weightloss (or lack of) while nursing

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CourtneyDanger
CourtneyDanger Posts: 16
in Health and Weight Loss
im 23 years old, and i had my son in june, im exclusively breast feeding. i gained 30 pounds with my pregnancy. and lost 20 of it with in two weeks. and now, nothing. i tried dieting, sticking with about 12-1500 k-cals a day and some light exercise. and GAINED 5 pounds, and was starving constantly and having outrageous cravings for insane foods,who ever said you lose weight faster while youre nursing is a big fat liar. so i dropped the diet act and went back to eating to my hearts content, if im not losing weigh anyway might as well eat what i want right 0.o
when i was younger i was very athletic, and in great shape. but after bilateral ACL tears, and two kids im 70 pounds heavier than my final goal weight.
i cant seem to get out of this rut, i lose motivation when i eat right and dont see results. any words of encouragement or advice?

Replies

  • jeme3
    jeme3 Posts: 355 Member
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    Nursing uses about 500 calories a day. it sounds like you were restricting your calories too much.

    Use the calculator to figure out what you should be eating to loose one pound a week. Then ADD 500 calories for the baby, Then, EAT BACK any exercise calories.

    Then make good healthy choices about your food, eat five or six times a day logging everything that goes in your mouth.

    Don't weigh yourself for a month.

    Then weigh yourself and decide if it's working or not.

    You are not in a place in your life where severely restricting calories is good or safe. Long term healthy eating patterns will get you where you want to be and will help you re-learn how to eat.

    Good luck to you!
  • FeebRyan
    FeebRyan Posts: 738 Member
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    Your body will store around half a stone in fat over your body whilst nursing, this is because you dont metabolise food into breastmilk, you metabolise fat into breastmilk.

    So you eat a mars bar (say) if you went for a run, your body would use that mars bar before using any fat

    but when you breastfeed, your body takes the quickest route, which is to take fat straight from you and turn it into milk.

    So you wont loose 'all' your weight, you will always store some and then drop it when you finish feeding.

    Its perfectly normal.
  • Willbenchforcupcakes
    Willbenchforcupcakes Posts: 4,955 Member
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    Nursing uses about 500 calories a day. it sounds like you were restricting your calories too much.

    Use the calculator to figure out what you should be eating to loose one pound a week. Then ADD 500 calories for the baby, Then, EAT BACK any exercise calories.

    Then make good healthy choices about your food, eat five or six times a day logging everything that goes in your mouth.

    Don't weigh yourself for a month.

    Then weigh yourself and decide if it's working or not.

    You are not in a place in your life where severely restricting calories is good or safe. Long term healthy eating patterns will get you where you want to be and will help you re-learn how to eat.

    Good luck to you!
    This, completely.
  • kidcole11
    kidcole11 Posts: 98 Member
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    I am bf exclusively and have lost 12lbs in 30days. It seems to help when I eat more than 1800 calories. It is hard but stick with it and you will see results. :-D
  • FitandFab33
    FitandFab33 Posts: 718 Member
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    I am also exclusively bf-ing. It requires about 650 calories to produce 24oz of milk (average amount for a day). The recommendation is that you add 500 calories to your intake each day, and the other 150 calories is supposed to come from fat accumulated during pregnancy. Based on this info, the average nursing mother loses 1-4 lbs per month (I know that's a huge range but consider the huge range of sizes, metabolisms, weight gain etc of nursing mothers). Give it some time- it took almost 10 months to gain all that weight and you're already ahead of the game. Eat enough food (i.e. somewhere around 1800-2000 kcal per day) but make it the RIGHT kind of food.. and add in some strength training so you can reshape your body/keep up muscle mass while you lose. Be sure to eat those calories as well so your supply doesn't suffer.

    You can do it Mama!! I gained a heck of a lot of weight during pregnancy (thanks to almost NO exercise and eating whatever I wanted)... and I know it's not an overnight process to get back to where I want to be. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and that is incredibly difficult for me to swallow because I don't know the meaning of the word patience!

    ETA: Make sure you take your pre-natal vitamin every day (preferably with a DHA supplement), especially when on a reduced calorie diet. I'm sure your OBGYN or ped covered that though.
  • CourtneyDanger
    CourtneyDanger Posts: 16
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    thanks ladies.
    its been rough, the first half of my pregnancy i didnt gain any weight. and i ate everything i wanted. then got put on bedrest, and had a nice time with gestational hypertension. so ive developed horrible eating habits, before i got pregnant i was jogging/ walking 8-10 miles a day 6 days a week and had this 'nothing tastes as good as skinny looks' so im going from one extreme to the other. im trying to find a happy place in the middle where i can maintain my son's health as well as my own.

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