The 'snap back': How to lose the baby belly... and weight, after giving birth

If you are reading this, you might be on the verge of giving up on shedding the baby weight (and more so, the baby belly) after unsuccessfully trying a tonne of products, reading countless articles on Google and watching endless YouTube videos promising ‘guaranteed’ results on how to ‘lose the baby belly fast’.

While this article does not offer a quick fix, it should help you inch closer to shedding those unwanted inches off your waist.

The only time a woman loves a big belly is when she is expecting her bundle of joy.

Thereafter, the journey begins to shed the belly fat.

After giving birth, I had this illusion that my belly would snap back to what it was before, so you can imagine the shock when I looked in the mirror a week later and it still looked like I was six months pregnant.

I was horrified.

My gynecologist told me to focus on my baby and said I would remain ‘pregnant’ for at least six weeks postpartum.

He said if I did a pregnancy test, it would probably still turn positive, because the hormones were still intact.

The reality of the big belly was not made any better by the fact that I had chosen a bodycon dress as my leaving the hospital outfit. So as I exited the hospital holding my bundle of joy, I had to endure prying eyes of onlookers giving me a look that suggested that they were wondering if there was still another baby in my tummy, despite me holding my baby.

The good news is that the belly shrank progressively, and to my surprise, once I clocked two weeks postpartum, I looked ‘unpregnant’, though I still showed evidence of having recently had a baby. 

I had been told the belly takes a while to shrink and had even armed myself with a belly binder to help shrink it, but the reality of motherhood is that between breastfeeding and taking care of a new baby, all a mum sometimes wants is to be free, not constricted by some belly binder.

I had at first planned to wear the binder for an hour a day, but I gave up on that as soon as I started it. I hear that after doing a liposuction, one has to wear a sort of corset throughout the day for several weeks. The things we do in pursuit of the snatched body.

If you are a new mum who is not excited about the prospect of having to wear a corset for the entire day, here are a few tips on how to shrink back your uterus.

First, you need to know that water is your best friend, and more so, warm or hot water. There’s something about warm fluids that helps move things along and shrink that uterus back and tummy.

Secondly, you need to ditch the junk food you used to crave and use pregnancy as an excuse to indulge in. I remember I thought I’d kick the junk food habit I picked when I was pregnant after giving birth, but that didn’t happen. It could have something to do with what my gynecologist said about still having pregnancy hormones up to six weeks postpartum. 

I still had cravings for wheat - cakes, chapattis, spring rolls and everything that had wheat. That did nothing to help my efforts to shrink back my belly as it only made me more bloated. Try to get rid of the junk food and it will help your efforts. However, don’t stress yourself if you fall off the wagon sometimes. Being a new mum comes with a lot of responsibilities and the last thing you need is to be dieting and trying to fight cravings. Take it a step at a time. If you used to eat French fries, cakes and pizza all the time while you were pregnant, try dropping one of them for two weeks, then move to the next, until you have slowly eliminated all the unhealthy foods.

Another thing you will want to do to win the belly battle is to start incorporating light exercise into your regimen. Whether it’s 10 minutes a day, or 15 minutes, broken into five minutes across the day, just make sure you are moving. It will help you cut down, not only the belly weight, but all the weight you gained throughout pregnancy. Remember, there’s no need to do it all at once. You can break down a 20-minute walk into five-minute intervals when your baby is napping, because the reality is that during the first few weeks of motherhood, your baby may not give you the luxury of having long uninterrupted moments to yourself.

If you incorporate these three simple tips into your lifestyle, you will slowly be on your way to the snap back.

A point of caution though: Do you and take your recovery journey as it comes. Don’t look at celebrities’ stories of snapping back, because as much as some do get back in shape quickly, others secretly undergo liposuction and all manner of procedures to get back in shape - not all is what it seems. Don’t pressure yourself.

Happy snapping back.