How to Get Your Pre-Baby Body Back as Fast as a Celebrity

I’m a fitness instructor and have taken numerous courses in nutrition, diet, and post-natal exercise.  So, I’m really excited to share a secret with you.  Here is how can you get your body back fast (just like the celebrities) after you have a baby:

You hire a personal chef and a personal trainer.  Then, you hire a nanny to take care of your baby while you are working out. If that sounds too expensive, then I recommend finding a good surgeon and pricing out whether or not a tummy tuck and a little liposuction might be more affordable.

Depressed yet?

Here in reality it takes some time to get back in shape. I’m sure you’ve heard this as many times as I have, “It took 9 months to put the weight on, it’ll take about the same to take it off.”

Here’s what I’ve also learned, every woman and every birth is different.  Postpartum weight loss varies from woman to woman, and, in my experience (6 months after delivery of baby number 4), weight loss takes a different pace after each baby.

I gained a whopping 55 pounds with my first son.  Trying not to starve my pre-born baby, I feasted around the clock.  I was a chronic dieter so the opportunity to “not be on a diet” was one that I exploited.  I ended up with a really big baby, a c-section, and no shot at getting back in my pre-baby jeans anytime soon.

But, I had to try.  Cute maternity clothes aren’t as cute once you get home from the hospital.

Nine months later my baby weight was completely gone—plus some. But, it took a lot of work.

It took: nursing (side note: nursing boys burns more calories), daily hour long walks, doing a “mommy and me” style fitness class 2 times a week, teaching kickboxing 2 times a week, and watching what I ate.  Oh, and getting pregnant with my second baby (6 months after my first was born).

All of this was possible because I only worked part-time (from home), I lived in a place where the weather was agreeable year round, and I only had one baby.

Fast forward a few years and I’ll confess that my diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwich crusts (and whatever else I can throw in my mouth as I clean up place-settings) combined with my ability to workout for about two hours per week (if I’m lucky), is not a combination for fast weight loss.

Depressed again? Well, here’s my best advice if you desperately want your baby weight gone.

Give yourself a break.

You aren’t a celebrity (or, if you are, please feel free to comment).  You are a real (i.e. not-airbrushed) woman…and, a real mom!

Although it’s lovely that so many celebrities are having babies and making “mom” a cool title, in my opinion, the stars have found yet another way to skew reality. We “normal” moms pay for it.

It’s one thing to be able to distinguish yourself from the Victoria’s Secret models by comforting yourself with, “Well, I just had a baby.”  But, when a gaggle of celebrity child-bearers make news with astonishing post-delivery weight loss feats (“Angelina’s body back just 3 months after twins”) they ruin reality for all of us.

To make matters worse, these same stories always focus on how easy it was.  “I just cut back on chocolate,” or, “I added Yoga once a week.”  Really? Gag.

Here’s what we are left with: guilt.  It’s guilt for not being able to do yet another thing as well as our culture’s super-fake super-heroines.

The reality is, you probably care a whole lot more about sleep than you do about a little jiggle in your thighs.  If given 45 free minutes you’d choose a hot bath over spin class.  But, then you turn on the TV or pick up a magazine and look down at your elastic waistband, and, presto, you feel bad again.

So, my professional recommendation is: take the pressure off.

Unless you have a million dollar contract that your 40 pounds of baby weight will violate, cancel your subscription to US Weekly and decide that it’s okay to trim down slowly.

The first step in any successful weight loss program is coming to grips with reality. So, you have some weight to lose. Who really cares? You are a mom now. You have different priorities short term.  Adjusting to motherhood or a new addition to the family is all any normal mom can handle immediately after birth.

Once you’ve got a grip on that, then make health your focus.  The weight might fall off all of a sudden, or it might not. Work with your body as it continues to change. That fifteen pounds you were fighting at four months postpartum might just dissolve by month seven.  Fluctuating hormones, lack of sleep, emotions, stress, they are all enemies of your weight loss campaign at certain points, and friends at others. Be patient. You’ll get there.

Need more good news? Skinny jeans should be headed out of style soon.  Maybe I’ll be ready for them next time around.