What baby weight? (June 2011 Issue)

I was watching E! News the other evening and noticed one of their headlines featured a very skinny Kourtney Kardashian for her Shape Magazine photo shoot. For those of you who have been living in the dark for the past three or more years, Kourtney Kardashian is the eldest of the entire Kardashian clan. The quick Kardashian run-down is that they are America’s reality-TV royal family per se, with Kim Kardashian sitting as princess. Their mother (Kris Jenner) is wife to former Olympian Bruce Jenner and is the ex-wife of OJ Simpson’s lawyer, Robert Kardashian. Are you caught up now?

The reason I am mentioning Kourtney is because she gave birth to her son Mason in December of 2009 and by the looks of it, shows no remnants of her labor whatsoever. In fact, she seems smaller than ever! So what exactly was her secret, I wondered?

I don’t have any children of my own but I am a proud Godmother to two beautiful girls. This by no means makes me an expert on how to lose baby weight of course, so I did some research and here is what I have found:

Breastfeeding

Kourtney told Shape Magazine, "I was burning an extra 600 calories a day and I got really skinny, where I was like, I just don't want to lose any more weight.” The act of breastfeeding tightens the stomach muscles and is a workout within itself. After my sister gave birth, I remember her singing the joys of how breastfeeding repaired her body and according to drsears.com, “Breastfeeding mothers showed significantly larger reductions in hip circumference and more fat loss by one month postpartum when compared with formula-feeding moms.”

Healthy Munching

I like to refer to this as a mental-recalibration. If your afternoon snack is habitually a pack of M&M’s, then it is time to pick a healthier choice, like a piece of fruit. Choose organic foods over the highly-processed ones. Healthy Choice has packaged selections that are low in calories and not very high in sodium. Whatever you decide, consider making a healthy decision for yourself and for your baby.

Now walk It Out

Do just as rapper Unk said and “walk it out!” After every meal, go for a walk to help jumpstart your metabolism and get those calories burning. Not only will you feel better after doing so, but it will curb that feeling of lethargy that typically occurs after digesting a lot of food.

Cutting Back On ‘Throwing Back’ The Drinks

Monitoring your alcohol intake is imperative. Most people tend to forget that there are calories with every drink that you have, so those calories add to the pounds you gain. Also, cutting back on caffeinated drinks will lower your sugar intake and in turn, help you to lose weight.

Sweat it off!

With a new baby in tow, finding time to work out will be difficult for most. Try to find time to get a cardio workout in as well as lifting weights. Doing this will help shed the pounds you want to get your body back to where it used to be.

'Til next time...