(Newswire.net — March 27, 2014) — Researchers at a Toronto hospital have revealled women who fail to lose baby weight within a year of giving birth increase their risk of developing diabetes or cardiovascular disease. This is in contrast to earlier studies, which suggested weight loss could take place over a longer period.
“The adverse consequences of retaining excess weight from your pregnancy may develop a lot earlier than we expected, within the first year,” explained Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, the clinician and researcher who led the study. “With these results, we can say that failure to lose weight between three and twelve months postpartum will cause blood pressure, cholesterol, and insulin action in the body to move in an unhealthy direction.”
The study followed 300 patients through pregnancy and for a year after birth. While three quarters of the women did manage to lose weight after pregnancy, and were found to have healthy levels of blood pressure and cholesterol a year after giving birth, the remaining women either remaining the same weight, or even gained weight. The effects of failing to lose baby weight were higher blood pressure, higher levels of cholesterol and greater resistance to insulin.
This is bad news for mothers, who may already be struggling to cope with the demands placed upon them by a new baby. Fortunately, help is at hand.
Karen Brimeyer, functional medicine and nutrition expert, has developed a program designed specifically to address the weight loss needs of busy mothers. After her first pregnancy in 2008, she encountered the same practical and emotional barriers to weight loss that most new mothers experience. “I felt like I had lost myself,” Karen explains. “I became insecure with all of the changes that took place with my body in such a short amount of time. And I felt like I didn’t have the time to do anything about it.”
To address her own weight loss needs, Karen developed a system to lose weight that saw her back to her pre-pregnancy weight in just seven weeks. To her surprise, she found, “I actually had more than enough time to get everything done, my energy levels were back to normal (minus some sleepless nights), I was back to my old positive happy self, and both my son TJ and my husband were much happier too.”
This is in contrast to the experiences of most new mothers, who experience cravings for high sugar food due to lack of sleep, and who struggle to fit in exercise around daily chores.
Karen’s system has been used successfully by many new mothers to help them regain a healthy and positive lifestyle after pregnancy, and it has received rave reviews.
“Anybody can follow this and achieve results!” says Tracie Hammond. ” Karen found a way to make it personalized as though she was working one on one with you.”
Jennifer Oppelt agrees: “As a mother I can appreciate Karen’s individualized approach to losing those postpartum pounds. Karen considers the whole person and their unique nature rather that putting everyone into a “one size fits all” program.”
Whatever the method or system used, the importance of losing weight after pregnancy is now very clear, and any mother who fails to do so may be facing long term health complications in the future.
Lose That Baby Weight by Karen Brimeyer