You’ve been working out regularly for months now but can’t seem to see the scale number drop. It doesn’t seem possible or fair because you are putting in the time and feel like you don’t deserve to still look four months pregnant.
In our experience with clients, this happens for two main reasons. Read on and reflect on your practice to find out if this is the case for you.
The first reason is hidden eating. You may not even be aware of how much you are really eating during the day. If you are breastfeeding, you feel starving all the time and may be non-stop snacking day and night as well as eating three square meals. While breastfeeding is NOT the time to diet, it is not the time to gorge either. Nursing requires approximately 450-500 extra calories a day. That’s about the equivalent of one peanut butter and banana sandwich and a glass of orange juice. A muffin and latte will be well over this calorie count and likely contains a lot of sugar and fats. Many of our clients are surprised when they actually consider how much they are thoughtlessly eating during the day.
The second reason is lack of intensity in workouts. A 30-minute jog will not produce the weight loss that women are looking for. Workouts need to be strenuous, challenging to both muscles and heart, and need to be varied in order to produce results. Make sure your workouts include resistance training, which builds the muscles that eat the food you are eating and prevent it from being stored as fat. Your muscles should feel very fatigued at the end of these workouts. Push yourself each time you exercise and you will see the weight come off.
Cheers,
Andrea Page
