BFers losing weight - Oct.
 

Lose on, ladies! I hope we all have a great month. I'm on day five of vacation and so far so good.

I am hoping everyone has a great month as well!! I'm new here but excited to have found a forum and esp one with an area for nursing mothers!!! I'm 1 week and 1 day into my calorie counting and I'm doing great so far! I have so much energy and I'm excited to continue

Okay ladies, I need some advice. Its been awhile since I've posted (a long while actually) so I apologize for that.

Here's my dilemna. My doctor's advised me that I need to follow a low carb diet and eat 6 small meals a day in order to keep my blood sugars from crashing like they have been. He ran several tests to rule out hypoglycemia, diabetes, thyroid, etc. and they were all normal, save for a fairly low fasting blood sugar. I'm trying to find information on how many calories a nursing mom should eat, coupled with how much % wise of those calories should be from carbs if I'm eating low carb. Any suggestions?

I don't know about the percentages, but the rule of thumb is that a nursing mom should never drop below 1800 calories. It takes anywhere from 300-500 calories per day to make milk (depending on how often you're nursing, etc.), so that's like a normal person eating 1300-1500 calories per day.

I've been eating close to the 1800 calorie goal, but honestly, am finding it hard to hit that. I've been using Fitday to track my intake and honestly, I barely top 1600 most days, assuming I'm tracking it correctly. My weight is constant and milk production is okay. I imagine if I'd eat more, it would be better. I'm just conflicted between eating a lower fat/high protein diet and a low carb/high fat diet. I'd rather my body get the fat it needs for milk production from me than the foods I eat! I've always struggled with weight loss and even before pregnancy I'd only eat 1200 calories a day and never lose. I'd try eating more, and still the scale wouldn't budge. Its just frustrating beyond belief to not know what's going on with my health and to not know what/how to eat to help weight loss.

Do you know what resources that are saying not to go below 1800 calories? I thought you're supposed to do a calorie deficit to lose the weight?

First of all, it's more important to talk to your or even better yet, your babies doctor. I talked with a nutritionist after talking to my dr (who is also the babies dr.), the dr said 1800, the nutritionist said because of my weight and the abundant supply I have that I could safely go down to 1600... I seem to do best at 1800-2000 a day.

You need to remember before you even worry about losing weight, you need to worry about the baby that you are feeding, esp if you are your baby's only source of nutrition. In most women, going below 1800 not only makes your milk supply drop or dry up completely, it is hard to get all the nutrients that your baby needs from less calories than that. Yes you can take vitamins to help make up those nutrients, but the fact is that your body doesn't absorb pill form nutrients as well as it does natural nutrients that occur in a healthy diet.

Anyway, here is a good link as well at the thread in the stickies at the top of pregnant and breast feeding support group.
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/mo...es-fluids.html

I have also talked to my daughter's doctor and a nutritionist and they both said because my daughter is "older" and is eating solids 2-3 times a day that I could go from 1500-1600 when taking my weight into consideration... My daughter is 8 months old and I plan to only nurse her for another 3 months and I have an oversupply due to pumping... But like findingfawn said it is important to first consider your baby and then your weight loss and I found it important to consult with professionals first (even though we are told to do this all the time before starting a weight loss program or exercise program it is really important in this case!)


Just my little 2 cents hehe

I agree that consulting your Dr or your pediatrician is the first thing you should do.

Water weight?
 

Of course we all want to do what's most healthy for our babies. I just didn't realize we needed that many calories to produce milk!

I do have a question, how often have you lost pounds? What I mean is that are you all seeing your scales decrease once a week? I'm finding that my weight fluctuates a lot more now that I'm BF because it depends on when I feed her or how much water I've drank the day before. I started a portion-control diet, lost a few pounds initially but now I'm in a plateau.

I lose a consistant 1-2 pounds a week.. sometimes more. I started counting calories in July and have lost about 30 pounds now, I'm expeciting when I weigh in on Monday to be down to 220 from 251 just 12 weeks ago. I honestly wouldn't lose anything on just portion control. You can eat a serving of fatty hamburger and have eaten 200+ calories, or you can eat 4 oz of chicken breast and only eat 120 calories... that over the course of a day can make a HUGE difference.

