefully short when it comes to effective and permanent ways to optimize the lean mass-to-fat ratio in the body—especially for women.

Lean Mass Ratio a Marker of Health

A healthy body has an ample amount of well-toned muscle tissue, dense bones, and a healthy percentage of fat storage. Athletic women should have about 16 – 20 % body fat, and average women should have about 20 – 25 % body fat. Women with 25 – 29 % body fat are considered over-fat, and those with 30 % or more are obese. In fitness, we refer to this as the lean mass ratio, or the percentage of lean mass to fat. Severe caloric restriction does not improve lean mass ratio because as you’ll see below, a large portion of lean mass is also lost during restrictive dieting.

Low-Calorie Effects Especially Harmful to Postpartum Women

Taking in too few calories has many side effects that can be particularly harmful to women during the postpartum period. When you restrict calories too much, several undesirable physiological adaptations occur.

The Drawbacks of a Diet with too Few Calories

How Calorie Restriction Slows Metabolism

If you’re sedentary and on an overly restricted diet, then up to half of the weight that you lose will come from the protein in your muscles, not fat. Slowly, over time, your muscles and bones lose strength and density. This is particularly problematic for women, as we start out with proportionally less bone and muscle mass than men. Erosion of muscle mass, in turn, lowers basal metabolism because muscles burn more energy at rest than other tissues. Additionally, reduced bone and muscle mass is one of the hallmarks of aging, and places women at much higher risk for developing osteoporosis, or brittle bone disease, and other problems associated with aging.

You may initially find this bizarre, but in order to loose excess fat, you will need to make sure that you eat enough to prevent muscle loss and metabolic slow down. Our metabolisms are superb at adjusting to environmental factors. Lowering your intake too much will trigger an energy-conserving response, as if famine were imminent. Through thousands of years of genetic adaptation to cyclical famine, our ancestors who were most efficient at hoarding calories survived famine and reproduced. A recent study showed that calorie restriction diets can lower basal metabolism by up to 20% in women.

Unfortunately, our bodies cannot discern the difference between intentional calorie cutting for weight loss and famine-induced calorie deprivation. Regardless of the reason for caloric restriction, when your body perceives that it is not getting enough food on a regular basis, it reacts by slowing down its metabolism.


Insufficient Calorie Intake Causes Fatigue

Another critical downside to dieting is fatigue. When you restrict calories too much and your metabolism lowers, so does your energy level. A new mother is already exhausted from disrupted sleep cycles and 24/7 baby care responsibilities. The last thing she needs is more fatigue. Fatigue undercuts the motivation to be physically active, so women who diet are more likely to be sedentary.


Dieting Negatively Impacts Mood

Dieting creates a negative mindset and is as much a psychological as physical stressor. Without a doubt, dieting zaps the pleasure out of eating. Most diets have a long list of taboo foods, and often we develop cravings for the “forbidden fruit.” When we cave into temptation, we feel like failures. Guilt follows. Our internal critics are given voice. A downward spiral of self-esteem ensues.

The fatigue and stress caused by dieting makes us short-tempered, reducing our ability to handle the day-in and day-out challenges of parenthood with grace and ease. In this way, dieting inhibits our best selves, diminishing our capabilities and effectiveness as mothers.

On the other hand, a nutrient-rich diet, in the right quantity, provides necessary energy, is enjoyable, guilt-free and health enhancing.


Potential for Depression

When you add up the damaging effects of lowered metabolism, fatigue, lack of motivation and negative mindset, this begins to sound a lot like clinical depression. Although postpartum depression cannot be directly linked to poor nutritional choices or chronic dieting, clearly the overall stress of dieting and reduced nutritional status may worsen a depressed state or add to a woman’s risk for sliding into depression.

If you eat a nutrient-rich diet, in the proper amount for your individual needs, and engage in regular, moderate-level exercise, your postpartum weight will slowly come off, without any negative side effects.

In fact, training yourself to eat healthful food can become a lifestyle that ultimately renders the concept of “dieting” irrelevant. You will learn to enjoy a variety of foods, in moderation, without guilt or shame.

Best yet, you will incorporate the habit of healthy eating into your family’s normal routine. As mothers, we make the majority of the nutritional choices for our families. This gives us great power and an awesome responsibility in how we guide our children towards healthful choices. Healthy, balanced eating not only does your own body good, but it creates patterns for your children to follow throughout their lifetimes.

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