One and half months after my baby was born, and I was still 20 lbs overweight and the scale wasn't moving, I really hated all of those women who told me;"Oh, you'll be back in regular clothes within a few weeks- I was," or, "breastfeeding is so awesome- for me the weight just fell off without any dieting!" Obviously I wasn't one of "those" women- I had to work to get my body back, so occasionally when friends see me now the topic of what I did postpartum comes up. Since I have some friends and a sister-in-law who will soon be going down this road, I just thought I'd write it up and post it.
First of all dieting postpartum is a little tricky if you're breastfeeding. It adds a few more complications that don't exist in the dieting world otherwise. Drastic changes can decrease or even stop milk production taking some diets (like South Beach)and some products (like artificial sweetners) out of your field of options. So say goodbye to "light" yogurt and all of those products that say "no sugar added" (which means an artificial sweeter was added instead), and keep in mind that for breastfeeding mothers, 1 lb a week is what you should aim for (after you loose all the extra body fluid from pregnancy).
So once I did the math, discovered how long it would take to loose the weight, and cried, I made a plan. You could call it a low fat, low sugar, low glycemic plan if you want, but my primary objective was simply to cut out all empty calories wherever possible and keep my blood sugar pretty even to avoid crazy cravings. In the beginning I also kept a food diary, and counted calories at one point. So here are the details:
Low fat: I stopped cooking with oil and butter. I used non-stick pans and natural cooking sprays. Instead of butter on my toast I ate a butter spray. I HAVE to eat salad dressing, but mine were mostly salad sprays or some vinegar mixed with a little lite dressig. I discovered lite and fat free mayo, but still rarely used them (yea stone ground mustard!). I limited red meat, and also really focused on increasing my veggie intake. Most of my dairy was nonfat. I gave up cheese except for string cheese and laughing cow lite (which is great on sandwiches). I even gave up the occasionally sprinkle of parmesan on spaghettie and parmesan garlic toast because all those little bits add up to a lot of calories over time, and conversly are some of the easiest things to give up. When I later reintroduced cheese to salads I used reduced fat cheeses and tried to think of them as a seasoning rather than as a primary ingredient. Best picks were reduced fat in the case of provolone, goat cheese, and cheddar, but feta was fine fat free.
Low sugar: I love sweets, but I also knew from my food diary that this is where I was packing on the most empty calories. Some choices were dreary but easy- like no white bread, no drinking calories like juice or soda and no jam on my toast. Oatmeal was unsweetened, although I'd add a few craisins and slivered almonds. but avoiding sweets was hard. Mostly I literally avoided the bakery, freezer, and candy aisles in the grocery store. As the holidays approached though and those things ended up on end caps, well more than once I walked around the grocery store with a rogue package of cookies or candy in my cart before finally dumping them on some random shelf right before checkout. Around the holidays when people bought us crap to eat, if Rob didn't eat it right away, I'd throw it out. Eventhough it was a bit depressing, I chose to see those denials as small victories worth celebrating.
Low glycemic: Since I love sweets, I didn't need my body sabatoging me with blood sugar dips and therefore true cravings, so I tried to balance everthing. That meant caffine was out, and when I ate an apple, I made sure to eat some string cheese or other protien with it. Barilla Plus became my pasta of choice because it has whole grains and protien in it.I bought unflavored protien powder which I would add to oatmeal and other things.
Food Diary: This is where I did my calorie counting, but I also recorded every time I ate, and how I felt before and after every time I ate. This helped me see patterns, be aware of how different foods affected me, and be proactive. I noticed that I would get hungry at 3:00 every afternoon, so then I started making sure I had some good snacks packed if I was going to be out. With this new awareness I noticed when the diet was over that I had become more sensative to sweets, and that far less junk food was really satisfying or worth eating to me.
Counting calories: While 1500 is the lowest guideline for women trying to loose weight without messing up their metabolism, breastfeeding women shouldn't go below 1800, however this is still a general guideline (to get more specific information find a BMI calculator online and add 200 calories to those results). One of the great benefits of calories counting was the awareness it gave me of what I was putting in my body, and of portion sizes. Mac and Cheese became a postpartum no-no once I read the nutritional information. On the flip side I noticed that I could eat low fat multigrain waffles with yogurt or even a little syrup and still come in under 300 calories for breakfast. However, I ended up changing my breakfast to scrambled eggs with spinach most days because I also realized I could get more bang for my calorie budget over carb dense breakfasts. It's also a great way to make sure you're not cutting calories on one area, but sliding in another area and defeating your diet. Cutting calories alone can also threaten milk production. My friend began loosing her milk everytime she started Weight Watchers. In my opinion her problem was probably that she was cutting out other stuff, and keeping the cake, whereas my diet was still nutritionally dense. Eventually I had to stop calorie counting because it made me too obessive.
