Q: I am 27 years old and I just had a baby about 8 weeks ago. I have already lost around 33 pounds and would like to lose another 20. I run around 2-4 miles a day and take in about 2000-2500 calories a day. I am also nursing so I know that burns calories. I seemed to have hit a plateau now. I will weigh myself after I run and have lost a few ponds but the next day it will be bak to what it was the day before. What advice can you give me to lose these last 20 stuborn pounds?

A: Two congratulations are in order first! Congrats on your new baby and congrats on your weight loss, Now on to your questions... What you are noticing as far as weight loss after a run which comes back is simply the temporary loss and gain of water weight. You sweat out a lot of water while running and possibly dehydrate yourself a bit. Then you drink water and rehydrate yourself to normal levels. This kind of weight change involves neither fat nor muscle and should be ignored. To track your weight with greater precision, weigh yourself in the morning after using the bathroom and before eating or drinking anything.

2000-2500 calories/day is a good healthy diet. You are not starving yourself which is very good! You can probably get an extra metabolic boost by switching to a diet like this one. You probably don't have much free time to be cooking and eating five times a day, but if you did that's what you would've wanted to do.

The second thing you can do is take up resistance training, concentrating on whole-body exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, etc. This is a good starter program and I have several others in the Weightlifting article. Please read that article before taking up weight training and don't worry if you've never thought that weight training can help you lose fat -- it can and will when combined with a controlled diet. Just don't start eating whenever you feel hungry because you will feel hungry a lot when lifting weights -- it's a sign that your metabolism is increasing!

If you can't get access to a gym for weight training, you can still do a lot of exercises at home using dumbbells and just your bodyweight. Good 'at-home' exercises include squats, lunges, crunches, touching your toes, pushups, pullups (even partial ones if you can't do a full pullup), and jumping jacks.

Try to incorporate these diet and exercise ideas into your routine and you'll shake those last 20 pounds. Again congrats and good luck!