Weight loss success stories after 2nd baby (older age)?

[Anonymous]

Anyone? Tell me your stories.

I'm over five months postpartum and know I need to give it more time, but since getting the 6 week ok to start exercising, my weight has. not. budged. I thought when I stopped nursing it would help (I dry up quickly with return to work as pumping just doesn't work for me), but still the same weight as I was a few months ago. With my first, I lost easily after I stopped nursing. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, but my thyroid levels have been fine postpartum.

I know my size/shape may have changed again (hips were wider after first baby), but wish I at least could lost the weight, then deal with what I am - I've also been delaying purchasing larger clothes in the hope that I would finally kick some of the weight. I'm exercising, eat three meals a day with a healthy snack, cut out sweets, and rarely have a drink (too tired anyways).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone? Tell me your stories.

I'm over five months postpartum and know I need to give it more time, but since getting the 6 week ok to start exercising, my weight has. not. budged. I thought when I stopped nursing it would help (I dry up quickly with return to work as pumping just doesn't work for me), but still the same weight as I was a few months ago. With my first, I lost easily after I stopped nursing. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, but my thyroid levels have been fine postpartum.

I know my size/shape may have changed again (hips were wider after first baby), but wish I at least could lost the weight, then deal with what I am - I've also been delaying purchasing larger clothes in the hope that I would finally kick some of the weight. I'm exercising, eat three meals a day with a healthy snack, cut out sweets, and rarely have a drink (too tired anyways).

How many calories are you eating? It all comes down to calories. If you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. Track what you are eating for a month and see where those number lie.

[Anonymous]

I’m now 7 lbs below my pre baby weight. My second born is now 8 months. Here’s what I did:

Eat 1400-1500 calories 6 days a week and 2500 calories one day a week, on a carb-cycling macro plan. CAREFULLY counting ALL my calories.

Do 30 minutes minimum of cardio 6 times a week.

Strength training 3-4 times a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone? Tell me your stories.

I'm over five months postpartum and know I need to give it more time, but since getting the 6 week ok to start exercising, my weight has. not. budged. I thought when I stopped nursing it would help (I dry up quickly with return to work as pumping just doesn't work for me), but still the same weight as I was a few months ago. With my first, I lost easily after I stopped nursing. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, but my thyroid levels have been fine postpartum.

I know my size/shape may have changed again (hips were wider after first baby), but wish I at least could lost the weight, then deal with what I am - I've also been delaying purchasing larger clothes in the hope that I would finally kick some of the weight. I'm exercising, eat three meals a day with a healthy snack, cut out sweets, and rarely have a drink (too tired anyways).

How many calories are you eating? It all comes down to calories. If you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. Track what you are eating for a month and see where those number lie.

Typical day, rough estimates:

breakfast - 450 calories including coffee (usually a chobani less sugar yogurt and a protein granola bar plus small homemade cold brew coffee with almond or oat milk)
lunch - 300-400 calories (frozen meal such as Evol or leftovers which vary, sometimes do rotisserie chicken over salad)
afternoon snack - 150-200 calories (?) (plain dry roasted almonds or baby carrots with hummus)
dinner - 500-600 calories - varies, but typically just meat and a roasted vegetable with olive oil, sometimes pasta with vegetable and sausage (usually chicken or turkey based sausage), sheet pan dinners, etc.

Working out ~4x a week for 30ish minutes doing a mix of HIIT, strength training with 10 pound dumbells (I use the website fitnessblender.com), not sure exactly how many calories I'm burning these workouts, maybe 200? I could also get heavier weights as a few of the exercises are getting easy. Alternate days focusing on lower body vs arms/abs. Still pretty gentle with my postpartum abs exercises, focus more on pelvic floor exercises.

I can see I can cut my calories more. Prior to pregnancy, I'd say I had a fast metabolism and I'd easily shrink with this - I ate desserts much more freely so just had to cut back sweets for a week or two and clothes would fit looser. Now, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Looking at your food and assuming you’re undercounting by about 20% (which is typically the case for people not using a food scale) you’re not eating weight loss calories.

Do you use an HR monitor to confirm your workouts are getting up to the cardio zone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at your food and assuming you’re undercounting by about 20% (which is typically the case for people not using a food scale) you’re not eating weight loss calories.

Do you use an HR monitor to confirm your workouts are getting up to the cardio zone?

I'm not, I don't have one...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at your food and assuming you’re undercounting by about 20% (which is typically the case for people not using a food scale) you’re not eating weight loss calories.

Do you use an HR monitor to confirm your workouts are getting up to the cardio zone?

