breastfeeding and loosing weight (or NOT loosing weight)

Amanda421

hello. i am very contently BF my 4 1/2 mo son but am sooo unhappy with my weight and appearance. i still have 30 pounds to loose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. (i would be thrilled to loose 10 at this point!) the weight loss seems to have come to a stop about 2 months post partum and i have tried eating healthy with some exercise and i have not ate healthy at all and did not exercise and nothing seems to make a difference in my weight. so i think i need to get very serious about cutting calories/ eating only healthy foods/ and recommiting myself to exercise (how i have lost weight in the past) but i am really worried that i am going to negatively affect my milk supply..... but i have to do something!!!! has anyone else had this problem and lost the weight without harming the milk supply/ BF???

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jljohnson

You can definitely lose weight and continue to BF. My baby is 6 months, and I'm less than 10lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight (132lbs). I think the biggest things are to stay hydrated, and not go too low on calories. I suggest letting MFP set your daily calories for the goal you want to reach. Then just make sure you add calories back into your journal (either as food or exercise) to account for breastfeeding. If you'd like additional info on this, just let me know. I've noticed that this is a pretty common concern, so you're in good company!

sabrinafaith

It's very important that you talk to your OBGYN and pediatrician. You should be able to loose weight and still have a great milk supply, but you should ask the doctors for information regarding diet and calories. To loose weight while breast feeding you need to go slow I think, like 1700 cals a day maybe instead of 1200.

jljohnson

They actually have a pretty good tool to track your calories in the food section if you know what your output is. I believe it's under "breastfeeding" in the food database.

This is what I currently do. If you search for "breastfeeding" or "nursing" in the food database, you'll find it. I pump and bottle feed, so I'm able to enter exactly what I pump out, and it credits my calorie count.

Amanda421

thanks. that will put my cal intake around 1700 a day. that is what my ob doc told me 1600- 1800. i tried that for around 3 weeks and did not see any change in my weight but that was a while back. so i am going to try again and log my calories this time. i want to be healthy for my children and i know BF is the best for my baby. i just hope the scale will budge this time

Alleghany

Congratulations on your new baby! :flowerforyou:

I am currently breastfeeding my 6 month old and I just joined MFP in late April. Before I reached my goal, I went into my exercise folder, put in 141 minutes of breastfeeding (burning 400 cals) in the cardio section. It then gave me those extra 400 cals for my food log. Or, you can also log your BF cals by going into your food log directly. To do that, you just enter "Breastfeeding" in the food search and it'll pop up. You then select the ounces (if I'm remembering correctly) and once you hit enter, it'll show up as a calorie deficit on your food log. I prefer to log mine in the exercise log, though. Either one will work.

If you're breastfeeding, you burn anywhere from 300 to 600 calories a day (which you probably know already). Every ounce of breastmilk you make/expel burns 20 calories so if you know how much you're producing, you'll know how many cals to add to your diet. Everyone is different so this is just a rough estimate. If I feel hungry, I'll eat more as long as it's a smart choice. I was doing great on around 1600 cals per day & I'm 5' 4.5" and currently 116 lbs. Everyone is different but this should give you some idea. You will probably want to try something like this and see if it works for you. The most important thing is to keep that milk flowing for your little one.

You'll find this site is TONS of FUN and people give you amazing support! Seriously, it's absolute MAGIC as long as you are honest with yourself, log everything and stay in the correct calorie zone that works for you. Again, you'll probably have to play around to see what works best. Don't get too frustrated if you don't lose every week because there were times with me that I would lose every other week but the weightloss was significant enough to cover both weeks. Be careful to eat enough cals otherwise you'll screw up your metab and stop losing. Please read the following links/threads which have invaluable info. I wish I had read these sooner!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/55796-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

I hope this helps, Mama! Congrats again! Enjoy that little one!!

Mookz0r

I can relate to that!

As the others have said, don't cut your calories back too much - 1600 to 1800 would be ideal - because at the moment, you're probably needing another 500 just to breastfeed. Once bubs is established on solids and isn't feeding so much, you could drop that to 300 extra. I just manually adjusted my calorie goal rather than adding it in as an exercise or food.

I started watching what I ate when my then-baby was 11 months old and cut down from 2000-2200 (so THAT was why I wasn't losing! lol!) to 1450-1650 and the pounds started dropping off like magic. In 2 and a half months of calorie counting, I was down to my pre-1st-pregnancy weight. Since then I've been on a massive plateau,. but hey.

Anecdotally though, I, along with some of my bf friends found that our babies were far more content when we had full-fat and high calorie foods, such as full-fat milk and butter, cake and chocolate.

nholdorf

I am currently breastfeeding too, I was just wondering about this. These posts were very helpful.

Thank you

Nichole

hawkgurl

This definitely was useful information. I have a 3 month old and was wondering the same thing. I am stuck at a weight that is not budging, but don't want to sacrifice my little ones needs.

Amanda421

thanks that's encouraging :bigsmile: