Throughout my pregnancy, I had been concerned with how, or if, I was going to be able to shed the baby weight following birth. Thankfully, I was able to follow my whole-food plant-based diet plan carefully throughout the majority of my pregnancy and the weight was gone by the time I returned home from the hospital!
Losing the baby weight with a plant-based, vegan diet is a successful risk-free means of returning to your healthy pre-pregnancy weight. When using this nutrition plan consistently in conjunction with breastfeeding and light exercise, you will safely reach your goal weight with minimal effort.
I am so excited to share my personal weight-loss hacks I picked up along my pregnancy journey that left me the healthiest I have ever been! I have also included a 7-Day plant-based weight loss plan for postpartum at the end of this post to get you started on the right foot.
If you are interested in the video version of this post, you can click on my YouTube video below:
1. Start early
The sooner you adopt a plant-based lifestyle, the easier the weight comes off following pregnancy. I had been plant-based for the three years leading up to my pregnancy, but I was still consuming a lot of vegan junk food. That junk becomes particularly appealing when pregnancy cravings hit, so again, the sooner these are removed altogether, the better.
Start with incorporating as many plant-based staples into your regular meals as possible. Focus on whole grains, legumes, fruits, veggies, and small amounts of nuts and seeds. There are so many options for variety in the plant kingdom that it is highly unlikely you will be able to try everything in a single lifetime.
2. Focus on starch
Rice, quinoa, potatoes, oatmeal, beans, and other whole grains should be the focus of your meals. Starches will not only keep you full for extended periods, but they will also provide that much-needed energy you require right now.
Personally, I like to mix and match these items in the majority of my meals. For instance, I will eat sweet potatoes with kidney beans, basmati rice with black beans, quinoa with garbanzo beans, and jasmine rice with edamame. This is a great way to ensure you are getting plenty of fiber with each meal.
3. Pile on the greens and veggies
After you have a healthy portion (think big here!) of starch planned for your meal, now we incorporate loads of fresh and cooked greens and veggies. These are heavy in water weight and will provide tons of micronutrients to aid in your recovery.
Try to include a variety of fresh greens in most, if not every meal. Play around with different oil-free dressings and salsas to find a combination that works for you.
Another great way to include more veggies is by keeping homemade hummus on hand at all times. Most store-bought hummus has a lot of oil and tahini. All you need to make a great homemade version is beans or lentils, onions, garlic, a little cumin, and lemon juice. Use the hummus to dip with raw celery sticks, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, cherry tomatoes, etc.
You can also buy frozen bags of pre-chopped mixed veggies at the grocery store to steam and throw on top of rice and beans or potatoes for an easy meal. These mixed bags were particularly helpful in the first few weeks of recovery since they don’t require a lot of effort to prepare.
4. The power of soups and salad
Studies show that eating soup and/or salad prior to any meal will result in fewer calories consumed overall.
Soups will also satiate your hunger drive well into the next meal, and thus will lead to the consumption of fewer calories at that subsequent meal as well. This is due to the water held within the items of the soup.
I highly recommend eating a large salad for one of your meals throughout the day. This ensures proper intake of the vast majority of your micronutrients. Be sure to include a colorful variety of fruits and veggies, such as red cabbage, bell peppers, radishes, beets, carrots, kale, spinach, tomatoes, and berries.
Add some beans or grains to your salad to provide you with enough starchy carbohydrates for energy. Breastfeeding requires more calories than pregnancy!
And don’t worry about calorie-counting. It is virtually impossible to over-eat on a plant-based diet unless you are consuming bags of nuts or processed foods.
5. The less animal products the better
I like to think of plant-based eating as being on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, you have a completely plant-based eating style with zero animal foods. As you approach the other end of the spectrum you start trading more plant foods for animal foods.
The closer you are on the zero animal food side of the plant-based spectrum, the faster you will lose weight and maintain that weight loss passively. The more animal foods you consume, the less likely you will be able to successfully lose weight.
Animal foods include meat, seafood, eggs, fowl, and dairy products such as yogurt, milk, butter, ice cream, and cheese. All of these foods contain cholesterol, saturated fat, zero fiber, and very little nutrients.
