Feeling beautiful after having a baby!

Diet and lifestyle. Find the right balance

Getting your figure back will happen gradually and will be made easier by a balanced diet and gentle daily exercise, month by month.
It will take 3-6 months for your weight to return to normal and one year to get back to your former waist size.

What diet should I follow?

Follow the general rules for a good diet, which are:

• Eat at least 5 fruits and/or vegetables every day.
- Remember that freshly squeezed fruit or half a glass of fruit juice with no added sugar, at breakfast or teatime, can count as one of your 5-a-day.
- Think about using frozen fruit and vegetables. Make the most of your friends’ visits to ask them to bring you fresh produce!

• Bread, cereals, starch or pulses: at every meal, and according to your appetite.
- Choose wholegrain cereals or bread, even when you are snacking!

• 3 dairy products per day.
- Choose natural products rich in calcium, low in fat and salt (milk, yoghurts, fromage frais etc.).

• Meat, fish, seafood or eggs: once or twice a day.
- Choose lean meat (veal escalopes, chicken or turkey, burgers with 5% fat).
- Eat fish at least twice a week.

If you like to snack

Have lighter meals and then have a snack later.

For example:

• Breakfast: coffee/tea/chicory with milk + 2 or 3 rusks with butter and jam (not too much) + 1 fresh fruit juice

• Morning snack: 1 fromage frais

• Lunch:
- Starter: Asparagus with vinaigrette
- Main: Steak + potatoes + carrots

• Afternoon snack: 1 small piece of cheese + 1 fruit compote

• Dinner:
- Starter: grated carrots
- Main: chicken or turkey escalope + rice + courgettes

• Evening snack: 1 plain yoghurt + 1 pear

If you are hungry all the time

You can have a teatime snack, as long as your meals are not too heavy.

For example:

• 1/6 of a baguette + 1 portion of cheese + 1 glass of water
or
• 1 fromage frais 20% fat + 1 banana + 1 glass of water
or
• 1 small pot of semolina or rice pudding + 1 glass of water
or
• 4 plain biscuits + 1 glass of water

If you don’t have enough time for a cooked lunch

Here are a few suggestions:
• a homemade sandwich: tuna or chicken with raw vegetables + 1 yoghurt
or
• a homemade salad (meat or chicken or fish + crudités + cheese) and bread
or
• Asian food = kebabs + rice + sautéed vegetables and/or soup
or
• a savoury tart + crudités

• Drink: water, tea, herbal tea

• Finish with a piece of fruit and possibly 1 dairy product as a snack

• Eat more vegetables at dinner!

If you are breastfeeding

Breastfeeding does not mean you need a specific diet or that you need to eat more.
• However, you should continue to eat food rich in calcium, such as milk, yoghurts and cheese.
• Hard cheese (Emmental, Comté, Beaufort, Cantal, Tome etc.) contains the most calcium.

A few precautions to bear in mind:

• Avoid alcohol and tobacco
• Limit your coffee consumption (maximum 3 cups a day). Caffeine passes into breastmilk and it takes much longer to leave the body of a newborn than an adult. If you drink more than 3 cups of coffee a day, there is a risk that your child will become temporarily stimulated, or even very stimulated.

DDA