Can you use the baby weight excuse 5 years down the line?

[FeelLikeTweedleDee]

I've met a few women who say "I'm overweight because I've had babies" and their children are 5+ years old. My mum (bless her) used to say this to me, and I'm her youngest child pushing 30!

So how long do you reckon you can use the baby weight excuse for? And who actually believes it? Men? The childless?

Bitch away.

Not all doctors agree that pregnant women should be watching their weight, and it is absolutely not a given that dieting won't affect your milk supply.

The advice I have had from my doctors is that you shouldn't attempt to diet when you are pregnant or breastfeeding. So I won't. I'm not vain enough.

But I also know that my metabolism is affected while I breastfeed and that I hold onto weight in a way that I don't normally. So attempting to lose weight is basically pointless. And I know other women who have struggled massively to lose weight while breastfeeding only to have it drop off once they stopped.

The human metabolism is a complicated, nuaced, badly understood mechanism and all this simplistic shite about how all you have to is just not choose to get hideous nausea and run every day even though you struggle to walk up the stairs is ridiculous.

There's a difference between not watching your weight and deliberately chowing down, though. I didn't watch my weight as such, I just didn't eat much extra.

In terms of weight gain, I was starving the whole time when pregnant and BFing, I'd eat proper dinner and wake up in night starving so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep. Hence the weight gain. If I had another baby I'd gain weight again as I would rather not spend 15 months constantly starving even if the price was a 5 month diet on the end.

I don't think dieting would affect my milk supply when BFing BUT I had a huge appetite and so dieting when BFing for me would be miserable, I'd be worn out and starving. But I only EBF for 6 months and managed to diet whilst partially BFing.

Anyway, the OP would about 5 years down the line, not about those still BFing. I think totally reasonable to call it babyweight if you are still BFIng, even if the baby is 18 months or so.

But what if the only thing that even comes close to making you feel human is "chowing down" on starchy food?

There is a world of difference between 'dieting' and just being careful what you eat. A 'diet' to reduce weight is completely different to a healthy diet which should adequately maintain a body and it's daily exersions without holding on to vast amounts of fat.

Yes the metabolism is complicated but you don't see many overweight people in places where food is in short supply (and some of them manage to breatfeed too).

Why you are pregnant thats fine but after if you are constantly on the go you will lose a lot. Never get in a car, always carry babies stuff, buggies, shopping. Be out the house all day every day walking around and going places.

I have never watched my weight or diet. I eat loads of bad for you foods, maccy ds, crispy pancakes, waffles, chicken nuggets. I just dont eat massive portions and I never stop moving. Even now whilst on here I do about 5 mins get up and do something then 5 minutes again (It comes from me never being able to sit still)

Well then, chow down! But you were saying some doctors don't agree that pregnant women should watch their weight. I was saying this is true, but there is a difference between "watching weight", which is usually a euphemism for dieting, and just continuing as normal. I'm not a doctor, but everything I've read and all my doctors have said the same thing - you don't need many extra calories from a physiological point of view. How you feel in yourself, is a different thing, of course, and we are all different as you say. But lots of people do use pregnancy as an excuse to overeat ("eating for two" etc) and then moan on about being fat.

I always find it strange that some pregnant women obsess about dying their hair, applying fake tan, eating a bit of pate or raw egg whilst pregnant but will consume a worse diet and exercise regime when pregnant than they would ever consider whilst not pregnant and still consider that they are doing it in their and their unborn babies best interests.

Not sure why anyone wants to hear someone else boasting about how they lost weight?

Anyway, this is a genuine question - is the human metabolism really that complicated, unless you have a medical condition that directly affects your metabolic rate? Surely for everyone else it's quite simple - if you take in more calories than you burn, you'll store fat. And I include myself in this, I'm not saying I'm an angel! I just accept that if I overeat and don't do enough exercise, my clothes get tighter.

"I'm not a doctor, but everything I've read and all my doctors have said the same thing - you don't need many extra calories from a physiological point of view"

Absolutely. A banana and a glass of milk was what a friend was told by her doctor.

After DD1 was born I weighed EXACTLY the same as I did before she was born. So I think it's silly to say that what is left after the baby is gone is not baby weight. I was not fat while I was pregnant. But as soon as the baby was born I was fat.

I expected to lose the 8lbs of her weight plus a bit of placenta and fluid, but by a few days later my weight was the same. So that to me was "baby weight" - the baby is gone but all the weight is still here! :o

With DD2 it was different - DD2 came out and I lost nearly 2 stone in about a week. But I still have some of the weight from DD1 that I hadn't lost before I got pregnant with DD2 (still bfing).

Yes, the human metabolism is complicated.

Believe me, when you try to figure out how your thyroid gland affects your metabolism that becomes very clear.

But that's what I meant - unless you have a medical condition that directly affects your metabolism.

Normal thyroid function is still complicated.

Thing is women know that if they eat too much for the activities they do eventually weight will start to go up but so many of them seem to throw this information to the wind the minute they get a positive line on a preg test kit and them moan that they are 'massive' and 6 months down the line are still holding on to 2 unwanted and unnecessary stones in excess weight which they now 'never have time' to exercise to shift or eat more healthily.

I thought I was pushing it at a year - still looked five months pregnant...but it's sorted now. Wasn't easy, and is still difficult to maintain it sometimes.

My mum blamed the control girdle she was advised to get back into by my nan. I'm too nice to tell her she needed (needs!) to eat less!

