Role of Aerobic Exercise
Much literature has been written on the benefits of aerobic exercise. The benefits we are most concerned with here are those specifically dealing with a new mother. Those benefits are increasing stamina and endurance-the ability to do more but feel les tired-and decreasing body fat.
Decreasing Body Fat
After delivery and with exercise, your body will slowly begin losing some of stored fat it laid down during pregnancy. How much you accumulated during the nine months depended on your percentage of body fat going into the pregnancy and the kinds and amounts of foods you ate during pregnancy. The leaner your body was, the less likely it is that you laid down large fat stores. Hereditary factors also come into play.
After delivery, the fat stores will gradually decrease over a period of four to six months. There are no miraculous changes that occur within the first six weeks, as many sources lead you to believe. You may notice a difference in your body during the first two weeks after delivery, when much of the accumulated pregnancy related fluids is lost through urination. After that, it’s up to you.
Breastfeeding women initially lose weight faster than women who bottle feed. However, because of the hormonal factors in operation throughout breastfeeding, their body fat level remains slightly higher, their breast tissue weighs more, and they retain a small amount of extra fluid beneath their skin as a reserve. As a result, breastfeeding women tend to weigh about three to seven pounds than their pre-pregnancy weight during breastfeeding, regardless of efforts of losing weight. Having taken that fact into consideration, if you still don’t seem to be losing the weight you expected to lose, take a good look at your diet and calorie intake. A diet with excessive amounts of sweets and fats will not help you return to your pre-pregnancy weight easily. Check with your physician if planning a reducing diet while breastfeeding: many breastfeeding women can lose weight on seventeen hundred to eighteen hundred calories a day and still maintain a good milk supply; others must have two-thousand calories a day to maintain an adequate milk supply. Making milk itself takes up lots of energy [hence, uses up calories]. Add aerobic activity for twenty to thirty minutes a day, five or six days a week and you will lose weight.
Breastfeeding should not be seen as an impediment to recovering your pre-pregnancy figure-or as an excuse for not trying. On the other hand, don’t let the fear of extra weight gain keep you from breastfeeding in the first place. The few pounds of weight that can be attributed to breastfeeding will be with you temporarily; the benefits of breastfeeding will be with you forever.
Remember, it may take four to six months for your body fat to start dropping. A daily nudge with aerobic exercises will start things happening. Be patient. Many answers still lie ahead of us as more and more studies are being done to help us understand the mechanisms of the body that just gave birth to new life. One thing is absolutely certain: having a new baby is not an excuse for looking or feeling out of shape.