ETA... Oh.. and just to answer your question specifically, some weeks the scale doesn't move at all, some weeks the scale moves down a pound every two days... sometimes I have had weeks where I didn't appear to lose anything at all, but then the next week woosh, 4 or 5 pounds were gone. Many people can not weigh in every day, I have to, it keeps me on track, but many can't because they allow the scale's numbers to control them.

For me, this is all about a life change, and I'm involving everyone in my family. My hubby has lost 40 pounds in 12 weeks because I have cut out bad and empty calories from our house. My kids are all better for it as well, and they are learning good nutrition for life so hopefully they never ever fall into the horrible eating habits I grew up with.

Down another pound this week at weigh in! I'll take it... I'm happy with myself that I lost weight while being on vacation!

Mommy2bandc, while nursing I've been losing 1-1.5 lbs per week while doing weight watchers. When I wasn't nursing (pre-baby), I lost more like 2-2.5 lbs per week. Most people that I've talked to say it's way harder to lose weight while you're nursing. Your body really wants to hang on to those extra stores. Just take it a day at a time!

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I got off track for a few weeks. But I am back on! I stopped calorie counting because it was making me really neurotic, so I'm am just doing intuitive eating now, and the 30 Day Shred, boy that video kicks my butt. I'm happy to report that while on hiatus I didn't gain any back! I'm trying not to get myself down about how much weight I could have lost during my vacation, I am just moving forward! I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well!

Way to go Gale!!

I agree that it's harder to lose while nursing... but for me, I'm not so sure it's that my body wants to hold the fat stores, I have a hard time not binging! There are days where I'm just not very hungry at all, but then there are days that I am wanting to eat everything in site.. even if it means eating my 5 month old, because I can't get enough food...lol.

Kayla, everyone needs a vacation once in a while right? As long as it's not a perminate vacation, no big deal.

FDLOL, I know exactly what you mean! That's one reason I think I'm doing well on Weight Watchers. They have weekly points that aren't set on any one day but can be used at any point during the week. It gives me that allowance to be able to have a "bad" day sometimes and still be on plan. :)

I'm so glad I found this group! Just wanted to introduce myself.
I'm a 28-year old first time mom of a beautiful little girl born Aug 14th. I ended up having to have a c-section, and have just been approved by my doctor for low-impact exercise only... she said to wait another four weeks before starting to run again.
I gained 60 lbs during my pregnancy - eek. I had also been working on losing some weight when I first found I was pregnant, and was 15 lbs away from my goal of 140... right now, at around 190 (not sure my scale is accurate), I'm the heaviest I've been in about 6 years. 7 years ago, I topped off at 198. I got down to 148 on Jenny Craig, without exercise. 4 years ago, I regained to 180 and dropped back down to 150 in only a few months by watching my food intake and exercising hard... realized then how much I loved exercise, particularly running! I was training for a half-marathon when I found out I was pregnant, so I'm very excited to get back on that so I can register for the local races starting in April-May!
As anyone, I have a few obstacles... I am a single mom. My boyfriend left me as soon as I found out I was pregnant (part of the reason I gained so much weight was the depression that followed that). Because of that, I've moved right across the country to live with my brother... I am Canadian, and we have an AMAZING system here that allows moms to take a full year of paid maternity. Unfortunately, with only the one income, I couldn't afford to take the full year, until my brother offered to take us in so that I could. This also brings me closer to my parents and younger sister, although they're still a 10-hour drive away. Moving to French Canada has it's challenges - although I speak a bit of French, I really have no connections to allow me to meet new people, so that's going to be a challenge. I don't want to be isolated here, especially once winter comes and I'm somewhat house-bound. I did sell my vehicle before moving, and cannot afford to buy another, so there will be no way to get to a gym... and I really can't afford to buy anything too spiffy for a home-gym, either. I'm able to get out and walk lots now... I'm getting about 2 hours of walking in most days, usually carrying my baby in a sling to increase calorie burn, and often carrying groceries one-way, too. Once the snow comes, that will be a bit more of a challenge, esp when Dec-Jan brings the very, very cold weather... brrr.
Anyway, I'll have a few challenges in being creative with exercise once the really cold weather sets in and I won't be leaving the house much, in somehow meeting people in this new and somewhat isolating situation, and in keeping on track with eating when boredom may come to trigger some old bad habits...
Hope everyone has a great weekend... looking forward to getting to know you all!

