It's been a while since I logged onto 3FC. I had major success losing weight about two years ago and being on this site, but I gained about 30 pounds of it back *and* got pregnant. Yay on the pregnant part, boo on the weight gain. In addition I am a HUGE weight gainer when I am pregnant and I had a difficult pregnancy physically so my whole plan of only gaining 30 pounds got washed out

Anyhoo, I gave birth on 09/22/10 to the most beautiful baby girl ever (sorry I am biased like all Mommies) and I am just regaining my sanity and sleep enough to consider starting exercising. I EBF my daughter and haven't even started an eating plan yet, but I am wondering what my calories should look like as a nursing Mommy. I stayed around 1400 when I was dieting last time, but I don't want to lose my milk supply since this is the first time of my three kids that I am successfully producing milk and EBFing. So if anyone has a link they'd like to share, or ideas please let me know.

Also, how much water do you nursing Moms drink? This is an area I am going to focus on this week since I used to be so good at drinking enough water.

I'm hoping to lose the baby weight (see ticker) by Christmas, especially if I can add exercise back in soon. But I am also realistic and know it might be a struggle to get all that off of me by then. I'm just going to give it my best try!

Congratulations on your baby girl!

Honestly, I think it's a bit ambitious to try to lose 36 lbs by Christmas. That's 4 lbs per week, that's a lot. Maybe aim for half that?

Definitely focus on your fluid intake. Calories have a lot to do with milk production but so does water intake. It takes liquid to make liquid! If you were losing weight on 1400 calories I'd add 300-500 calories per day to that and see what happens. If you lose too fast then adjust upward, if you lose too slowly or gain a little then adjust downward. Definitely keep a close eye on your supply, but you shouldn't have any issues if you're eating good healthy food and getting enough fluids. Cutting the sugar out of my diet helped immensely this time around. Now I fill my calories with healthy, protein rich foods and I'm not hungry or experiencing that mid-day crash that sugar gave me.

I'm doing Weight Watchers and it's been awesome, their nursing mothers program is great. It's basically counting calories and it has been working well for me. The only days I have downswings in my supply are the ones I don't drink enough water.

I'm glad you're here! Feel free to join us on the weekly weigh in for breastfeeders thread if you'd like to.