No weight loss exclusively breastfeeding!
hinamir88
Posts: 3 Member
Anyone expereinced that?
I have a 9 month old who is ebf. I have been trying to lose weight thorugh healthy eating and some excersice since 6 months now and the scale has not moved one bit!
With my first baby I lost all the weight within 5 months, I didn't ebf him though. Anyone else experienced this?
Any help/advice greatly apprecisted.
Thankss
I have a 9 month old who is ebf. I have been trying to lose weight thorugh healthy eating and some excersice since 6 months now and the scale has not moved one bit!
With my first baby I lost all the weight within 5 months, I didn't ebf him though. Anyone else experienced this?
Any help/advice greatly apprecisted.
Thankss
0
Replies
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Yup. I didn't start losing until after I stopped. I was one of the ones who was extremely ravenous after having the baby. Or as I call it, the 4th trimester. :laugh:5
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I'm dealing with this too. The scale isn't moving :-( definitely doesn't help being hungry all the time.1
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EBFing a 4 month old here and hoping to start losing soon. I didn't really lose EBFing my first baby, but just set this app to maintenance and will let nursing make up deficit. Saw that on another thread. Hoping it works!2
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I didn't lose any while breastfeeding and was extremely hungry, just like @Chef_Barbell wrote.2
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Thanks for the replies ladies! It is reassuring to see I am not the only one. I hope we all reach our goals soon0
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I've lost 55 pounds eating at maintenance and using breastfeeding to create a deficit. My 7 month old is a happy little nurseling.2
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I didn't lose any until after breastfeeding. My body was one of the ones that likes to hold on to fat while feeding.0
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I just recently stopped breastfeeding and have started losing weight. (4 pounds the first week not breast feeding) My weight stayed exactly the same the whole time I was breastfeeding.1
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same as most above...I had tried to limit calories from 2000 to 1500 with the goal of weight loss- saw a significant drop in milk within 3 days. Decided to just focus on being healthy and having a healthy baby, went back to 2000. Didn't start losing until we finished breastfeeding. So, give yourself credit for maintaining and eating healthy...you'll have time to lose weight later and your baby needs its healthy mama now.2
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I'm really looking to start a healthier diet, and lose a few pounds.. But don't eant to lose my supply. Anyone have any suggestions? I have quite a bit to lose, and just am feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Suggestions? Tips?0
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Yikes, I'm sorry, I started dropping about a week post partum due to EBF but packed on the pounds one we got down to one feeding a day. I guess we are all wired differently!0
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SafioraLinnea wrote: »I've lost 55 pounds eating at maintenance and using breastfeeding to create a deficit. My 7 month old is a happy little nurseling.
This is what I'm doing. Hasn't impacted my supply at all and I'm losing about .5-1lb a week. The weight didn't start moving until about 8 weeks post partum even though I haven't changed anything.1 -
Our bodies do not "hold onto" fat reserves while we're nursing. You need to create a caloric deficit to lose weight. Eat at maintenance and you'll lose weight as breastfeeding creates the deficit.3
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Our bodies do not "hold onto" fat reserves while we're nursing. You need to create a caloric deficit to lose weight. Eat at maintenance and you'll lose weight as breastfeeding creates the deficit.
Sometimes that affects supply. So you make the choice to feed your baby over weight loss.7 -
Our bodies do not "hold onto" fat reserves while we're nursing. You need to create a caloric deficit to lose weight. Eat at maintenance and you'll lose weight as breastfeeding creates the deficit.
I am glad you are having such an easy time losing while breastfeeding, but it is not the same for everyone. Some women cannot lose without compromising supply and their hunger skyrockets to the point where weight loss becomes extremely difficult.
Also as you get leaner personally I think it becomes more difficult to lose fat (vs muscle) while nursing. For example, trying to get under 18% BF is really struggles. I have tried in the past and my body would rather take away muscle from my ankles than lose the last bit of fat (PS my child was over 1.5 years so I wasn't worried about supply). I am just curious if it is actually possible or the hormones can mess with me getting super lean. We will see how things go this time around.0 -
All women are different. Many women (including myself) don't lose weight until they stop nursing. Have you heard of Bikini Body Mommy? I am doing her workouts and watching my food intake here and am making some progress.2
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Our bodies do not "hold onto" fat reserves while we're nursing. You need to create a caloric deficit to lose weight. Eat at maintenance and you'll lose weight as breastfeeding creates the deficit.
Just curious, do you have experience nursing? I don't mean for this to sound confrontational--it's an honest question. The notion that women lose their baby weight from nursing works in theory and some (lucky) women are quite successful at maintaining a steady loss without losing their supply. I was never able to achieve any significant weight loss while nursing my son without compromising my supply--even with an industrial breast pump. I had "friends" pointing out how they "got so thin while breastfeeding" and they "couldn't understand" what was wrong with me.