Hi Barb, welcome! You lucky duck getting a year of paid maternity!! So many here in the states would give anything for that. I'm lucky enough to be a stay at home mom, but it comes at a price... mostly our bank account..lol. I'm so happy you got to move to be with/near your family, that is important.

Well, I did HORRIBLE this weekend :( Saturday was our 6th anniversary :) We have never celebrated much for it, but we did this year! Friday night we went to see Toy Story and Toy Story 2 (seeing a movie at the theater in 3D is totally amazing, we are going to take the kids to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs this coming weekend... lets home I can control myself then!), not only did we eat a large popcorn between the two of us I ate one of those boxes of M&Ms :( Saturday I did pretty well all day, we took the kids for a long ride to look at the beautiful leaves. We went up to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, had a picnic and we all shared a small cake. I would have been fine if I would have stuck with a light dinner, but on the way home hubby and I decided we needed some us time and stopped at the store for a pack of steaks.... sadly hubby went in for them and came out with 2 steaks in a package that each weighed a pound! Yep I ate the whole 1 pound steak. Yesterday, I did pretty well until dinner. We made chicken fajitas on whole wheat tortillas... they were so good I ate 2 of them... was soooo stuffed I could have puked and totally regretted it in the end. I would have been fine calorie wise with one of those huge fajitas, but 2 was way over the limit!

Oh well... starting over today, can't beat myself up over what I have done in the past... I can only look at today and plan for tomarrow.

I had a remarkably bad 3 days. Caleb had/has swine flu (fever broke today, hopefully it's gone!) so I was eating whatever and whenever I could. Lots of eating out and lots of junk.

Today is a new day, no need to continue this trend!

I didn't have the greatest weekend ever either. I learned that I shouldn't really send my husband on the grocery trip! He always comes home with sweets. I have no self control when it comes to sugar. Today is a new day! I have an appointment with Jillian Michael's in a half hour to kick my butt!

I'm still here too!! I'm at 190 but the scale was at 189.5 for a day. Very anxious to get to the 180s for real.
My computer died so I'm using my phone. Kind of a pain. We have a new system on it's way.
Dieting has gone well. Exercise...meh. I'm walking but have slacked on running. Trying to motivate myself to get off my butt.

My baby is 14 months old, almost 15 & nursing when I get home from work til bed time. Not constantly--ha. I pump once during the day. I'm wondering when she'll wean. She gets so excited to nurse--she squeals & shivers. I am in it for the long haul tho. Love breastfeeding

Ok enough rambling.

Ok.. Saiken's post made me think... do you have a plan for stopping breast feeding? I mean do you have an age where you will say "that's enough"?

My goal is to make it to a year this time around, my plan was to quit at 18 months, but not I'm not so sure I will be able to...lol. With my oldest I didn't bf, with my DD, I had to stop at 5 months because I was 5 months out of a section and 2 months pregnant and the dr started panicing. With my 3yo DS, I made it to 6 months and needed my body back, I had been hating nursing for months.. he was a very large baby and at 6 months he still had the abitity to hold himself into postions of a 6 month old but was as heavy as an 18 month old (he was like 24 pounds at 6 months.. now at 3 he is a solid muscle 45+ pounds!). The little guy is nice to nurse, and I can see that he enjoys the bond (DD loved it too, 3yo DS didn't seem to care either way.. he never had trouble taking a bottle etc, DD and the baby both HATE(D) the bottle). Anyway, I guess I will think about that more when that time gets here.

A bad week all around, I'm really hoping not to gain at Friday's weigh in but won't be surprised if I do.

