Friday, October 31, 2008

Burn the Baby Fat - Curbing the Diets

By Teresa Brown

Food is energy and we need it to fuel our bodies. Of course, a busy mom who needs to lose the pregnancy weight has no time for the gym or the boot camp and reaches for the fast and easy way out to burn the baby fat - by going on a fad diet. Diets, however convenient, focus on results that are short lived and are far removed from the emotional, psychological, behavioral, cultural and societal factors that affect weight.

Variety is the spice of life and the same applies to our diets. A balanced diet is a must for healthy weight loss and management. However, when you are running a busy household, meals of convenience have a tendency to supersede healthy meals. This makes burning the baby fat a challenging task especially when you feel like you don't have the time or help to do so. This is what makes fad diets so attractive for moms to lose the baby weight but at the high price of physical and mental let down.

No Food Diet

You have to eat to live. Starving yourself is going against the natural activity of eating that is required for your body's sustenance. Not only will you deprive your body from the nutrients necessary for its normal bodily functions, you will be slowing your metabolism and your body's ability to burn the baby fat.

Severely reducing your caloric intake to burn the baby fat will "gear" down your metabolism into "starvation" mode and instead of burning the baby fat quickly, your body will hold on to your body fat by burning it slowly. As soon as you return to eating a regular diet, your body will still be working to save energy resulting in you gaining back more pounds than you started with. Burning the baby fat requires that you do the opposite of starving yourself which is eating a balanced diet in which you eat more often but fewer calories.

Celebrity Diets

Hollywood diets have been around for a while and they seem to be here to stay. Part of their "staying" power is the Starlets that use them to maintain the "fabulous" Hollywood look. Wanting to look like a Celebrity mom can lead to moms dieting like them to burn the baby fat. These diets usually claim to have a special ingredient that will make you lose the pregnancy weight fast but you'll only gain it back as quickly as you lost it.

Sacrificing being thin over being healthy for a few weeks or months may be accepted in Hollywood but it doesn't work in the real world. Hollywood diets are unhealthy quick-fix solutions to weight loss because we all know that limiting your food to some supposedly magic ingredient is never a good idea.

Nature's Diet

As tempting a starvation or fad diet may seem to solve your battle to burn the baby fat, it will be weight re-gained and time poorly spent. Why not use your precious time and pour your energy into taking steps to learn the tools that foster healthy living? Living a healthy lifestyle involves taking care of your mind, body and spirit. True weight management is an on-going activity. Gradually losing pregnancy weight through eating right and exercising regularly will increase your success rate at long term weight loss. Dump the diets. Eat healthy and live healthy. - 16003

About the Author: