Baby weightloss && plataue!!

The really good news is that losing post partum is the same as losing weight at any other time: for any kind of weight loss it doesn't matter what you eat. The only thing that matters is eating less calories than you burn.

1. Make sure that you set a reasonable weight loss goal (with how little you have to lose, you should probably only lose half a pound to one pound max per week). Set that as your goal in the MyFitnessPal app.

2. In the community forums, read all of the threads stickied as most helpful at the top of each sub-forum. These threads are really, really helpful. Read them. Think about them. Read back over them as needed. Put then into action. I absolutely guarantee that you will lose the weight if you follow their advice.

3. But a kitchen scale. Weigh all of your solid foods in grams in MyFitnessPal. Use database entries tagged as USDA for things like fruit, nuts, meats, vegetables, oats, rice, grains, etc. as these entries tend to be more accurate. Weigh things raw whenever possible: again, this tends to be more accurate. For food that you make at home, use the recipe builder. Measure all liquid foods with cups/spoons and log them.

4. Only make changes to your diet that you plan on keeping up permanently. Foright loss, it doesn't matter what you eat. At all. I can eat only Twinkies and, as long as I am below 2300 calories (which is my maintenance calorie number) I will lose weight. Obviously this would be remarkably unhealthy, and I would be hungry since my body would not be getting much-needed nutrients, but I would lose weight. All I am saying with this is that you need to strike a balance. Any changes to your lifestyle/way of eating need to be changed that you can keep up for the rest of your life, otherwise you will just regain the weight. For me, I find that eating lots of veggies keeps me full and helps me keep my overall calorie count down. I loooove broccoli, so eating mostly broccoli for lunch every day is a highly sustainable habit for me that is both healthy and calorie-conscious. I also loooove ice cream. Before when I lost weight, I said "ice cream is bad for me! I will never eat ice cream ever again!" Inevitably, I would want ice cream, eventually break down and eat it, feel like a failure, and binge eat everything in sight to ensure that I really was a failure. Thus eliminating ice cream is NOT a sustainable habit for me (entirely eliminating any one food/food group is rarely a sustainable habit for anyone). Instead, I generally try to only eat ice cream two to three times a week. Figure out in your own life the habits that strike a balance between health, calorie density, and general life enjoyment.

5. Figure out what keeps you full. For me, that is high protein and high fiber foods. For other people it's high fat or high carbs. Play with different foods, pay attention to your hunger signals, and over time build dietary habits that take advantage of when you feel hungry or full.

6. Weight loss is not linear. Three weeks is nothing: as women, our bodies run on monthly cycles. My lowest weight is typically the day before Aunt Flo comes visiting. It is not at all uncommon for me not to see a lower number for three to four weeks after that point. Constipation, sodium intake, how much water you drink, hormones, airplane travel, how much bulk was in your last meal, and whether or not you peed before weighing can all effect your weight but have nothing to do with fat loss. Get a weight trending app (HappyScale for Apple, Libra for Android, TrendWeight for a desktop computer) and log your weight consistently over time. Over time (four to eight weeks) you will be able to see an accurate trend of where your weight is going. If it is really staying the same for several months then great! You found your maintenance level of calories. Drop those by 250 and you should start losing weight. Otherwise, you can see if you are gaining or losing and act accordingly.

You can do it!