I carefully tracked "all" calories, walked/jogged nearly every day, and ran my first half marathon when he was nine months old. I was in great physical shape but carried the extra body fat. I was also told that breast size stabilizes over time with nursing--not in my case. For what it's worth, I'm already busty and while nursing I wore a size 32J bra. Try not to get discouraged--I know it's easier said than done when you're ready to feel like yourself after being pregnant for so long. I stopped weighing myself regularly after awhile because it was too frustrating to not see progress on the scale. I started tracking inches lost in a journal. I managed to lose inches (but not pounds) for a year or so before weaning my son. Yes, my weight stayed almost the same (give or take normal water retention) but I regularly lost inches. Once he was weaned at the one year mark, the extra weight fell off almost effortlessly by the time he was 14-15 months old.
As another poster pointed out, eating at maintenance in order to enjoy those 300-500 breastfeeding calories that would create a natural deficit just doesn't work for some women. We'll see how it goes with round two as I'm due in August.7 -
I didn't lose any weight while EBF. I was hungry all the time, and actually lost my milk as soon as I started reducing calories and had to bottle feed at 7 months pp. Weight started to come off after I weaned my baby. Everybody is different.1
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I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
I'm more than 30 pounds below my pre-pregnant weight. I eat at maintenance calories. I use breastfeeding to create a deficit. If I exercise (and I do!) I eat back those calories.
In the last six months it has been 5 pounds a month averaged out over that time. I lost about 25 pounds before my 6w postpartum check up but that was not intentional as I did not try to lose until after that checkup.
If you eat at maintenance and nurse you will lose weight. It is not a linear process - some weeks I lose next to nothing and others I lose 3lbs - but with patience and time and persistence and accurate logging it will happen.
The purpose of eating at maintenance is to not lose your milk supply. So the post-baby steps to successful fat loss:
1. Do nothing until after your 6w check up. This allows your body to heal, hormones to balance and milk supply to be secured.
2. Accurately calculate your maintenance calories. Use several different calculators to get an idea of the accuracy of the number. MFP underestimates my maintenance calories, scooby does a decent job.
3. Eat ALL of your maintenance calories and no more! Regardless of how hungry you think you are. Maintenance is all you need.
4. Breastfeeding creates a deficit.
5. If you exercise, accurately calculate your exercise calories and eat all of those.
6. Follow this accurately and over a long period of time. A week is not enough. A month is probably enough to see some difference.
7. If you lose 5 pounds or more recalculate your maintenance calories.2 -
SafioraLinnea wrote: »I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
I'm more than 30 pounds below my pre-pregnant weight. I eat at maintenance calories. I use breastfeeding to create a deficit. If I exercise (and I do!) I eat back those calories.
In the last six months it has been 5 pounds a month averaged out over that time. I lost about 25 pounds before my 6w postpartum check up but that was not intentional as I did not try to lose until after that checkup.
If you eat at maintenance and nurse you will lose weight. It is not a linear process - some weeks I lose next to nothing and others I lose 3lbs - but with patience and time and persistence and accurate logging it will happen.
The purpose of eating at maintenance is to not lose your milk supply. So the post-baby steps to successful fat loss:
1. Do nothing until after your 6w check up. This allows your body to heal, hormones to balance and milk supply to be secured.
2. Accurately calculate your maintenance calories. Use several different calculators to get an idea of the accuracy of the number. MFP underestimates my maintenance calories, scooby does a decent job.
3. Eat ALL of your maintenance calories and no more! Regardless of how hungry you think you are. Maintenance is all you need.
4. Breastfeeding creates a deficit.
5. If you exercise, accurately calculate your exercise calories and eat all of those.
6. Follow this accurately and over a long period of time. A week is not enough. A month is probably enough to see some difference.
7. If you lose 5 pounds or more recalculate your maintenance calories.
Yeah no.3 -
For me the scale didn't start moving until I stopped adding the BF calories. And even then, I decided to take it slow. I'm averaging about 0.5 a week right now. Any more than that, and I was compromising supply. It took me about 4 months to find the right balance for my Chunk and I, but we got there.0
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SafioraLinnea wrote: »I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
I'm more than 30 pounds below my pre-pregnant weight. I eat at maintenance calories. I use breastfeeding to create a deficit. If I exercise (and I do!) I eat back those calories.
In the last six months it has been 5 pounds a month averaged out over that time. I lost about 25 pounds before my 6w postpartum check up but that was not intentional as I did not try to lose until after that checkup.
If you eat at maintenance and nurse you will lose weight. It is not a linear process - some weeks I lose next to nothing and others I lose 3lbs - but with patience and time and persistence and accurate logging it will happen.
The purpose of eating at maintenance is to not lose your milk supply. So the post-baby steps to successful fat loss:
1. Do nothing until after your 6w check up. This allows your body to heal, hormones to balance and milk supply to be secured.
2. Accurately calculate your maintenance calories. Use several different calculators to get an idea of the accuracy of the number. MFP underestimates my maintenance calories, scooby does a decent job.
3. Eat ALL of your maintenance calories and no more! Regardless of how hungry you think you are. Maintenance is all you need.
4. Breastfeeding creates a deficit.
5. If you exercise, accurately calculate your exercise calories and eat all of those.
6. Follow this accurately and over a long period of time. A week is not enough. A month is probably enough to see some difference.