Caleb has gone down to 2 feedings per day. He is really not interested in nursing, so I quit forcing that mid-day feeding on him. In the morning and at night he'll latch on for about a minute at a time and then detach and look around and play for a few seconds; repeat 4 or 5 times per side. He doesn't want to take time out of his busy day to nurse. It's going to be a struggle to get this kid to nurse for a year. On the bright side (I guess), he loves cow's milk from his sippy cup so when I do stop nursing completely I shouldn't have any problems getting enough protein in him. (For those of you that may worry - I did talk to his Dr and she said that cows milk one feeding per day was just fine, especially since he's so close to that one year mark [Nov. 21st]) Part of me is going to be glad to be done nursing, part of me is sad about it. :( Ah well, sometimes it's time to let go a little... right?

And then I go out to lunch today and eat fried zuchinni and homemade chips...

I guess if you're going to fall off the wagon you may as well fall BIG!! ;)

GAHHH I need to vent for a second to other moms that know what I'm going through so bare with me for a second or just skip right on to the next post!!!

I'm just sooo frusterated with breastfeeding and dieting right now! Before the little one came along I would not even really have to "diet" maybe just cut out a snack a day and I would drop 5lbs a week easily... NOWWWW its like I have to work my butt off, I'm staying from 1500-1600 calories (which is the lowest I can per drs orders in order to have enough milk for my baby) and I"m losing like 1-2 lbs a week... My daughter is nearly 9 months old and I'm like still 20lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight! I was 238 two days before I gave birth to my 8lb 8oz daughter and then got down to like 218 and THEN I got a Mirena IUD and I skyrocketed back up to 227lbs!!

You think God would be easier on the ones who dont have the time or energy to focus on dieting/exercising!! haha

Oh Brittni, I can so relate... well sort of. I'm doing good on losing, but I have to struggle all day not to eat like a pig. I am constantly hungry, no matter what I eat.

As far as the Mirena.. I had the paragaurd after my 3rd.. I didn't want hormones at all. That thing was a nightmare! After 5 months of bleeding so heavy I couldn't leave my house and was going through 4 or more pads an hour and usually my clothes for that hour too I had it removed. They insisted I needed something so I went against my better judgement and went on the pill. I too flew up the scale and also had a small nervous breakdown. It ended in hubby and I having our only ever fight... and him flushing the pills down the toilet. Hormonal BC is a total nightmare for many many women :hug:

Oh, as for me.. well I have been struggling. I need to get a grip and I need to get it fast because I'm getting to the point where I turn the tide and give up almost every time I have ever tried to change my life like this.

This time I know how important it is, I have given myself the option to lose this weight alone or with surgery. I DO NOT want surgery, I know too many people who have had problems after it, so I HAVE to do this on my own. I am done having babies, it's now time for me to take back my body.. I can and will do this.

Oh and Gale, don't be too hard on yourself, Today is a new day and you can start all over :hug:

I didn't go to weight watchers today. Caleb (and consequently I) was awake from 3am until 6:15am. After changing him and wrapping him up so he was warm and rocking him and letting him cry for a long time, I thought "hey, maybe he's hungry"... I figured it was a long shot since he hasn't eaten at night since he was 3 months old. But, I get him a cup of milk about 5:45am, he chugged 8 oz and fell right asleep until 10:30. I feel like I win the bad mother award for not thinking he was hungry before then. :(

Needless to say, I wasn't getting up at 8 this morning to go to weight watchers. Next week.

Oh Gale, I have been there! Now I just instantly throw a boob in the poor guys face at the first whimper at night. We still have nights once in a while where he will think it's time to get up and play at 3 am... what the heck is up with that? Hubby will just laugh at Cameron's squeels of delight and go right back to sleep... and I silently grumble at him and think "pack your own damn lunch before work".. then I lovingly get up and pack his stupid lunch.

We're only nursing twice per day right now so I'm just not producing any milk at night. I would have nursed him if I could. My milk production is way down since Caleb is trying to wean himself. :(

It's so unusual for him to get up at night, but especially to stay awake like that... I should have known something was hinky.

How is everyone doing?

I'm struggling on a daily basis.. I am finding certain foods are trigger foods for me and when I eat one I have to eat a ton of them.. like granola bars (cereal bars etc.) I can not eat just one and be satisfied... I have to eat like 4 or 5 of the stupid things, can't control myself after one goes in my mouth, so they have to be off limits I guess. My brain processes them as candy bars I guess, because I'm the same way with chocolate.

