Calories and Breastfeeding…

What I am about to share with you is amazing…

If you want to lose weight while breastfeeding, EAT MORE. You cannot cheat the system.

Originally I started on an 1800 calorie diet, plus working out three times a week – 300 calories, plus nursing which I used an estimate from What to Expect which said about 500 calories a day per baby.

My daily calorie math looked something like this:

1,800 – 1,000 (breastfeeding)= 800 – 300 (working out)= 500 calories left for day to day operations. This was a terrible idea, and it showed on the scale. My metabolism slowed to crawl and after losing one or two pounds I just stayed at the same place.

Then, one day I decided I was going to splurge and enjoy some Little Caesars (crazy bread and pizza) and my intake was really bumped up for that day. The next morning I woke up and weighed myself and I was down a pound. So I discovered that I was really messing myself up and that I needed to add at least another 700 calories to my diet.

So I’m now eating more and the weight has been falling off. I learned today though that I should still be eating more calories. The hard thing to pinpoint is how many calories I am burning by breastfeeding. I found this tool, which is really interesting to help you get an idea of how much milk you are producing based off your babies needs by their weight.

[button link=" http://www.fourfriends.com/cgi-bin/milk.pl?lbs=16&oz=&feed=6&formula=" newwindow="yes"] Awesome Milk Calculator[/button]

In my internet research, I found 20 calories per ounce to be the average calorie burn. So according to the above calculator, the minimum amount of milk my 4 month old (adjusted) twins need is at least 65 ounces. Total Calorie burn= 1300 calories!!!

In her book, ““, Biggest Loser Trainer, Jillian Michaels suggests that women consume no less than 1200 calories per day. So if I wanted to enjoy the benefits of my mammary workout, I needed to EAT MORE! I couldn’t believe it.

Now I have adjusted my daily calorie intake to around 2300 calories, and if am able to workout I eat the extra calories. Since doing that a couple weeks ago, I’ve seen the scale pick back up again. I am now back to my pre-twin pregnancy weight 6 months after they were born (down a total of 50 pounds!). I still have 30 pounds to lose to get back to my weight prior to the conception of my first baby, but I feel optimistic.

I really encourage anyone who desires to lose weight, breastfeeding or not, to do so by keeping yourself accountable. myfitnesspal.com has been a great free tool for my husband and I, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get healthy.

So to sum things up, I want to reemphasize the fact that you can’t cheat the system. If you are breastfeeding and having trouble losing weight, I encourage you to use something like myfitnesspal.com and crunch the numbers. Maybe you are eating too much, but maybe you aren’t eating enough. Don’t be afraid to play with your calorie intake, but just make small changes and see if they make a difference. (again, there are some women who just don’t lose weight when nursing, but don’t be afraid to play with the numbers before deciding that is you)

Good luck!