3 tips to support your postpartum diet and lose baby weight faster

Postpartum is a whole new world to every mom. It comes with a lot of new challenges and having the right postpartum diet supporting your recovery is definitely a must. But it can also be really tricky. Lack of time, exhaustion, lack of sleep, breastfeeding, returning to work, etc. often get in the way of a complete recovery. Moreover, it makes it even harder to slowly and efficiently, lose baby weight.

In today’s post, I want to talk about 3 things easily fixable to support your postpartum nutrition.

By Leslie Abraham

A healthy postpartum diet should be part of a holistic plan

Like any recovery plan, postpartum recovery should be seen as a whole. Your diet and nutrition is only one part of the whole postpartum recovery process.

A few weeks ago, I shared a post on my Instagram account @bonjourbaby.la. I wanted to highlight how this process should look like. Take a look below.

You can easily see here that there are several moving parts involved in a complete recovery.

It’s not only about the diet, or the physical recovery. Everything is part of a whole:

sleep quality and routine
wellness and emotional health
physical recovery with mindful and restorative movements: it’s all about working on your abdominal and pelvic floor recovery along with corrective and strengthening posture exercises
nourishing your body and supporting your recovering by making the right food choice

If you work only on your postpartum diet, it won’t be sufficient enough to help you recover and lose baby weight. The way you eat influences your milk supply, your physical recovery, your energy level, your mood. But all of this is also influenced by your sleep quality that will in turn influence your metabolism and your ability to process the nutrients you need for a better physical and emotional recovery, energy production and to help you lose baby weight safely and efficiently.

See how all is connected?

That’s why it is very important to take all factors into consideration, not only the postpartum diet, not only the supplements, not only the physical recovery.

You are a whole. Time to tackle your postpartum recovery and postpartum weight loss the same way.

Tip #1: keep it balanced + the 3 most common mistakes I see all the time

There are 3 common mistakes I see repeated over when it comes to postpartum diet and nutrition. Because we want to lose baby weight and feel like our old selves again, we, sometimes, tend to overlook important factors.

#1: not eating enough:

This is a common misconception that to lose baby weight we need to restrict the calories. Postpartum is definitely not the time to do so. Even if you are not breastfeeding, you still need more calories than at any other time in your woman’s life in order to support your body recovering from giving birth and healing.

#2: not enough diversity:

This is another issue. When you eat always the same thing you are more at risk of developing nutritional deficiencies. Basically, you give your body always the same nutrients, meaning vitamins, and minerals among others. And especially postpartum, your need for some nutrients remains definitely higher than usual. For instance DHA is more needed, and also iron, omega 3s, among others.

#3: following FAD diets:

Postpartum is not the time to be on any diet other than a balanced and nutritious one. It’s not a time to start being vegan if you weren’t before, start keto or intermittent fasting. More than ever, you need to stick to a schedule as much as you can and feed your body with healthy and balanced meals.

So how do you keep it balanced? What is a healthy postpartum diet? How can you safely start lose baby weight while supporting your body with all it needs to fully recover?

It’s not that complicated. But it requires some forward thinking:

Plan to buy more whole foods, meaning foods that don’t have nutrition labels on it: whole veggies and fruits, seeds, nuts without any added sugar, unprepared meat, poultry and fish. Basically, you want to avoid all the prepared food and frozen meals alleys.

BUT it doesn’t mean that it will take forever to cook. I am not asking you to be a chef. If you have one, the crock pot will become your best friend. Otherwise a big old dutch oven will do it too.

Avoid any extremely refined foods: like cookies, cakes, white pasta, white bread, fast foods, etc.
Strive for less sugar: look for any added sugar in the ingredients list. It has so many names, but always be on the lookout for them. They are literally everywhere, from bone broth to guacamole!
Keep some healthy snacks handy throughout the house: a handful of nuts, a piece of fruit with a tablespoon of almond butter, some veggie sticks with hummus. Prepare them ahead and store them in your fridge, next to your favorite breastfeeding/nursing place, etc.
Postpartum is not about exclusion, it’s about inclusion. Include more healthy foods, that way, it will help you eat less of what needs to be limited. Eat all the food groups, each one has a role in your physical and emotional recovery: heal, support, energize.

Tip #2: make it nutritious:

As stated above, diversity is key.

Here are some tips to help you out:

Aim for eating both cooked and raw veggies and fruits for a better nutrient repartition
Fish and seafood at least twice a week
Prefer lean meat, switch with poultry and eggs too
High quality dairies if tolerated, no need to buy skimmed or non fat options, you need it all
One portion of veggies at every meal
Watch your portions rather than limiting your calories
Add more healthy fats: ghee butter, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil. Ditch the canola oil, and be on the lookout for soybean oil or other low quality fats used in the food you buy.
Check the dirty 12, clean 15 list on the EWG website to help you know which foods you can buy conventional, and which ones need to be bought organic to make it budget friendly!

The picture above shows you how to build your plate, for every meals, 3 times a day.

On top of this, you will add ONE snack if not breastfeeding and TWO snacks if breastfeeding – see below- to meet your postpartum needs.

Tip #3: planning:

This is where the magic happens. And you know what’s my best advice for doing food planning when postpartum? Ask for help!

Ask your friends, your mother in law, anyone you know. People around you always want to make gifts, instead ask them for some home cooked meals! It will be so valuable to you and your partner.

The freezer strategy is also a great help! Cook in batches, or cook a big portion and freeze it. That way, you’ll have several meals ahead of you.

When planning your meals, please think diversity first. Do not plan on eating the same thing everyday like we see on Instagram with these intense meal plannings!

Pre-cut your veggies and fruits when you get them, and store them in portion-sized containers and ziploc, so they are ready to be eaten or cooked when you need them.

Work your weekly menus. A great way to control your budget and ensure adequate nutrition too. If you have a good girlfriend near you, you can ask her to help you with cooking these weekly menus.

Great ways to get a quick nutritious meal, are smoothies! With the right ingredients, it can really be a good side kick to your days. If you’re looking for some high quality galactogogues/milk supply support, you can check out Majka website. I am an affiliate from this brand and I chose them because of the quality of the ingredients they pick to make their supplements. If you click on the link and decide to buy, I will get a small commission out from it. Here is a promo code to thank you for this: enter BONJOURBABY in the promo bar at checkout for a sweet 10% off.

Below you’ll see an example of what meal prep can look like and what to avoid. One word here: DIVERSITY!!

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About Leslie Abraham

She is the founder and owner of Bonjour Baby, and the creator of the prenatal and postpartum Bonjour Baby online courses. Leslie is a prenatal and pediatrics Osteopath DO (France), certified pre and postnatal personal trainer and women health coach. She has devoted more than 10 years of her career to help woman be ready for birth and recover from it in the following months and years.

LEARN MORE

Get your FREE Postpartum Guide

And start your Postpartum Recovery now!

SEND IT TO ME!

There you have it, 3 tips to support your postpartum diet and help you lose baby weight faster. Should you have any further question on the topic, let me know in the comments below or book your complimentary 1:1 session by clicking on the link below.

If you need some help to start your postpartum recovery, I offer a free consultation where we could talk about it and dive more into what you need to do to start feeling better, more energized and more confident. You can schedule your call by clicking here.

Disclaimer: Bonjour Baby strongly recommends that you consult with your physician before beginning and enrolling in any exercise program, even if you are in good physical condition, not suffering from any complications, and able to participate in the exercise.
Bonjour Baby is not a licensed medical care provider and represents that it has no expertise in diagnosing, examining, or treating medical conditions of any kind or in determining the effect of any specific exercise on a medical condition.