#36: Why you will lose baby weight faster if you exercise less
When I was pregnant I thought I will be back to my pre pregnancy life within maximum 3 months. I had no idea how my life will actually look like with the little one in it.
I thought I will be able to train and sleep to recover.
I thought it will be easy to get back to work as well as do all the house chores. I thought I will be happy and relaxed all the time. In the end I really wanted to have a baby and I was so excited that we finally managed to keep a healthy pregnancy.
Oh my… it was so different from what I expected.
Freya is 21 months old now and her sleeping is worse than ever before
I was tired. My body was recovering after pregnancy and c-section. My hormones were all over the place. I didn’t sleep much as Freya has never been a good sleeper. I was breastfeeding until Freya was 18.5 months. We don’t have any family and friends who could help with a baby here, so when Dave got back to work (after Corona lockdowns) I was doing it all on my own, making sure that he also gets a good night rest. On top of that I was trying to get back to exercising and it made me more exhausted.
I imagined that I will lose my baby weight really quickly. It was 3 months that turned to 6 months than went to 9 months and above.
I was so frustrated and upset that my body wasn’t shaking the weight off.
Before I would lose body fat in no time with a bit of exercising and no sugar. But I wasn’t sleeping, I was taking care of Freya and the household, I tried to work and exercise when Freya slept. There was a lot going on. No wonder that when she was one year old I crashed. I was stressed and exhausted.
Every little thing would make my hands shake and/or made me cry.
I had no energy and everything was just so difficult.
My wish is to help as many new mums as possible to always feel energised and excited rather than fatigued, like I did.
For as long as we’re breastfeeding our estrogen levels stay low.
The longer we breastfeed the less juicy, less youthful and more tired we feel. On top of that, for as long as our estrogen is low, we won’t only have less energy to exercise, but we will also get less results from our training (estrogen is female testosterone) and we may struggle to lose weight.
Strength training is best performed when our body energy is high, during ovulation, right before and right after.
Most women live under a lot of stress before, during and after pregnancy.
Adding to that all postpartum hormonal changes, challenges in adapting to the new role of being a mum, lack of sleep and often birth injuries or trauma makes the body extremely stressed and tired. It can take months or sometimes even a couple of years for adrenal glands to recover.
Therefore, for as long as we’re not sleeping through the night and we’re breastfeeding, we have to focus on taking care of our body. Hormones control it all.
Balancing our hormones, avoiding any unnecessary stressors and keeping our cortisol levels as low as possible is extremely important.
Stressed body holds on to its fat, especially in the midsection.
In the first 12 weeks postpartum focus only on sleeping, nourishing your body, walking and doing gentle abdominal work to restore muscle-mind connection, strengthen your deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles.
Only when you’re ready (and that can be way longer than 12 weeks postpartum) you may want to start doing gentle exercises.
It is a perfect time to tap into your body energy and exercise in sync with your menstrual cycle. That means that in every one of 4 different phases of your cycle you will do different exercises, i.e. walking and stretching during menstruation and short HIIT and strength training during ovulation.
If you’re not menstruating yet, you can follow moon phases to choose your workouts. Full moon represents ovulation while new mood menstruation.
Working out in sync with your menstrual cycle will help you keep your hormones balanced, energy high and healthy body.
It will also put an end to this never-ending struggle to push yourself to do more when your energy (hormones) is low.
There is a reason why you don’t feel like doing a spinning class when you’re menstruating and that is not you being lazy.
It is your body shouting that it needs a break, maybe a gentle walk and a stretch (I didn’t know that I until I was 40 years old).
Eating healthy and in sync with your menstrual cycle will give you more energy, even when you’re very tired
Exercising for longer than 20 minutes increase cortisol levels therefore I would recommend keeping your workouts shorter than 20 that for as long as you’re not sleeping.
Normally that increased cortisol is beneficial but not when your adrenals are overworked (when you’re not sleeping). If you cannot imagine exercising for even 20 minutes, do less or wait a few more weeks before you start.
As hormones are everything and doing too much makes us stressed and fat, you need to do less, eat enough and rest more after you have a baby.
Don’t push yourself but tap to your body energy and do what makes you feel good each day. Each day is different and that makes it interesting and fun.
If like Freya your baby doesn’t sleep much and you get no help, be kind to yourself.
Every minute you have for yourself do something that will make you feel good.
Drink a nice tea, soak your feet in sea salt (or have a bath), listen to some calming music (or energetic music if that puts the smile on your face) or close your eyes and just breathe (I actually do a lot of that). Exercise to help your body recover after the bad night or jump a bit on those good days.
Training in sync with my menstrual cycle changed everything for me.
If you want to learn about it from a female hormones’ expert check out “Woman Code” book by Alisa Vitti, HHC.
If you need help starting to work out in sync with your menstrual cycle and only have energy to exercise 5-min a day join my FB group “5-min workouts for tired mums”. I post a new video every single day.
With love,
Karo