Text | Yoyo Mama public number | Yo-Yo Mom German Parenting
Recently posted photos of my spring trip, everyone praised the most, except for my new hairstyle, that is: "You are thin again!" The most asked question is also: "How did you lose weight after giving birth?" Especially a small belly? "So let's share my experience today. I was born much fatter than when I was born yo-yo, weighing 120 pounds when I was born yo-yo, and 130 pounds when I was born yo-yo. Now reduced to 100 pounds, the recovery speed is faster than 6 and a half years ago, and ordinary jeans can also be worn.
In September last year, my figure was still in a miserable state, and I was fat to death when I took a photo, and my waist was huge, so I didn't want to take pictures... Photo taken in September 2021
However, in a few months, the weight has dropped little by little, and the small belly has been much flatter. Although my current weight is still 8 pounds heavier than before I gave birth, I am satisfied with the visible changes in the past few months, and my mentality has changed from postpartum body anxiety to "now my weight is healthier than before". One of the things I did most right was sign up for a postpartum repair class. In fact, I still reported late, and the postpartum repair training was generally 6 weeks after the birth (at least 8 weeks for caesarean section) and could be started. Due to the serious epidemic in March and April last year in Germany, there was no line to leave work, only online work, I did not report to work at that time, just at home with YouTube videos to do postpartum repair exercises. Doing it at home leads to insufficient self-discipline, three days of fishing and two days of drying nets. Until August, when I was half a year old, my stomach was still bulging and not getting better, and my rectus abdominis muscles were still separated by one or two centimeters. Later, I decided to get the new crown vaccine, signed up for the line after the test, and began to follow the sports physiotherapist to do postpartum repair exercises once a week, and after 3 months, the effect of losing my stomach and losing weight was revealed. I have been insisting on it for more than half a year now, and I intend to stick with it until at least the end of this year. Many mothers ask, "How can the postpartum repair class go on forever?" "Yes, the average postpartum repair class ends with only 8-10 sessions. But in fact, only 10 training sessions is not enough! Postpartum repair is an ongoing process, and although the exercise of the rectus abdominis and pelvic floor muscles is particularly urgent in the postpartum period, it is not a once and for all thing. As we all know, muscles are used in and out. If you don't want to have female geriatric diseases such as urinary leakage and organ sagging as you get older, you need to continue to exercise and strengthen the pelvic floor muscles and rectus abdominis muscles – which is why I continue to go up. German obstetricians and gynecologists will repeatedly remind mothers to do postpartum repair exercises at obstetric examinations and postpartum periods, and the health risks caused by pelvic floor muscle relaxation and rectus abdominis separation may not be obvious when they are just finished. But it will gradually appear after a few decades, when we are old, such as leakage of urine, organ sagging, lumbar disc herniation, etc. Therefore, as women, no matter what age, no matter how old your child is, we can consciously do some exercises for the pelvic floor muscles and rectus abdominis muscles in our usual exercises. It doesn't matter if you miss the postpartum recovery period, it's better to start any time than not to start! (Recommended reading: Pelvic floor muscle training, every woman should do!) From pregnancy to old age, adhere to 5 minutes a day | Pregnant women and women's maintenance series) I shared with you a postpartum exercise that can be done during confinement: How to count as a good confinement? You wouldn't think of the German approach, but the actions mentioned in that article are very basic. I later learned a lot of movements with my exercise therapist, basically learning new movements every time I took a class, and the difficulty was gradual. This is also where I think it is most worthwhile to learn from the coach!
I now think back to the movements I first learned half a year ago, and it's a piece of cake! Today, I can easily do it, but at the time it was very difficult to do! And the movements I'm learning in class now seemed like an impossible task a few months ago! At that time, my pelvic floor muscles and rectus abdominis muscles were not strong enough to support me to do the movements I have learned now. My postpartum pubic soreness lasted for more than half a year, and I felt hard every time I lifted my one foot to wear my pants. I went to see the doctor for a test, and the doctor decided that the pelvic floor muscles were not strong enough, and more postpartum repair training should be done. Sure enough, after going to a few postpartum repair trainings, I unconsciously got better...