The scale has stayed the same.. but it's time to get my rump in gear and get it moving south again! Doing great today, trying to get creative with my food choices so that I someday I get to goal!

This week has gone horribly exercise wise :-( "TOM" is here this week, Lydia (my daughter) is cutting a tooth, and its midterm exams at school and I just have been soooo tired... the only exercise I have done so far is a medium length walk.... Calorie consumption has been right on track but I know this Saturday (weigh in day) I'm not going to see as good of results I have been seeing... I have lost 8.7 lbs so far and I"m hoping to get to 10lbs *crosses fingers*

I hateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee exercising :-( :-(

Another bad, bad, bad week for me. DH and I made the AWESOME decision :rolleyes: to get into the halloween candy this week. Not the most brilliant of plans. Apparently I can't control myself around chocolate... I'll be glad when it's gone!

I have weigh in tomorrow, I'm betting I'll be up about 2 or 3 lbs in the last 2 weeks. *sigh* Oh well, just gotta keep on truckin'.

I've been doing really great this week and am totally proud of myself. So proud that I want to keep doing what I've been doing and feel even more proud of myself! I have a feeling today is going to be a little iffy. I got almost no sleep on account of there was a terrible accident in the parking lot of my apartment last night. The Mazda SUV jumped a curb, hit a tree, and flipped onto its roof, all about 30 feet from my front windows. One man was ejected and died on the scene. His body was obviously visible from my window. I was so shook up, that and all the cops, people, cars and trucks kept me up a better part of the night.

I was DOWN .2 today at weigh in! It's not much, but it's way better than the +2 or 3 I was expecting!

Goodness, I may not be on this thread very much longer! :( Caleb is really wanting to wean and I just might let him. He's 11 months old and already diggin' the milk we're giving him from a cup. Nursing seems to be an irritation to him these days. And, the little stinker bit me today... hard! He bit me once before, but nothing like this, it actually made me screech and cry.

We shall see...

OMG Kayla... I would have not slept either.

Gale, I'm not looking forward to the kids bringing Halloween candy into the house. I have tried to convince them all that we don't need to go, but they said if we lived in town and kids came to our door they would be more interested in staying home... but we don't live anywhere near where kids would trick or treat so I guess we are going. As far as weaning.. I'm not looking forward to that at all... but I would rather wean than be bit!

As for me.. well I had a BAD weekend.. but it was a planned bad weekend. Saturday was my birthday and we went to my mom's. The menu was all my planning and I decided I wanted to enjoy some of my very favorite pizza from a little bakery near her house. I love that pizza and now live too far from it to have it more than once or twice a year. I also gave her the recipe for my very favorite cake in the world... it's a copy cat of Cracker Barrels Coca Cola cake... OH MY GOSH.. that cake is soooooo chocolatey it's to die for. I only have it once a year, and I wasn't going to not splurge on it this year. I was down 2 pounds this week.. I seem to lose only every other week and usually 2 pounds at a time.

Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing well. I had a pretty good weekend, didn't go very far off track if at all. I'm so glad my kids are too young to go trick or treating, but my MIL and FIL are always sending my DH home with candy. "Give this to Kyla, she'll eat it." I HATE that! I've told then numerous times and on numerous occasions that I can't be eating so much crap. (You should see how THEIR kids eat. My 7 yo SIL has a mouth full of cavities) I know they mean well, but that doesn't mean I care much about hurting their feelings when it comes to my goals and aspirations, so I don't mind so much saying no. I had 2 fun size Snickers, shared the 2 fun size M'n'Ms with my sons and was done at that. Which totally amazes me because I am such a chocolate hound it's ridiculous.

How old are your kids Kayla? I think I started taking out my oldest when he was 4, mostly just to family and neighbors, now we spend hours roaming the town I grew up in, it's much better for TorTing than the town that we live near. There is also a huge Halloween parade here in our town, it's like 4 or 5 hours long! and the candy they get from it is disgusting!! I will have to make sure it goes straight to work with hubby... the parade is Thursday evening and the candy will have to leave the house on Friday.. I will put my foot down there.

Hi ladies joining your thread! I'm 6 mos postpartum and haven't lost a pound since the birth. So much for breastfeeding being a calorie burner.