Did breastfeeding help you lose weight?

[MangoJuiceAddict]

hey, I was wondering about others' experiences of breastfeeding and weight loss. Did breastfeeding actually help you to lose weight? I breastfed my daughter for 8 months and didn't lose any weight... I gained it as I was so hungry and constantly craved sugar for energy! So is the 'breastfeed to lose the babyweight' saying an old wives' tale? My mum and mother in law both swore it was true but my experience definitely says otherwise!

Oh yes. It was heaven - calorie amnesty. I could anything I liked and the weight just kept melting off. Trouble is, as others have mentioned, I got into the habit of eating all sorts of junk, and once I stopped bf'ing the weight piled on till I was heavier than my full term pregnancy weight. I'm still battling to get it off. So perhaps those of you who have to watch what you eat while you breastfeed are better off after all

Bfing twins and at 4mo, I am 1/2st lighter than pre-preg. I eat cake whenever I like and am constantly ravenous. I try to have plenty of fat and protein (rather than pure sugar ) which seems to help with weight loss, appetite and has been great for my skin too.

I am slightly fearful if what's going to happen when I stop feeding though. It's hard because if I eating less than this, I'd start to fade away but I am gettingv used to packing away the calories so it will be hard to give up.

Bf takes up 500 cals a day. I don't think you can blame bf for NOT losing weight if your inhaling sugar

Yes wish but I wasn't eating because I wanted to (and it wasn't all chocolate and cakes!). I was eating because I felt insatiably hungry so much to the point of dizziness/nausea because of the bfing. It's just how my body reacted to bfing. I wasn't naive in thinking I would eat so much and it would all disappear. It was more eating through necessity knowing I would put on weight but in the long term I would work it off (and I have) and the benefits of bfing DD outweighed this.

No.

BUT - massive bonus in that it pulls my uterus back in. Out of five friends who've given birth within weeks of me (I'm the only one BFing) my uterus is lovely and pulled in and they've all expressed concern at theirs not 'snapping back'. [shows off uterus and runs off]

Happened both times.

Ha! Nope! I gained over a stone whilst bf (am very bitter) it made me ravenous. I've never been so hungry and craved sugar so badly ever.

No, though otherwise recovered from birth very quickly. I didn't gain much weight in either pregnancy, but only lost a bit after stopping bf ds, and now trying to convince dd that she wants to quit. Not holding out much hope of weight loss though - I njured myself shortly after her birth so unable to do much exercise, so weight piled on.

Mostly eating minimum needed not to faint, but that's still adding pounds. Low blood pressure doesn't help.