In order to successfully lose your pregnancy weight it is crucial to get your body’s metabolism working correctly. One of the easiest way to do this is to eat regularly and to eat high protein snacks which will not only serve to keep away hunger pangs but will also speed increase your body’s metabolism so that you are burning more calories – without actually doing much (the actual process of breaking down foods burns calories – you just need to eat the right foods).
So, instead of eating three medium to large-sized meals per day, Lose Baby Weight advocates eating five to six times a day and consuming smaller meals. You should also always eat breakfast within one hour of rising. This is because your metabolism has slowed down during the night and breakfast will kick-start it up again.
A lot of people try and skip breakfast thinking that will help them lose baby weight but when you skip breakfast, hunger begins to kick in and that actually slows down your metabolism even more which makes shifting that baby belly fat even harder!
Eating more frequent, smaller meals will prevent you from feeling hungry throughout the day. And if you are taking in enough fibre and protein as well as drinking enough water, you’ll actually feel fuller for longer periods of time and be less likely to be tempted by cakes and sweets.
Here’s an example of a Lose Baby Weight daily food plan;
- 1 x smoothie for breakfast
- 1 x snack mid morning (such as nuts and yoghurt, carrots and cottage cheese, fruit salad)
- 1 x smoothie for lunch
- 1 x snack mid afternoon (such as rice cakes with sardines, wholegrain toast with low fat cheese)
- 1 x dinner with recipes from the Lose Baby Weight program (such as lamb stirfry, chilli con carne, stuffed peppers)
- 1 x piece of fruit after dinner
- 4-5 cups of green tea plus 2 litres of water.
And here’s some great examples of good snacks to eat during the day to help boost your metabolism and promote weight loss and lean muscle;
- A handful of nuts and a couple of pieces of fruit
- 2 carrots, chopped up cucumber and raw cauliflower drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
- Carrots with low fat cottage cheese
- An apple with peanut butter
- A hard boiled egg with slice of wholegrain toast
- Whole grain toast with tinned tomato sardines
- A slice of wholegrain toast topped with some tinned salmon, Philadelphia light and spinach leaves
- A low fat yoghurt with a couple of pieces of fruit
- 2 rice cakes topped with low fat cottage cheese, cucumber, tomato and red pepper
- Fruit salad – make your own
- A bowl of chopped up carrots, cucumber and red pepper
- Frozen berries – when you eat them frozen they seem like lollies!
- A bowl of edamame