Each food item you consume should have the greatest amount of nutrition you can obtain at any given meal. So if you spend one of your allotted meals on fried chicken, for instance, you are missing out on a significant amount of phytochemicals, micronutrients, antioxidants, water, and fiber.
The closer you are to a 100% whole food plant-based diet the sooner you will see positive results, and the more nutrition you will provide to your beautiful new bundle of joy!
6. Focus on whole natural foods
When most people transition to a plant-based vegan diet they tend to swap out their old poor eating habits for new poor eating habits. More specifically, people trade cheese and sausage pizza for vegan pizza, and hamburgers for veggie burgers, and dairy ice-cream for vegan soy ice-cream. This strategy may actually result in weight gain.
This is another area where the plant-based diet can be thought of as being on a spectrum. At one end, you follow a dietary pattern that includes zero processed foods. At the other end, you follow a dietary pattern that includes all the processed foods you can stomach.
The closer you are to the “zero processed foods” end of the plant-based spectrum, the easier and quicker you will lose weight. On the opposite end, you will surely gain weight as you increase the number of processed foods in your diet.
Processed foods consist of everything from salad dressing and dried fruit, to tofu and cacao nibs. These foods have all been altered from their original state to create a more highly concentrated food substance. The more processed a food becomes, the higher its calorie density.
Stick with whole natural plant foods as much as you can until you return to your desired weight. Then you can slowly start to reintroduce semi-processed foods if you truly need them.
Just be aware that your weight will likely start to slowly creep back up with each processed food you reintroduce. There are also all sorts of harmful junk found in processed food items, such as food dyes, added salt, sugar, and oil, preservatives, and other chemicals. The less you ingest these “foods” the healthier you and your baby will be.
7. Minimize fatty plant foods
High fat plant foods can completely make or break your diet. A simple handful of macadamia nuts or walnuts can easily set you back by 500 calories!
Although some of these calories will not be absorbed by the body, the majority likely will. Avocados and coconuts are also high in fat and thus, should be minimized or completely excluded until you have reached your desired weight.
Then, just as with processed and animal foods, only after you are satisfied with your weight loss should you begin slowly reintroducing these high-fat plant foods.
The fat you eat is the fat you wear.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman
Fat is absorbed much more quickly and readily into the bloodstream, as opposed to carbohydrates and protein. Shoot for zero added fats, which includes all oil, and minimize healthy fats.
I will provide one caveat, however. It is crucial that you are getting two tablespoons of ground flaxseed every day to provide you and your baby with adequate amounts of alpha-linolenic acid.
These acids will convert into long-chain fatty acids which will ultimately provide you with DHA. This form of fatty-acid sequence is critical for proper brain development in your little one, and proper brain health for mama.
8. S.O.S.-free
For anyone who is unfamiliar with this acronym, it stands for salt, sugar, and oil. These are the three most popular additives found in the majority of processed foods.
Our bodies are not equipped to handle all three of these components at once. Why do we know this? Because there is no food in nature that contains salt, sugar, as well as the degree of isolated fat found in oils and most processed foods.
These foods hijack our taste buds rendering us utterly complacent when it comes to unnatural sources of salt, sugar, and oil. They are all hyper-palatable, and thus addictive.
These substances actually stimulate the exact same pleasure centers in the brain as drugs such as cocaine and alcohol, (to a lesser extent). Researchers believe this used to serve us well in nature. As salt, sweetness, and fat are found naturally in foods in tiny amounts. When we would come across these tastes while foraging they would signal to our brains that we were on the right track and to keep consuming the item as much as possible.
Today, in our overabundance of processed convenience foods, these mechanisms no longer serve us well. As we must now actively work against our instincts to refrain from overconsumption of these hyper-stimulating substances.
For more information on this subject matter I highly recommend The Pleasure Trap by Dr. Alan Goldhamer and Dr. Doug Lisle, and Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss.
9. Emphasis on raw fruits and veggies
Implementing this next step allowed me to officially remove those last stubborn pounds. People underestimate the increased calorie burn that is necessitated by digesting raw foods.
Your body has to work a lot harder to breakdown food particles when they have not been processed through cooking beforehand. Thus, you are actually burning many of the calories while you are digesting them.
