food intolerance

How to Eat To Lose Your Baby Weight & Your Mummy Tummy!

How do you eat to lose your baby weight & your mummy tummy? Karin, mummy blogger at CafeBebe is a good few months (years… ) postpartum, but still has baby weight & mummy tummy she’d like to see less of. And I’m a sucker for one of the sisterhood in tears, so when she came to find me at the CyberMummy conference for a hug & some support because yet another person thought she was pregnant… I had to step in. Postscript early 2011 – she is pregnant again now – congratulations Karin!)

arin’s mummy tummy is due to a number of factors, almost definitely including diastasis recti – weak core muscles & a good few layers of fat sitting on top There may very well be other factors, including food intolerance or allergy causing excessive bloating, insulin resistance or unbalanced blood sugar levels due to eating habits, lifestyle factors & stress.

Karin is under orders to write down every morsel of food & drop of drink that pass her lips for 2 weeks. As she has already learnt, the very fact of writing it down can be rather effective in itself. Suddenly you’re accountable. ‘Some one’s going to read this. Hell, what if they think I’m a pig? What if they think I haven’t got a clue?’

The writing down bit is a start, even if you’re not going to get a scary personal trainer-type read over it. Try it for yourself! It really makes you think about what you’re eating & may surprise you. Often the number of coffees/ biscuits/pieces of toast/glasses of wine/handful of crisps that creep in whilst not actually counting as ‘meals’ can add up without your realising.

I’ve had one day’s worth form Karin so far, but I’m going to prolong her agony for a couple more days before telling you what she’s eating or giving any advice. I need to know how she eats for a few days (then we can all have a good look ) in order to give some meaningful guidance.

If you are following any kind of regime or programme of any description, if your nutrition is not being addressed as a priority then you’re not going to get anywhere. You can exercise until you collapse, but you won’t see any improvement if you’re sabotaging all your hard work with crappy eating.

Just so you know, I will NOT be putting Karin on a diet. I don’t do diets. Diets are rubbish & don’t work because if they did there’d only be one diet book instead of thousands. The diet industry makes an utterly scandalous amount of money by convincing us we need to buy their excuses for food. We don’t. Nature makes food quite well by itself thank-you. But I can give you some ideas & guidelines on how to navigate the labels, the claims & the ‘science bits’ that the food industry loves to confuse us with.

This is not a diet, its how to eat the MuTu Food way.

So please give Karin your support & why not join her by keeping your own food diary for the next week or so?

2nd postscript early 2011 – this was a pretty fair anlaysis as it turned out that Karin is actually Coeliac & so completely intolerant to gluten!

Lose Baby Weight Fast By Avoiding These Foods!

Trying to lose your baby weight fast can feel like a long old road. Your ‘Mummy Tummy’ is wobbly for a number of reasons, all of which are covered elsewhere on this blog, but here we’re talking about the specific foods you need to avoid if you’re ever going to see that flat tummy. These foods will make or keep your mummy tummy looking fat & bloated, regardless of how much you exercise!

Of course if you eat more food than your body needs, you will gain fat & will struggle to lose your baby weight. But there’s a bit more to it than that, when you are storing excessive or disproportionate amounts of fat around your abdomen, & / or suffer from bloating. If this is you, then that tummy isn’t baby fat & you can get rid of it! By eating ‘clean food’, balancing your blood sugar & avoiding foods which cause bloating or intolerance.

Storing disproportionate fat around your waist is directly related to SUGAR, & how you manage the insulin level in your blood. Taken to the extreme, diseases like diabetes type 2 can be the result. It may also be due to FOOD INTOLERANCE OR ALLERGY.

LOSE BABY WEIGHT FAST BY CUTTING OUT SUGAR & REDUCING STRESS

First we need a little ‘science bit’, so concentrate Insulin is a hormone our body produces to control the circulating sugar level in our blood. It is also a fat storage hormone. Storing fat is one of insulin’s jobs. High levels of insulin in your blood make your body really, really *clever* at storing fat. The insulin will actually inhibit the breakdown of fat, so no matter how much you exercise, you won’t lose your baby weight & the flabby tummy remains.

When we eat food, insulin is released to ensure that our blood sugar level doesn’t rise too high. The amount of insulin released depends upon the type of food that we eat – the more sugar, the more insulin is needed. This is not just about eating obvious sugar, like cakes, sweets or cookies, but any highly refined, starchy, carbohydrate foods such as white pasta, white bread, white rice, or alcohol.

As far as your body is concerned, any refined or simple carbohydrate is pure sugar. It can’t tell the difference!

Carbohydrate-rich foods serve as our main source of energy, & are ESSENTIAL, especially for a busy mother with many demands on her time & energy, & definitely if you’re breastfeeding. You SHOULD NOT cut out all carbs. But if you want to lose your baby weight, you do need to cut out bad carbs.

Your consumption of carbs should be in the form of whole-grains, fruits & vegetables. If there is no alternative but to use white pasta or rice, ensure that there is a good level of protein (beans, eggs, fish, meat) in the same meal to help balance your blood sugar level.

We commonly think of fat as the problem when it comes to being fat, but actually sugar is the real enemy. Sugar, in all its forms & including alcohol, is empty calories, plain & simple.

Stress, caffeine & other stimulants & skipping meals are also major culprits. All of these things create stress hormones which trigger the release of even more glucose from your liver into your blood stream. More glucose (IE more sugar) = more insulin = more fat.

Stress could be ‘life’ stress, but it could also be ‘body’ stress caused by eating rubbish foods, not drinking enough water or not getting enough sleep. Another reason to take time out & relax – stress doesn’t just make you stressed, it makes you fat!

LOSE BABY WEIGHT FAST BY INDENTIFYING FOOD INTOLERANCE

Firstly, an intolerance is not the same as an allergy. If you are allergic to a particular food, it will cause an immediate (or within an hour of eating), acute reaction. This is likely to be itching in the mouth, difficulty breathing or swallowing, followed by vomiting, diarrhea & abdominal pain. It is an abnormal, immune response to certain food (such as peanuts, shellfish or milk). Less than 3% of adults & 6-8% of children have clinically proven, true allergic reactions to food.

A food intolerance is much more prevalent, & is defined by a difficulty or inability to digest certain foods. This is usually due to insufficient digestive enzymes in the intestine. It doesn’t affect the immune system & is rarely life threatening. Unabsorbed foods cause gas, bloating and cramping, particularly if large quantities of the food is eaten. Common offenders are milk products, wheat or other gluten-containing grains.

A bloated or gas-filled intestine will appear as a distended & enlarged abdomen… that’s not baby fat you need to lose, that’s gas & an unhappy digestive system… Only cut out one food at a time (otherwise you won’t know what caused the reaction) & see if you feel any different after a week. If there is no difference, re-introduce the food & try something else. The western diet typically includes excessive amounts of wheat & dairy products anyway, so going without for a few days will certainly not do you any harm!

And you may even see a rather miraculous change in the shape of your tummy as you LOSE YOUR “BABY WEIGHT” FOR GOOD!