7. If you lose 5 pounds or more recalculate your maintenance calories.
I think this partially has something to do with how much you weigh to start. I'm eating 2400 calories a day and losing just from breastfeeding deficits BUT I'm 220 lbs so I can eat that much and list weight. Someone who is smaller and needs to eat 1500 calories for maintenance might actually be hungry all the time.
Second I wouldn't tell a new mom to just eat at maintenance even if she is starving. Because if it's a choice between a healthy mind or a healthy body always go with the mind first!8 -
How much are you eating? Are you using a food scale?
Since baby is 9 months old, you could try a small deficit (-250) since supply should be well established.0 -
SafioraLinnea wrote: »I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
I'm more than 30 pounds below my pre-pregnant weight. I eat at maintenance calories. I use breastfeeding to create a deficit. If I exercise (and I do!) I eat back those calories.
Good for you. BUT for some of us any kind of a deficit, even one created by breastfeeding = loss of supply.7 -
Thaks a lot ladies! This has helped a lottt. I am planning to log everything I eat and eat at maintainance and continue my workout routine.
Luna, no I don't use a food scale and my maintance is about 1800cal that I am allowed which is actually enogh for me and I have a good supply on it. So fingers crossed hopefully I will see some results now. Xxxx0 -
SafioraLinnea wrote: »I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
You're not hearing what they're telling you. They're *not* saying "I'm logging maintenance calories, breastfeeding to create a deficit but not losing weight". They're saying "If I don't eat maintenance+500 calories, my milk supply drops".
You don't believe it because it didn't work that way for you - but that's because you won the hormone lottery. You got hormones that continued to tell your body to produce milk even though you were running a deficit. Not everyone is so lucky.
I never got to exclusively breastfeed. With my second baby, I never got to breastfeed at all. Deficit or no deficit. Regardless of how many supplements and medications I took to try and make it happen. Regardless of how many hours of my life I spent pumping. BREASTFEEDING IS NOT EQUALLY EASY FOR EVERY WOMAN!!! If it was easy for you, congratulations! But that doesn't give you the right to negate other women's experiences.9 -
Thaks a lot ladies! This has helped a lottt. I am planning to log everything I eat and eat at maintainance and continue my workout routine.
Luna, no I don't use a food scale and my maintance is about 1800cal that I am allowed which is actually enogh for me and I have a good supply on it. So fingers crossed hopefully I will see some results now. Xxxx
The food scale has really helped me. Wish I would have used it sooner!1 -
SusanMFindlay wrote: »SafioraLinnea wrote: »I have doubt that people who claim they can't lose are accurately tracking their intake and activity levels. Every single person I have talked to about post baby fat loss and has done what I do find success.
You're not hearing what they're telling you. They're *not* saying "I'm logging maintenance calories, breastfeeding to create a deficit but not losing weight". They're saying "If I don't eat maintenance+500 calories, my milk supply drops".
You don't believe it because it didn't work that way for you - but that's because you won the hormone lottery. You got hormones that continued to tell your body to produce milk even though you were running a deficit. Not everyone is so lucky.
I never got to exclusively breastfeed. With my second baby, I never got to breastfeed at all. Deficit or no deficit. Regardless of how many supplements and medications I took to try and make it happen. Regardless of how many hours of my life I spent pumping. BREASTFEEDING IS NOT EQUALLY EASY FOR EVERY WOMAN!!! If it was easy for you, congratulations! But that doesn't give you the right to negate other women's experiences.
ˆ
This x 1000
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With my second baby, I was determined come hell or high water to lose the baby weight. I lost it for sure, and I looked good. But he was suffering nutritionally. He was a very happy, easy-going baby, so I didn't realize what was happening, but he wasn't growing the way he should've been and I naively thought that my body would do what it takes to give him the milk he needed. Imagine my guilt when I switched him to formula at ten months and he started thriving. I wish I could go back and do it differently.
With baby three, I was determined not to make the same mistake. The weight came off a lot more slowly, but I did eventually lose most of it (and I think I would've lost it all if I had not gotten pregnant when she was 10 months old).
In my opinion, a year flies by. You'll nurse your little baby and then suddenly it'll be over, and you'll never have that time again. But you will have the rest of your life, when your hormones return to normal, to focus on your figure. So give it a try, try eating at maintenance and using a food scale and all that, but if your priority is establishing healthy exclusively nursing relationship, don't stress the weight-loss too much. It will come off.6 -
So glad I found this thread! 11 weeks PP, breastfeeding, and haven't lost any pregnancy weight yet. Just wanted to add that my OB shared about 1/3 of the moms in her practice don't lose any weight until they are done nursing. Calorie deficit alone doesn't necessarily solve the problem because of the body's hormone regulation.
Way to go to all the mamas out there, pregnancy and childbirth are tough enough - nursing isn't a walk in the park either! I look forward to getting my prepregnancy body back someday, but for now I'm just focusing on eating healthy and exercising 3-5 times a week and keeping up my supply while nursing.3
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