How to stay fit as a mom?

Question

I had my son 9 months ago and I would like to lose the extra 15-20 lbs of baby fat that I have. I'm just 2 sizes away from my pre-pregnancy size (10/11), but my husband is deployed and I don't know how to fit in exercise with my daily routine of caring for my 9 month old son, plus being in the middle of winter in Kansas it's not exactly good weather for taking your out on a walk like I used to do. My husband comes home from R&R in June and I'd love to surprise him with a "new" me. What are some ways to fit in daily exercise and eating better?

Answer 1

This is what my sister (mom of a 2 year old) did, she got the 10 minute solution Kickbox Bootcamp from Wal-Mart. There are 5-10 minute workouts on this DVD. You can do as many of the workouts at a time, the DVD allows you to set the workouts & order before you begin, so you don't have to stop and mess with the remote.
I finally did this workout last week -- my legs were sore!
You can easily do this when the baby is sleeping or playing nearby. My sister looks great after doing these workouts 2 or 3 times a week!

Answer 2

Well, this works for me. I am 50 and had 2 kids and have always stayed thin. I find that it's more what you eat than how much you excersise, however, I have an ab-lounge that I excersise with and I love it. Peter Brady was right! lol It's fast, easy and you really get results. Now as far as the diet goes, this is what I do to loose weight and keep it off. I eat alot of vegetables, fruits and meats. I stay away from sweets and carbs but not totally. The secret is have your biggest meal of the day for breakfast or lunch and eat a light supper. I'll have a big salad or a big plate of steamed veggies for supper and I can eat as much as I want of them because they are light in calories but it is my lightest meal of the day and I eat it for supper. Most people eat their largest meal of the day for supper and that is why they are over weight. I find those quick fad diets don't keep the weight off but this is a great eating schedule that keeps the weight off, too. And you're not deprived, you're just eating the heaviest foods early in the day to burn them off. Good luck. I lost 35 pounds eating this way and never felt deprived.

Answer 3

Try a cleansing diet! I did and lost 11 pounds and 21 inches in only 9 days. I was very happy with the results and continued on the program and lost 29 pounds in 5 weeks. This is the fastest I have ever lost with other diets like Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Medifast, Slimfast etc…. Cleansing works by removing toxins from your body. You get toxins from your food (pesticides, preservatives, food additives, colorings) water, chemicals, pollution, medications, alcohol, hormones that the animals you eat were fed etc….YUCK! The toxins get coated with fat and remain in your body. To remove the fat, you have to remove the toxins. This system worked for me, maybe it can work for you too. You can check out the website or call this toll free number 1-877-587-4647 for more info. The program is not cheap, but it is worth every penny since it works and keeps you motivated. Good luck! More cleansing info at http://thebestcleansingdiet.com

Answer 4

Do you have a baby carrier? When my husband is home I have him take my 3 y/o out and I go for a walk with my 14 m/o in my Ergo carrier. He loves walking around and looking at everything!

Also, I do the Leslie Sansone Walk Away The Pounds dvd's and I love them. I will either do them when my kids are sleeping or I do them with my youngest ds in the ergo carrier.

Answer 5

with or without exercise!!

standard weight female 1"=800gms=1.76lbs
Fat%-Male for you age group -female:26%
Replacing with two meals with optimum protin,low low sugar, lowfat, low carbohydrate nutrition with other essentail supplements, and having one meal of your choice ,along with one liter of water for every 44lbs would give the desired results -1 to 2lbs per week weight loss.

Answer 6

I run up and down stairs. this works off the fat quickly.

Answer 7

Let's start by clarifying a couple of things:
1. weight is not the best indicator of your health (because muscle weighs more than fat, two people of the same height can weigh the same and be drastically different in terms of health).
2. Body fat percentage is a true indicator.
3. Fat is burned by reducing overall caloric value.
4. If you burn more than you consume, you will lose fat (lower body fat percentage)
5. If you exercise and strength train, you can burn more calories and replace fat with muscle which will allow you to burn calories even when you rest.