This doesn’t mean you can’t cook any of your veggies. Just be sure that most of the fruits and vegetables you are eating are in their whole, raw form.
Again, eat a large salad every day preferably towards the end of the day. Pile on a colorful variety of raw fruits and veggies and top with an oil-free dressing.
The majority of your snacks should consist of raw fruits and veggies. The heavy water content in these items will help you feel full and satisfied in between meals.
10. Just say no to alcohol
I know how tempting it can be when you just got done carrying a baby in your womb for 10 months to want to celebrate with a little wine or cocktails. But if you want to stay focused on the bigger picture, that is postpartum recovery and healthy weight-loss, alcohol is not your friend.
Alcohol not only leads to significant calorie intake and weight gain from the alcohol itself, but it blunts your judgment leading you to consume foods you otherwise would refrain from eating.
It is also extremely difficult to drink alcohol while trying to safely breastfeed your child. Even a couple of drinks may necessitate having to pump your breastmilk only to reluctantly dump it down the sink.
After you have fully recovered and have met your weight-loss goals, by all means, have a drink or two if that’s what you decide. But just know, it is completely acceptable to remain on your healthful journey beyond recovery.
In fact, the only way to maintain your weight loss will likely be to keep your behaviors similar to what they had been while implementing these changes. A plant-based diet is not just a temporary fad diet, it is a life-long eating pattern.
11. Get adequate rest
We are just now understanding how critical of a role sleep plays on our weight and ability to recover. Those who consistently suffer from sleep deprivation have a significantly higher likelihood of being overweight.
Shoot for a minimum of 8 hours per night of quality sleep. 9-10 hours would be even better.
I fully understand what I am asking is 100% impossible while you are trying to breastfeed a newborn every two hours every day. Just do your best and don’t be too hard on yourself. Being a new mommy is far from easy.
12. Bypass food cravings
The wonderful thing about a plant-based diet is that there are virtually zero cravings. Sure, you get hungry and you crave wholesome foods to nourish your appetite. But there is never a point in time where you have to actively battle with yourself not to eat something you know will set you back in terms of your health objectives.
This is due to the natural composition of whole natural foods. Your body is fully equipped to recognize and digest an apple, for instance. But when you process that apple and turn it into apple juice, that once wholesome food has just turned into a hyper-palatable substance that will set off dopamine cascades in your brain.
Eat whole natural plant-based foods long enough, and you never have to deal with another junk food craving. It’s that simple. I would estimate this time frame to be 3-6 months tops when transitioning from a standard Western diet.
Another trick that got me through each transgression while trying to achieve this status was knowing that each time I ingested an artificially rich food, (candy, chocolate, cake, etc.) within three days the incessant cravings for that food would significantly reduce.
Again, I highly recommend you become more familiar with this fascinating mechanism by reading The Pleasure Trap. The authors are two of my favorite plant-based pioneers.
13. Breastfeeding bonus
Everyone told me about this giant perk breastfeeding has on weight-loss but I didn’t believe them until I experienced it for myself. Breastfeeding takes a huge amount of energy and thus, calories to carry out.
Don’t get me wrong, breastfeeding certainly does not come without its challenges. The pain, the inconvenience, and the stretch marks are the first things that come to mind. But it is completely worth it in the end when you get to watch your healthy baby grow and develop day after day.
Aim for one year of breastfeeding at the absolute least. Ideally, however, a baby needs her mama’s antibodies until about the two-year mark when the digestive system becomes fully developed.
14. Keep moving
Exercise is another tactic that serves you best when implemented prior, during, and after pregnancy. I kept my strength training workouts nearly identical to how they were pre-pregnancy. As for my cardio, I was forced to adapt my running into swimming by month 4.
As long as you exercise most days of the week (pre-birth) with light cardio and a strength training routine that incorporates all major muscle groups, you should have no problem bouncing back to your original weight.
After birth, give your body the time it requires to recover before reintroducing a lot of activity. I know the doctors recommend waiting six weeks. But I was able to start strength training by week 2, and walking regularly by week 3.
Be sure to “okay” any physical activity with your doc prior to starting an exercise regimen.
Postpartum weight loss meal plan
Karli Jackson