Pregnancy causes lots of changes in a woman’s body as well as mind. Among the other changes main is the weight gain. Ideally, a woman should gain weight during pregnancy from some where 9 – 12 kgs over her original weight. Some women are able to reach the desirable weight range during pregnancy and some exceed it. The most common worry seen in women post delivery is regarding extra weight accumulated during the pregnancy phase. So hereby, we upgrade the knowledge of those women who want to lose the extra pounds or Kgs. accumulated during pregnancy. Just follow the given tips.

• Restrict the intake of extra cereals: during pregnancy, we advise woman to increase the intake of cereals like rice and roti. Incase of weight lose one has to cut down the extra intake of these grains. For example: if you are taking 3 rotis for lunch and dinner then cut it down to 2 rotis lunch and dinner each.
• Eat only 3 main meals: One has to stop the extra munching that was allowed during pregnancy phase. So concentrate on taking main 3 meals a day like breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Have healthy snacks: Incase you are not able to avoid evening hunger pangs then have non fried snacks, for example: fruits chaat, bhel, whole wheat sandwich etc.
• Increase on fruits intake: Make sure that you are having at least 3 servings of fruits. It can be same fruit or variety of them. Avoid high caloric fruits like banana, mangoes, and grapes. Do include fruits like pineapple, pomegranate, apple, guava, watermelon, orange, sweet lime, musk melon etc in your diet once a week. In case of dry fruits avoid cashew nuts, but make sure that there is intake of dates, walnuts, and almonds at least – 3 times a week.
• Include fibrous foods: Fibre increases the satiety value of food. So if you have more of fibrous food in diet then there will less of hunger pangs or food cravings. Add whole grain breads, daliya, and brown rice, whole legumes like rajma, chhole, kalachana, lobhiya, fruits and vegetables in your daily menu.
• Increase vegetable intake: As mentioned before vegetables adds lots of fibre in food, so make sure that you consume at least 3 servings of vegetables. You can have them in form of normal veges like sabji, salad, soups, grilled and sautéed veges as side dish.
• Make your dinner lighter: We all have a tendency to eat heavy dinner, but we don’t realize that the food gets stored in the body in form of fat as our activity level decreases post dinner. So format for dinner should be - less of carbs like roti or rice. More of vegetables in form of soup or grilled veges or salad. Moderate amount of protein either from non veg or paneer and daals.

• Exclusive breast feeding: WHO also recommends all the women to do exclusive breast feeding for at least first 6 months. It is a very easy way to come back to your pre pregnancy weight. Along with dietary changes, if a woman exclusively breast feeds her child for 6 months then the extra weight gained during pregnancy is lost easily. Reason being the body is not able to store the fat derived from food due to daily breast milk production.
• Exercise daily: It is very essential to burn calories to lose weight. Along with dietary changes one should do at least 30 – 45 mins exercise daily. The quality of exercise can vary from simple walk to yoga. Daily exercise increases oxygen levels in body, which in turn helps in production of hemoglobin in body.
• Have early dinner: Early dinner by 8.00pm helps our body not only to digest food easily but also to avoid water retention in body. Water retention or odema is commonly developed during the pregnancy phase.