Breastfeeding burns calories? True?

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  • enterdanger
    enterdanger Posts: 2,447 Member
    edited August 2016
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    Sued0nim wrote: »
    I am finding this thread concerning

    You should be eating at maintenance

    A wide nutritious diet

    Your body has just made a human being and now needs to sustain 2 lives

    Your body will be full of pregnancy hormones for a few months yet

    Do not cut calories ...you should be eating 2300

    Do not risk your mother-son bond, your ability to breastfeed, your health for the sake of some arbitrary number on a scale

    Your body will still look slightly pregnant and, clearly to your eyes, lose or flabby ...that's pregnancy and needs time to heal ...give it 6 weeks to postpartum check, 3 - 6 months before considering any dietary changes and 9 months to fully recover

    This! I agree with every part of this. Enjoy your baby. Do not worry about weight until you are 100% healed from giving birth. You need enough nutrition to support you and baby. I've bottle fed all of mine and even with that you have to give yourself time to recover.
  • aniamanning
    aniamanning Posts: 18 Member
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    Thank you all :)
  • b1229
    b1229 Posts: 57 Member
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    My son is 1 6mths and I breastfed for 13, if you lower your calories it will affected tour milk supply. I would worry about eating enough to have enough milk supply for tour baby. You have your whole life to lose weight. The weight will start dropping off byitseld. You probably have a lot of water weight if you had csection it took me more than a mth to lose just the water weight alone .
  • aniamanning
    aniamanning Posts: 18 Member
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    b1229 wrote: »
    My son is 1 6mths and I breastfed for 13, if you lower your calories it will affected tour milk supply. I would worry about eating enough to have enough milk supply for tour baby. You have your whole life to lose weight. The weight will start dropping off byitseld. You probably have a lot of water weight if you had csection it took me more than a mth to lose just the water weight alone .

    Were you working out to lose the weight?
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    aniamanning wrote: »
    b1229 wrote: »
    My son is 1 6mths and I breastfed for 13, if you lower your calories it will affected tour milk supply. I would worry about eating enough to have enough milk supply for tour baby. You have your whole life to lose weight. The weight will start dropping off byitseld. You probably have a lot of water weight if you had csection it took me more than a mth to lose just the water weight alone .

    Were you working out to lose the weight?

    You really need to talk to your doctor about this, particularly if you have a history of eating disorders.
  • b1229
    b1229 Posts: 57 Member
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    No I was not couldn't find the time but weight was still dropping
  • ksz1104
    ksz1104 Posts: 260 Member
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    I worked out up until I was 6 months pregnant and a exclusively breastfed until she ate solids. I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans and weighed less a week after I had her than I did when I got pregnant. It definitely burns calories. BUT, as your child is on the breast less, like when she starts solids, then you have to remember that your calorie output shrinks. That might be why I am back here on My fitness pal ...
  • ksz1104
    ksz1104 Posts: 260 Member
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    aniamanning wrote: »
    SusanMFindlay wrote: »
    Yes, breastfeeding "burns" calories. While I had issues with both, I was able to partially breastfeed my first son. My second son would not breastfeed. It has been much much harder to lose weight after the second pregnancy. I am back to calorie counting because it's the only thing that has ever worked for me.
    At 5'9, if you want breastfeeding to go well, you should certainly be eating in the 2000 calorie range not the 1500 calorie range. After all, eating 2000 calories but "losing" 500 of them in the breast milk is the equivalent of eating 1500 calories if you weren't breast feeding.
    Also, I can say from experience that post-C-section, you retain a pile of water for a few weeks of recovery. Do NOT freak out about your weight while recovering. Don't even stand on a scale until you're fully recovered. You will pee out 5-10 pounds a couple of weeks after the birth, so why bother yourself with the scale before that happens?

    My son is 2 weeks old so I may still have water retention or would u say It should be gone by now?

    Generally it takes longer than that to recover. My doctors said that my vigorous workout routine throughout pregnancy helped with my fast delivery and recovery.
  • ashliedelgado
    ashliedelgado Posts: 814 Member
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    savithny wrote: »

    You know why they tell you not to exercise strenuously? Even if you DON"T have an incision cut through your abdominal wall (which you DO), pregnancy hormones loosen the ligaments that hold your pelvis parts together. The hormones are prepping your bones for actually unhinging like a snake's jaw to let the baby out. They don't tighten up again for several weeks after the baby is born. I went for a long walk 2 weeks after my 2nd kid was born because I felt WONDERFUL. But by the end, I could feel my pelvic bones shifting and grinding against each other. NO FUN. DONT DO THAT.

    This! A coworker of mine went for a run 2 weeks post partum because she felt like a champ, and she was always physically active before - one of those crazy 30 mile bike rides in the last stretch of pregnancy type gals. A mile away from home? SHE PEED. Because her bladder was just flopping around in there, nothing holding it taut.

    I'm almost 30 weeks, and my plan for the first 6 weeks is to eat at maintenance +500 to establish supply, and then slowly taper down by 100 a week until I hit maintenance and let breast feeding establish my deficit. This is my 3rd pregnancy, and this is the exact plan followed the previous two, and I was always down to pre-pregnancy weight by my 6 week check up, if not lower. Be good to your body. It has to keep two of you alive. It can't do that if you aren't nourishing it.

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