Difficult weightloss after childbirth - fact or fiction?

[Pregy E]

Why does everyone tell me that it is harder to lose weight after childbirth? In your experience is there any truth to this? if so why and how does your body change to make it harder after you have had children to lose weight?

Thanks in advance

[Aphrael]

Well after my first DD was born I didn't try to lose weight, I just moseyed along as normal severely overweight and unhappy with my body.

After my second DD was born I realised that to make myself happy (and to conceive naturally) I had to lose some weight, so after 3 months recovering from a caesar I started losing weight and managed to get to 70kg's (from 100kg's) and it really wasn't that hard.

So in my opinion its fiction, I cant wait to get this excess weight off when my third DD is born next month!

Cheers,

Beck

[danniellabella]

I went back down to smaller than my pre-preg size very quickly after giving birth. Even the day after I had given birth the midwives on the ward commented that my tummy was so small it didn't even look like I'd ever been pregnant. When I stopped breastfeeding I did put a little bit of weight back on but joined the gym and now do yoga and body balance 2-3 times most weeks plus some at home and only have 1-2kg to go to be at my goal of 50kg (48-50kg is my optimum weight for my small stature). I have had to work a little for it. The only thing I'm not happy about are that my hips are a different shape (wider) since having DD and it's just because the bones have moved. Can't do anything about that.

[fionas]

I don't think it's harder in terms of there being any physical/biological barriers to losing weight, I just think if you've got into bad food habits pre and during pregnancy, you're likely to carry those on after giving birth.

So if you've been eating too much and the wrong things whilst pregnant, it WILL be hard to lose the weight because the last thing you want to do is to start thinking about healthier choices, cooking healthier choices while you're in a sleep deprived haze and getting used to motherhood.

I think it's more a matter of having the mental energy to change food choices if you're used to making bad ones. If you've eaten healthily and sensibly during pregnancy then those choices become second nature and you're not going to suddenly start eating Maccas/other junk every second day.

I was overweight when I got pregnant (about 74kg) but made an effort to eat smaller portions, drink less alcohol (obviously) and eat more healthily. As a result, a week after giving birth I weighed 5kg less than the day I got pregnant - but that really wasn't rocket science.

I do get a bit annoyed by the view that you should eat absolutely what you want when you're pregnant as it will be easy to get the weight off afterwards. As I said, I think it's hard to change bad habits into good ones when you've got a newborn on your hands.

[BellyBelly]

I was less than pre-preg weight both times, I breastfed for 2-3 years each child tho and found weight came off easy that way.

It takes 9 months to put it on.... give it fair time to go too

[Nai]

I found that I couldn't lose weight until I had stopped breastfeeding as I think I have the sort of metabolism that thinks it needs to hang on to fat

However once I went down to 2 BF a day I was able to lose the weight and got down to pre-preg weight quite easily.