I'm not, I don't have one...

Buy a food scale, an accurate HR monitor (I use Apple Watch with Zones app) and find a good calorie counting app like MyFitnessPal. Maybe your metabolism really has changed but first get yourself more accurate information about what you’re eating and doing.

[Anonymous]

OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at your food and assuming you’re undercounting by about 20% (which is typically the case for people not using a food scale) you’re not eating weight loss calories.

Do you use an HR monitor to confirm your workouts are getting up to the cardio zone?

+1. That is 1650 calories just using your high-end numbers, which would be 1980 with the 20% mentioned by PP. I'm 3 years out from my second child and still trying to lose the weight, so I'm not much help, but I'm also older than you and probably shorter, too. I need to drop below 1200 to lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

Being in the habit of working out gives you more energy to work out. Weird but true.

But even if you gave up workouts entirely, you could still lose just by tightening your calories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at your food and assuming you’re undercounting by about 20% (which is typically the case for people not using a food scale) you’re not eating weight loss calories.

Do you use an HR monitor to confirm your workouts are getting up to the cardio zone?

I'm not, I don't have one...

Buy a food scale, an accurate HR monitor (I use Apple Watch with Zones app) and find a good calorie counting app like MyFitnessPal. Maybe your metabolism really has changed but first get yourself more accurate information about what you’re eating and doing.

This! People are pretty terrible at estimating how many calories they consume. An estimate of 3oz of chicken could easily be double that. So many people say I am eating X and can't lose weight. Then when you really probe/look at what they are eating 7 days a week and you find out that they aren't tracking weekend meals, random handful of nuts, the ton of cream they put in their coffee, and so forth. You need to track 7 days a week, all food, all meals to really know what you are consuming.

Calories are also dependent on how much you weigh/your goal weight. A good calorie range to aim for is to multiply your goal body weight by 10-11.5 to give you a calorie range to aim for. So if your goal weight is 150lbs your daily calorie target would be 1500-1725 calories/day. When someone with this goal weight says "but I eat 1200 calories/day and can't lose or I can only lose at 1200 cal/day" they aren't accurately tracking. Now obviously if the standard is that you "aren't losing" unless the scale is moving down 2+ lbs/week then yes, you will need to eat very low calorie to lose at a very fast rate.

I am also a huge fan of daily weight measurements. Weighing myself daily and tracking that has completely changed my life/weight loss. Weight fluctuates every day and only weighing in once a week doesn't always give a clear picture of weight loss. With daily measurements you can more accurately see your weight trend over time. Which is even more important when weight loss is on the slower side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

Being in the habit of working out gives you more energy to work out. Weird but true.

But even if you gave up workouts entirely, you could still lose just by tightening your calories.

I would not add in more exercise or cardio. Accurately track calories and you will lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

Being in the habit of working out gives you more energy to work out. Weird but true.

But even if you gave up workouts entirely, you could still lose just by tightening your calories.

I would not add in more exercise or cardio. Accurately track calories and you will lose.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

Being in the habit of working out gives you more energy to work out. Weird but true.

But even if you gave up workouts entirely, you could still lose just by tightening your calories.

I would not add in more exercise or cardio. Accurately track calories and you will lose.

But OP should still get an HR monitor and see how “H” that supposedly HIIT really is. My mom got one and found out she was never even hitting cardio zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again - I could try to see if I can add more cardio too and go for a short run on days I don't do strength/HIIT. I work a desk job and worry about not being active enough. However, it's also hard to eek out the time to work out (take turns with my DH who likes to go for a bike ride). Just gotta push myself and mornings would be easiest before the kids are up, but have been exhausted (baby sleeps well, but seasonal allergies have been kicking my butt lately)

Being in the habit of working out gives you more energy to work out. Weird but true.

But even if you gave up workouts entirely, you could still lose just by tightening your calories.

I would not add in more exercise or cardio. Accurately track calories and you will lose.

But OP should still get an HR monitor and see how “H” that supposedly HIIT really is. My mom got one and found out she was never even hitting cardio zone.

Thank you - I'm the OP and will look into a HR monitor, but it has to be inexpensive. Any recommendations for one that doesn't break the bank? I feel the HIIT more or less depending on the workout, some I definitely have to pause. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with Fitnessblender and their workouts, but I've been using them for years and find that they do help me stay fairly fit if I keep up with them consistently and push myself during the workouts. I haven't had time to do some of their longer 40+ minute workouts lately, hard with two young kids, job, yadda yadda. I do think I could push myself for heavier weights on some basic strength training moves.