I'm not reporting a personal trainer, there are 6-8 people in a class, once a week. The exercise therapist does the action in front, and we follow along. She didn't correct our movements, so I can't guarantee that my movements are completely accurate. Every time in class, the mothers are chatting while doing it, and at the same time they have to take care of the baby next to them, the scene is very funny, not as serious as imagined. I think that maybe the movements don't need to be more precise to achieve the effect of exercise. But if I want to guide everyone to do the movements as a non-professional, I am afraid of misleading everyone, and it is best to find a professional to do it. The qualification for a postpartum repair class in Germany can be either a sports therapist or a midwife (Midwife in English, Hebamme in German, in fact, it is not very accurate to translate as a midwife, because this profession is not necessarily responsible for delivering babies, but can also be responsible for postpartum care). The postpartum rehabilitation classes run by midwives are generally 8-10 classes, which is related to the scope of vocational training they have received, only so much to learn, of course, only so much to teach. Sports therapists specialize in rehabilitation, have a deeper and more professional understanding of human medicine, muscle coordination, etc., not only for a few short months after childbirth, but for all ages. My postpartum recovery coach is a licensed sports therapist. The first class I took was called the postpartum repair class, and then the name of the class was directly called "Pelvic Floor Muscle and Rectus Abs Training". Although the pelvic floor muscles and rectus abdominis muscles are the focus of training, but not the only, in fact, the back, arms, legs will be exercised, so the effect is not only to reduce the stomach, back pain and waist pain have a good relief effect, arms, thighs will also be thinned together. I have now gone up to the 3rd installment, and the fee for the 4th installment has been paid, and I plan to continue to go on! I'm taking this class now as a professional fitness class. Most of the German mothers who started postpartum repair with me have also continued to report. Health insurance in Germany reimburses 80% of the cost of the postpartum repair class and bears 20% of the costs itself. According to my sports therapist, after the postpartum repair class, Medicare can still reimburse two exercise classes a year - this is because I have not yet found a medicare company to reimburse, so I am not sure if it is true... But each lesson is about 90RMB, which is completely acceptable in Germany.
In addition to regular postpartum repair training, reducing my diet is also the reason why I lost weight. Actually I didn't mean to control my diet... It was a complete mistake!
Because every day is so busy, I am often so busy that I forget to eat lunch!
I eat a large bowl of Müsli every day for breakfast, and the most common combination is fruit + oats + quinoa + amaranth seeds + goji berries + cranberries + coconut flakes + pumpkin seeds + milk. Readers who have seen my vlog for breakfast must know how big my breakfast is... Breakfast generally takes an hour to eat, from 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock, while eating while watching the news, understanding the international situation, while replying to hundreds of messages on WeChat I have to say that Müsli is super full, and after eating for several hours, he is not hungry. At noon, ran should be fed, and after feeding, they should be put to sleep. When you finish the work and deal with the work, many times it is too late to eat lunch and it is time to pick up Yo-Yo from school to go to the interest class... By the time I felt hungry and remembered that I hadn't eaten lunch yet, I saw that the time was already three or four o'clock in the afternoon. What else to eat for lunch at this point, and dinner directly at 6 p.m. So on weekday afternoons I often eat bananas, avocados, Dinkel wheat puff cakes or popcorn, toast sandwiches or cheese, nuts, yogurt mixed with popcorn quinoa, etc., to achieve quick hunger and 5 minutes to solve lunch! My family did a good job at dinner (by German standards, not Chinese standards), and I would eat a little more for dinner, even more than Marx, especially when I didn't have lunch... Sometimes eating too much meat or carbohydrates, I will come to a carb blocker tablet for emergency relief, the effect of preventing weight gain is super good.
In addition, breast milk itself helps to lose weight. However, in order to let Ran sleep and no longer wake up frequently to drink night milk, I still decided to wean her. She and I both slept better after weaning and liked to drink formula. So my weight loss experience is actually quite simple, there is no special way to lose weight. Exercise once a week, diet is not deliberately controlled, naturally under a relatively healthy lifestyle weight will drop, the stomach will become smaller. If there is any secret, it may be thanks to the killer of the carb blocker that I use from time to time
Author: Yo-Yo Mom, studying in the Netherlands to meet love, studying in Saudi Arabia to feel the exotic style, working in Ireland alone through pregnancy, raising two mixed-race female dolls in Germany, sister "Yo-Yo" 7 years old, sister "Ranran" 10 months, Father Marx is a German sociologist with a delicate appearance and a delicate heart. Share the interesting life and cultural collision of Chinese and Western families, and gain insight into German education. His masterpiece "Learning Parenting with German Mothers".