If you are trying to lower your body fat percentage there are literally hundreds of ideas out there. In my opinion, the best way, which has been proven time and time again, is a two part method: Eat right and exercise. First, exercise is a no-brainer. You have to burn more calories than you take in for exercise to be considered exercise. How you do it is worth another answer all to itself. So, that brings us to the Eating Right part. If you understand how your body works, you've got a head start on the world. Food is fuel for the body. Once you've accepted that concept as more important than the idea that food is entertainment, then the rest will be relatively easy. If you are American, and I assume you are, the Nutrition Facts label that you find on all foods bought in the U.S. are the next thing you need to understand. Go grab something from your kitchen (i.e. jar of peanut butter or a bag of chips...anything with a nutrition label). OK, yeah you need vitamins and minerals and all that. But focus on these three items: FAT, PROTEIN, and CARBOHYDRATES.
Let's take these one at a time:

FAT is basically divided into good fats and bad fats. The body needs good fats (mono- and poly-unsaturateds). You'll find these in stuff like olives and avocados where the bad fat is minimal if not nonexistent. The bad fats are your saturated and trans fats that you'll find in meats and oils. If you are trying to lose weight, keep these to an absolute minimum. My suggestion (based on a 1500-2000 calorie diet) is to limit yourself to no more than 15g of saturated fat per day. This is hard to do if you're used to eating fast food. It's also hard to do if you drink whole milk, eat cheese (even the 2% variety), and eat fried foods. All of these are high in bad fats. The good news is that you can substitute your diet to eat the very things you like to eat but with better ingredients. If you eat cheese, buy fat free. If you drink milk, buy skim. Slowly take yourself down from whole milk or 2% to 1% before going skim/fat free if the transition is too radical to do all at once. If you eat a lot of ground beef, use the extra lean variety (96% fat free/4% fat), or substitute lean ground turkey instead. Do whatever you have to do to get the bad fat grams down to less than 15 per day.

PROTEIN: The building block of nutrition (aside from your vitamins and minerals) is protein. You need it strengthen your muscles and it will be essential with your exercise routine. Without protein, you can't build muscle tone or lean body mass. And guess what? Just having lean body mass (muscles) allows your body to burn more calories even when you are sleeping. Therefore, you are able to lose weight (bad weight, that is) just by sleeping. But, you have to exercise!! Don't forget that. You can find foods that are high in protein but also high in saturated fat, so be careful. Stick to poultry (chicken, turkey), fish (tuna is a great source), and beans. Don't fry your meats because if you do, you just added a bunch of bad fat to your otherwise healthy protein filled meal. Instead, grill, broil, or bake. You can do this! Don't forget to exercise to exponentially reap the rewards of consuming protein.

CARBS. In my opinion, the no-carb diet is crap, because you need carbs for energy, especially because you are exercising! That's right, you can't forget you are supposed to be exercising. The trick is choosing the good carbs. You'll see on your nutrition label Total Carbohydrates and Sugars. Sugars should be kept to a minimum and should be avoided within hours of going to sleep. The calories associated with them get stored (for energy) but are not easily burned when it comes time to burn them. Therefore, it's harder to lose the weight associated with them. That's why it's not good to eat lots of candy, cookies, and ice cream that have a lot of sugar. The other kinds of carbs (complex carbohydrates) are essential. You can get these from grains and potatoes. Good stuff!!

Now that you have a brief understanding of these three nutrition components, time to get to it. Not as easy as it sounds? That's because, you're human. If you treat your body right (and I mean very right, by limiting your saturated and trans fats, limiting your sugar carbs, and eating plenty of protein), then you deserve a day when you can eat whatever you want. The body has cravings and you should be able to fulfill these cravings IF you can stand to wait until the end of the week. I call this one day of decadence your cheat day. After 12 weeks of exercising and eating right in this manner, you'll get to the point where you don't even crave the bad stuff anymore.

For more on this method, I encourage you to check out www.bodyforlife.com. The principals I wrote about are spelled out in greater detail there. Consult your doctor before drastically changing any diet or exercise routine. Good luck!