The Vegan Mommy Makeover

You’ve been eating a plant-based diet, and making sure to meditate. You get enough rest (as much as that’s possible with a newborn), and you didn’t gain as much weight as you thought you might with your pregnancy – but now you’re breastfeeding and darn it, you’re hungry! What do you do when you want to lose weight postpartum, while breastfeeding?

Don’t Try to Lose Weight While Breastfeeding

The first thing you should know is that trying to lose weight while breastfeeding isn’t advisable. There is a monumental need for massive amounts of nutrient-density in your diet for both you – as a recovering mom – and baby as they go through developmental milestones every single day. Sometimes, the body will just hold onto fat to protect you and baby, too. It’s Mother Nature’s insurance.

Instead, concentrate on eating whole, plant based foods as you always have, and you’ll find that your blood sugar levels don’t spike. You’ll feel full longer, and those hormonal changes you’re going through won’t be accompanied by the angry-red-eyed-hunger monster. Here are a few foods to make sure you keep in your diet while breastfeeding:

• Leafy greens. They are full of folic acid and greatly contribute to your growing baby’s health.
• Omega 3s from plant based sources. These help both you and baby to stay strong, and contribute to neurological development. Try hemp seeds, avocados, coconuts, and camelina oil.
• Vegan sources of calcium. Baby is drinking up your calcium stores, because they need them. But so do you. Make sure you replace them with Bok choy, mustard greens, okra, broccoli, or fermented soy. Organic sources are always best.
• Iron. You’ll need this important mineral to fortify your blood and keep your energy stores high. Find vegan iron sources in lentils, chickpeas, chia seeds, linseeds, hemp seeds, quinoa, kale, pumpkin seeds, figs and raisins.
• Vitamin B12 and D supplements. These are important vitamins for hormonal regulation, tissue building, energy, and the development of your baby. There are many vegan supplements available. Just make sure that they are organic supplements and not full of unhealthy nutrients.

If you concentrate on eating high-quality, nutrient dense foods, you’ll have fewer food cravings and require fewer calories, too.

Exercise

Getting to the gym can seem like a monumental task when you’re a new mother, but there are other ways to get exercise and it is profoundly important that you do. Diet combined with exercise are most effective for helping you get your pre-baby body back.

Though diet is about 70 percent of the battle, the other 30 percent can make all the difference in burning fat, creating lean muscle, boosting energy, and toning up all the places that get stretched to oblivion during childbirth.

Stay Hydrated

While you are breastfeeding, you may notice that you not only feel hungrier, but your desire to drink more increases also. Concentrate on drinking pure water. Caffeine and alcohol are dangerous for your baby and they can interfere with your natural sleep-wake cycles. These can already feel helter-skelter when you are waking up all hours of the night (and day) to feed a hungry baby. Support good sleep when you can get it by drinking at least 8 ounces of water every day.

Consider a Cosmetic Boost

If after eating right, exercising, and taking care of your baby you notice that you still aren’t losing weight, you may want to consider a Mommy Makeover.

Three decades after it was first introduced, liposuction has seen tremendous advances.

The very same technology that likely allowed you to see your unborn child growing in your belly, can also now be targeted at stubborn fat cells that are preventing you from getting your pre-baby body back.

Vaser liposuction utilizes high frequency vibrations found in ultrasound to break fat cells apart so that your body can more easily release them. A cosmetic surgeon uses a vaser ultrasonic probe, inserted into the fatty tissue of your belly to gently encourage fat cells to disintegrate.

This can be a good last resort when you’ve exhausted a healthy vegan diet, exercise, good sleep, and you still don’t see the results you are expecting.

Let’s face it, even when you’re doing everything right, finding your pre-baby beauty can be challenging. A little help isn’t off the table. Vaser liposuction is not the same surgery conducted in your mother’s time. It can be done without general anesthesia, and recovery time is less than a week. Discuss your hopes with your doctor so that they can give you a realistic idea of possible outcomes, but keep eating right, hydrate, and exercise, and by all means, kiss that beautiful baby!