Hello! I am new to the forum and new to loosing weight. It seems all I have been doing for the past 6 years is gaining weight. I have 3 children, Bella (5), Joey (3) and Matt (8 months and nursing). I got pregnant 2 months after being married with Bella and since then I have been either pregnant or nursing, except for 6 months. That 6 months was after I nursed Joey for 18 months and I actually started to lose weight, and then I got pregnant for Matt. I didn't gain a lot of weight with my pregnancies, the most was 35lbs. The problem was that I didn't loose all the weight, usually only 15 - 20lbs. With the last pregnancy I lost 20 right away and then have gained it back slowly. I now weigh exactly what I weighed when I was pregnant with Matthew. It is soooo frustrating. I love breastfeeding; it is such a wonderful gift I am able to give my children, but I feel so down about not loosing any weight. Everyone told me breastfeeding helps you loose the weight faster. In my case, it is not true my body stores the fat while breastfeeding. I keep telling myself, that I only get this time for a little while, enjoy it now. You can lose weight later. Well, instead of doing nothing about it, I am going to start doing something. I have been excercising for the past 3 weeks on and off. I am on this forum now to make myself accountable and get some support. I would like to excercise 3 times a week at least. I also need to increase my water intake, so I am going to start keeping track of how much water I drink a day. Wish me luck!

hello and congrats on making it this far with nursing! i was also a nursing mom (my daughter weaned at 14 months so i am no longer nursing at the moment) so i know how hard it can be to lose weight and nurse. its no myth that nursing *can* help you lose weight, but its no magic cure. You have to really put forth an effort. Nursing burns anywhere from 500 to 700 calories a day. If you eat healthy and exersize, you will lose more weight than a non nursing mom would. When your body uses fat stores for nursing, its only about 5-10lbs that it keeps. the rest is safe to lose. What i did to help me lose, i set a reasonable goal. i said 1 or 2lbs a week. that way i could still eat to keep up with nursing and i didnt fail at my diet because i didnt get discouraged when i didnt lose an enormous amount of weight in a short time. I ended up losing 5lbs a month and in 9 months i got it all off. (i gained 50lbs, lost 15 in the first month and took the other 9 months to get the rest off and then some) What i made sure, was to get rid of all the junk in the house. i put myself and my family on a very healthy, low cal low fat, whole foods diet. we switched to fat free dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, etc) and ate whole wheat bread and pasta. we switched from ground beef and hotdogs, to ground turkey and turkey dogs (for my 2 year old) we ate turkey bacon instead of regular bacon, ate tons of fruits and veggies. When you nurse, its good to snack to keep up your milk and settle your hunger. so what i did was i would buy a watermelon or cantolope, cut it up into several different containers, and when i was hungry, i would grab a cup of watermelon and snack instead of something else that was unhealthy. As for exercize, it was simple. I just took a one hour walk with my babies 5 nights a week and thats all it took. i felt better, i looked better, and i was healthy again. i hope i gave you some good tips from one nursing mom to another. good luck with everything and congrats again on nursing. you are doing the absolute best thing for your baby (of course you know that already) and it makes me proud to see another woman with so much dedication to her baby.

oh i forgot. as far as water goes...that is a must. try to drink at least 60 oz day if you can. not only is it good for you but it does numbers for your milk supply :-)

Hi there. I lost weight inititally when BFing DD. Then about 12 weeks the weight started climbing back on. After seeing Christmas photos of myself, that was enough to spur myself into action. I got serious about my weight and I do believe BFing is helping me to lose the weight, but it's also about my diet and exercise.

Good luck, it can be done, all while having a sucessful BFing relationship. DD is now 11 months old and we are still going strong.

I am pretty new to 3FC, I have a 2 yr DS and a 6 mo DD. I lost most of the weight I gained from DD's pregnancy, but was having a hard time losing any more. I would really like to get back to what I weighed 5 years ago!

Anyway, when I first looked at 3FC I followed someones link to FitDay and it has really worked for me. I wasn't really aware of how many calories I was consuming (WAY too many). I have been keeping track of everything there (fitday.com) and walking with my LO's most days for the past week and have already lost 5 pounds!

I hope the success keeps coming, I have been overweight for too long!

Is anybody else counting calories while nursing? What is your target amount?

After my first pregnancy, I believed the "9 months to gain and 9 months to lose," and that nursing was all I needed to do to lose the weight. I have a 2 year old and a 5 month old, and since that didn't work the first time, I knew I needed to work hard after I had my second son to lose the weight. I'm also hoping to have a third child, so I'm trying to get this excess weight off now before I compound it

I do believe that nursing burns calories - but I think it also makes your body crave more food. Or perhaps that's just because I always crave food For me, calorie counting and exercise are making a difference in reducing my cravings and losing weight.

I know that when I was fit I burned 2270 calories/day. (High tech eval done at a gym.) So, I have a spreadsheet where I've used a few other data points to give myself a calorie range so I can make goals and set my expectations. (I obsess a little when I'm dieting, and my spreadsheet makes me happy .) I don't think I'm burning 500-700 calories a day with nursing, I think for me it's more like 300. So I give myself a goal, like 2 lbs lost per week, which is supposed to be safe while nursing. That's 7000 calories, or a deficit of 1000 calories a day. I take 2270, subtract 1000 and have 1270. I add 300 back in for nursing, which puts me at 1570. Then I add back in whatever exercise I do for the day, using either an online calorie expenditure calculator or my heart rate monitor watch. Say I burn 300 calories with a long stroller walk. That gives me 1870 calories I can eat that day. If I don't feel like exercising I just cut back on the food. (Which is not too fun, so it gets me out for a walk more often than not!)

I also do workout dvds at home if I can get the boys to nap at the same time, or when they're in bed for the night. I'm doing Jari Love for weights, because I know that adding more muscle to my body will burn more calories, allowing me to eat more.

I've found that I need to add in some snacks to avoid bingeing on goldfish or whatever else my toddler is eating. I try to eat every 3 to 4 hours, eating fruit, veggies and yogurt as regular snacks. I eat frozen meals for lunch - Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, South Beach, whatever's on sale - so I have controlled portions. And, I save some calories for dessert, because going without makes me feel deprived, so I cheat. I like skinny cows and Trader Joe's small dark chocolate bars.

Slow and steady is the key - though that's horribly frustrating at times! My 5 month old weighed in at 19.5 lbs at his 4 month check up, so I'm positive that the working out and counting my calories isn't reducing my milk supply.

I wish good luck to you and to the rest of us!