Other Strategies: I knew that I would not suceed if I felt deprived the entire time, so I came up with some other strategies.I also did my best not to feel deprived by buying special healthy treats like blood oranges, clementines, pomegranites, shrimp, crab, artichokes, or this great low sugar non fat greek yogurt from Trader Joe's. Yes my treats were generally expensive, but I figured that spending 4 bucks on asparagus for a snack was worth it- afterall I'd spend about that much at a bakery for a treat. Some people say they can't diet because they love food so much, but I think that loving food is a great benefit because there is so much to choose from and plenty of it is healthy. There's edamame or salted green beans instead of chips. I found some low cal yogurts that made great and filling sweet snacks (low fat instead of fat free so were creamy and more desert like, but still low cal). I'd dip dried apricots in coco powder or make date candy (see recipe on blog) for a chocolate fix. Sometimes a nice sweet tea was nice, and easy to savor slowly because of the heat.
Motivation: Uh, not being able to fit in my regular clothes and not wanting to buy fat clothes was really strong motivation, but I turned off the food channel and turned on the fit channel and Discovery Health. I also set goals so it wasn't this ominous food denial hell. I had my long term goal, but I also came up with shorter term goals for wieght loss. I found it easier to focus on taking one week or month at a time rather than thinking about 3/4 months. When I'd fulfill a short term goal, I'd reward myself.
When Thanksgiving and Christmas parties came around, I'd bring something that I could eat, but then I'd also plan how much crap I was going to eat. I'd plan for a piece of pie, or three little party treats, and then I'd get away from the food table! That way I wasn't setting myself up for failure or a free-for-all it in those instances. We didn't buy any Halloween candy until that day. Yes I ate two pieces, and the next day I told Rob to hide it in his truck or I'd chuck it. After we had a party I sent all the treats away with guests, and the fatty dip that was left behind- well I threw that away after a day. I felt guilty wasting food, but I knew that I'd be the only one eating it all day.
I also did weight training twice a week in my house with hand weights, some aerobic exercise, and walking outside with my baby. I think this also helped to avoid postpartum depression since I had just moved and had no family around me. When my baby got bigger, just carrying him around the house and hiking with him twice a week in a backpack seemed to do the trick.
Success:In the end I met my goal, which was to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight by December 20th so I could relax a little and enjoy the usual culinary Christmas traditions as well as feel good about seeing friends and family back home. My long term goal reward was to buy some clothes for my new body at the great after Christmas sales, and eventhough my body has forever changed with pregnancy, that was still very nice.
My initial success also gave me the motivation to go on. I decided to loose 10 to 15more pounds, mostly to get a head start on the next pregnancy. I did relax things a bit, but not enough to stop my progress, and truly a lot of my eating habits had just changed. No matter how good they taste, I couldn't bare to put an entire 800 cal cinnabon in my body knowly, but I also didn't want something sweet a few times a day anymore, in fact many things tasted too sweet for me after bite 3 or 4. My new frame of mind allowed me to truly evaluate if I was just eating something because it was there or because I truly wanted it. Often I didn't, like the time I went in a gas station during a road trip looking for an almond snickers. They didn't have any, and I looked at the rest of the candy there and thought, "nope, I really don't see anything else that I want." That was like a miracle!
When I did go a little overboard on sweets or fast food, man I felt sick pretty quickly, which made it all the easier to be moderate the next time. And yes, eventhough your metabolism works against you towards the end making those last lbs the hardest to get rid of, I did meet my next goal and was able to loose the last 10/15 lbs as well just in time for conception #2. Since I already weight 15 lbs less than I did this time during my last pregnancy, I'm feeling much more positive about facing postpartum weight since I should be able to get in normal clothes again far quicker. The fact that Arby's in AZ don't have jalapeno poppers on their menu, I don't know where the nearest cheese fries are, and the pizza place doesn't deliver to our address- well that doesn't hurt either!!!