I'm overweight. Don't blame it on the kids though - had lost the weight I put on with ds1 by the time he was around 18 months, and with ds2 it had gone within a couple of months (cravings were apples and salad 2nd time round, so only put on 1.5 stone total).

I was a hugely fat fucker before I had kids though!

Am now a stone heavier than when I got married almost 13 years ago, which isn't too bad I guess. Gonna be heyooge at my Diamond wedding party though if I carry on putting on a pound a year

So what you're all basically saying is that three years on, I can't use the 'I've just had a baby' excuse?! Damn!

Some of these comments are quite mean. Not every woman who gains a lot of weight in pregnancy does so because she's being a glutton and eating for 2! In my case, i had hyperemesis from very very early until about 15 weeks, which sent my metabolism absolutely crazy - it was a bit like coming off a starvation diet in that my body held on to every single calorie it got once I stopped vomiting. I then developed SPD at 20 weeks. Between these two I was basically ill for the entire pregnancy, and went from going to the gym daily to barely being able to walk the length of my lounge.

Even after I had DD, it took about another 8 months (wasn't B/F so it wasn't that) before I was able to lose weight, despite dieting. I've lost a lot of weight before, so I know how, I wasn't kidding myself. It just would not budge. My metabolism took time to recover and suddenly decided to start letting go of the excess, but I suspect it will be over the year before I'm back to my healthy pre preg weight.

My doc confirmed that buggered up metabolisms are quite common for a while if you've not been able to consume your required level of calories for a while - for whatever reason. As soon as the sickness stopped it was like I'd come off the most strict crash diet and the weight piled on even though I was eating very normal meals.

Not everyone who gets fat when pregnant is lazy or silly, or eats junk.

Nothing irritates me more than people assuming that because maybe 90% of the population are fat because they eat more than they burn off (and/or eat junk), they can then extrapolate and assume that applies to 100% of the fatties.

Nothing embarasses me more than knowing that pre-babies, in my size 10 ivory tower, I also thought the same.

Having been diagnosed with, variously, ME (an odd diagnosis given I was working a 60 hour week and doing an MSc with two under 3's at home at the time), insomnia, endometriosis, severe hormone deficiency, syndrome X (one for the nutters, that) and so on, I am older, wiser, and fatter.

It was very nice pre-babies to go through a day without craving food, and very nice to not even know the GI load of every single bloody piece of food in Tescos, and nice to go to the yoga and aerobics knowing that my efforts would be actually 'doing good', rather than just holding back the tide. And it was nice to eat carbs too, every now and then, without knowing that I would be asleep within 20 minutes. I've had my DH grab me in a restaurant to stop me falling as I slid off my chair, thanks to a single bread roll. All the problems are slowly starting to fade after 7 years, but it's still an uphill battle. Not helped by having someone ask me 'when I'm due' maybe once a week (something which cannot be corrected without surgery and accounts for an estimated 6kg), or by having a GP simply accuse me of eating doughnuts on the sly when my 600 a day calorie diet had no effect other than to make me very dizzy (I started at a normal diet level of 1400 then dropped by 200calories every 3 weeks in order to test at what point - inter alia - my weight would start to fall)

I am a bit humbler and a shedload less ignorant and judgy than I was before I had kids.

stilll squiffy & Scotsgirl once again someone with a medical problem not a 'baby weight' one. Don't think for one minute you are what this thread is about.

I know what you mean Chynah but honestly, when you try to explain to people that you are still carrying some of the weight you gained in pregnancy because you were ill and your body hasn't recovered overnight, you get rolling eyes and expressions which could be roughly translated as "uh huh, suuuure, fatty boom boom just ate too many doughnuts"

I've been questioned about diet by family members, virtually interrogated by one who studied nutrition but knows sod all about pregnancy and even had work colleagues make comments towards the end of my pregnancy. It's horrible. I gained 4 stone and you would not believe how judgemental people can be.

What a hideous thread. Talk about women policing each other. I'm astounded by some of the views on here.

The idea that women ought to be so concerned with their figures that they should commence "getting back into shape" as soon as they've given birth. The idea that women must make time for exercise - many women suffer PND, many women suffer a kind of sub-PND caused by sleep deprivation, I couldn't have launched into an exercise and diet regime while getting to grips with BF and I think that anyone who would judge another for not doing so is pretty pathetic TBH.

What does it matter to you if another woman is a bit fat? Or even very fat? It's hardly as if she'll be oblivious to it? Chances are she will be pretty miserable because she knows that so many women will be looking at her scornfully.

Personally I've never been on a diet because I think that women obsessing over weight is a miserable bloody way to spend time and I refuse to join in. The attitudes on here say it all really.

That for women, how they look to others is the be-all and end-all - irrespective of their state of pregnancy, BF, sleeplessness, depression or any of the other myriad of difficulties that jump up and bite women hard in the backside when they have children. Awful.

I am just FGS all over this thread.

For those who feel the need to justify it to others - please practice biting your lip. Don't let mean people in by going on the defensive about your weight. It's your weight, it's none of their business. Don't even mention it. And if someone brings it up just don't engage with it. There are so many more useful things to spend time doing than effectively apologising to mean-spirited types.

I also like the way that disability is a get out but the myriad of other things that come and hit you when you are pregnant/BF like sleep deprivation and depression are "no excuse".

Honestly why does it matter if some women somewhere are a bit fat? It's not catching

very well said SQ.