Help! I can't get rid of my baby bulge
What is it about being a mother that makes you fat? Of course it is not the story for everyone – lots of women "snap back" after pregnancy, or fight their way through WeightWatchers when their youngest is two or three and then keep it off. But there are plenty of others pushing buggies, playing with toddlers and delivering children at the school gates still a stone or three heavier than before they were pregnant.
I am one of these women. I was never skinny but at 5ft 4in, I weighed around 9st 7lb for most of my adult life and had never weighed more than 10st. It was a good level for me: sustainable while I ate and drank pretty much what I wanted and exercised to please myself. A happy size 12.
I loved being pregnant but I remember a sinking feeling when I was reading an NHS pamphlet that warned me not to eat too much. "Pregnancy can be the start of lifelong weight problems for some women," it insisted darkly, and somehow I knew I was one of them. When I dared to weigh myself after my daughter was born I was 10st 10lb – not bad, compared to some women around me, who had three or four stone to lose. But I am still 10st 10lb today and my daughter is at primary school.
The Government is concerned about women like me. At the end of this month, Nice plans to issue guidelines to GPs to advise women against gaining too much weight in pregnancy (you don't need to eat for two), and to assist them in losing their extra pounds afterwards.
Media attention tends to focus on one end of the scale – the pressure on women created when celebrities like Myleene Klass lose their baby weight quickly – but the NHS is probably more concerned about the women who don't lose it at all. When Nice published its draft advice, Mr Tahir Mahmood, vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said, "We need to get the message across that mothers should be encouraged to work towards reaching their pre-pregnancy weight as this is an important indicator of future health."
I think I eat fairly sensibly. I resist my partner's special breakfasts of fried Spam and eggs and I try to fit in some exercise. So what is it that has happened to my body? Why can't I reach and sustain the weight I was before, effortlessly, the way it used to be? Is there some trick of the metabolism at work?
Helen Bond, a nutritionist and dietician based in Derbyshire, quickly banishes that idea. "During pregnancy your metabolism increases greatly, and it increases again when you are breastfeeding, but afterwards, it will go back to where it was before," she says.
Age, however, is an issue, she says, because metabolism slows down when you get older, and of course there are more older mothers these days. I was 39 when I had my daughter. "When you are 39 your metabolism is much slower than at 29. It is much harder. Your body has a set point that your weight moderates to and it goes up as you get older."
The majority of women, she says, do get back to their pre-pregnancy weight within a year of birth, and you should make this your aim. "If you enter the toddler stage still overweight, then it is much harder to get it down. Because all the mum hazards kick in. Baking, clearing up the toddler's plates... their priorities take over from yours. You can't get out to exercise. You might be feeding your children healthily but often not yourself. You have the odd biscuit, the odd fish finger, you don't count it and it all adds up. And if you don't get enough sleep, you will gain weight. Lots of studies show that."
drive from www.independent.co.uk
