Losing weight while BF-ing. How did you do it?

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I am EBF-ing a 5mo who feeds round the clock. To deal with the energy lapses and sleep deprivation at night I've also been eating snacks when I get up to BF. It just makes it all a bit easier. Downside is I have gained ten kilos since giving birth. I eat healthy - lots if nuts and avocado and oily fish, but I have just gained so much weight now.

I love BF-ing but I just feel completely out of control of my own body now. I can't even control what I eat when I am on demand so much from my DD. I feel like my body is hers.

I know technically I only need to keep going another month, but I don't want it to be like that. I want to keep going until at least a year, but just gain back some control over my weight.

It doesn't help me to just "eat healthy/balanced" as I already do that. I just eat too much of the healthy stuff. I want to calorie count.

What is the minimum number of calories do you think I can have but still maintain a good supply of BM for DD?

You only need about 300 extra calories a day for breastfeeding. So by my reckoning you could try for around 1800 a day, minus the 300 ish for feeding to put you at 1500 calories net per day. That would result in a steady and maintainable weight loss.

Have you tried myfitnesspal? It's quite handy for this sort of thing. If you enter your weight and your goal, it will work out a calorie aim for you. You could enter the breastfeeding as a daily "exercise" that burns 300 cals and factor it in that way.

I did slimming world. I lost 2.5st in 6 months.

Not sure but i was at my skinniest when breastfeeding....put it all back on when i stopped! Maybe drinking more water is the answer? I was drinking gallons when breastfeeding...so it might help. I dont think cals should be low as youre producing milk and you burn loads just looking after baby! As PP said myfitnesspal is good for tracking.

Fat is good but be cautious re nuts...they can hinder weight loss if you eat them all the time...i.e 3 or 4 nuts is the right portion rather than a bag etc.

Thank you everyone.

What is my fitness pal? Where do I get it?

I will be careful re: nuts. I thought a handful was, well, a handful!!!

Do you think 1800 calories a day will keep my supply up?

Myfitnesspal is an app and a website. You can get the app on an apple tablet/phone, not sure about other types of phones, but you can just use the website if not. I find it very handy for calorie tracking.

Only a very severely restricted diet would risk your supply. Your body will prioritise it over your own health, so you don't want to go too low.

I have heard people talk about slimming world being ok whilst breastfeeding as well.

I lost masses of weight whilst ebf, but did count calories and limit my intake. I used Mfp.

i never found any impact on supply. its more about looking after yourself and making sure that what you do eat is top quality. Also some of my calorie deficit was from daily 5km walk and progressively got back into more vigorous exercise too. It's all the normal weight loss stuff, but I found it really motivating when bf because the weight came off that much quicker.

Ebf may use more than 300 cals a day, it depends on what stage you are at. I found it was probably more like 500 for me, will be tandem feeding soon so at least the calorie burn will be one good thing!

There are some published studies about the correlation between caloric intake/diet and breastmilk. I researched before dieting while bf-ing myself. The nutritional content of breastmilk from mothers with Calorie-rich western diets was practically identical to that from mothers with a much poorer African diet. Calories does not equal breastmilk - supply is much more closely tied with demand. There's no danger of you accidentally eating so little that you stop your supply of milk.

You don't need any extra Calories unless you are trying to maintain your weight, so if you are very slim, and can't afford to lose any weight, you might want to add a few hundred Calories a day while bf-ing. However most people put on weight during pregnancy - your body does this because it expects not to get enough food after the birth, and you will therefore lose weight while bf-ing - it's preparation for it, that's what's supposed to happen.

However, society does not like breastfeeding mums losing weight, people think you should be at least as fat as the day you gave birth for as long as you bf for - despite the studies showing how pointless this is, and despite the mum's personal feelings that she'd like to lose weight! HVs perpetuate this nonsense in my experience as well and I find it really annoying. With ds I gained 5 stone in pregnancy - anyone telling me I shouldn't diet and should keep that 5 stone for a year or two could fuck off quite frankly. I started dieting 3 weeks after birth, as I felt so crap about my size. I lost most of the weight within a year, and then the rest the next year. I bf-ed until he was just over 2. I never had a problem with supply.

If you want to lose weight, do it! You can, it's normal and natural and won't affect bf-ing. But don't expect much support - people will be po-faced and ill-informed in my experience! Good luck.

I found I didn't lose any weight until about 6/7 months and then even though I ate so much more food the weight started to drop off steadily and over the next 18 months i dropped 2.5 stone without having to diet. This weight has stayed off and I still eat loads (i am still feeding toddler) I now weigh 1.5 stone less than before pregnancy.

personally I wouldn't worry about trying to diet.

I found sw useful at that age while ebfing.

You have an extra allowance of calcium and fibre rich foods to allow for bfing and the rest of it is just healthy, balanced eating to be honest.

I also enjoyed the group aspect of it as well. Baby came with me and was coo'd and clucked over with people fighting to cuddle him for me while I got weighed uf he was out of his car seat or pram. It was somewhere to go for me rather than him and felt 'useful' compared to baby groups where he just laid under a different baby gym.

I lost about a 1lb a week on average over 3 months and all the family ate healthier. I didn't find it affected supply at all.

I would really not worry about losing weight until you start weaning. I'm a naturally slim person but I pile on the pounds when pregnant. I lose very little weight when EBF- it makes me ravenously hungry. And I mean having-chocolate-for-breakfast-taking-emergency-snacks-everywhere hungry. I realised second time round that there's not much I can do about and it's my bodies way of ensuring enough calories stay in my body (my breast milks probably like cream ). However, as soon as the baby starts weaning, my appetite drops, which is a massive relief. That's when the weight starts slowly coming off. My dd2 is now a year old (and still BF!) and I'm back to my pre-baby weight, but it's been a graduAl process. Going back to work also helps as then it's harder to snack.

I would enjoy your baby until weaning and then slowly bring your appetite down. Take baby for lots of walks and keep active. There's no huge rush.

Low carb! Or even better, paleo

Don't drop the healthy fats you are eating - I agree with Trexing's point about studies showing no significant difference between breastmilk composition regardless of diet but I would make two additional points:

1. we don't yet know the complete composition or functions of breastmilk (and we can't find what we don't know to look for!)

2. we do know that your body prioritises your DD's nutritional status over your own, and a healthy diet should be protective of you both.

I'm a long term breastfeeder (4.5 years and counting, on DC2 now with a period of bfing through pregnancy and tandem feeding) and have been every weight throguh that. I lost around 20lbs on BIWI's low carb bootcamp here on MN without ever feeling hungry, and a further 10lbs by eating a paleo diet since then. I don't cope at all with hunger but I do well on a low carb, high fat, nutrient-dense diet. I have no cake off button .

On a handful of nuts, by the way - when measuring them out, close your fist over the handful and then turn it over. Don't eat the ones that fall out!

I didn't really lose any weight by the time my baby was 4/5 months but dd2 is now a year old and I weigh less than pre preg. I was v careful and counted calories so are under 1800 per day for a few weeks and the weight fell off. I now eat what I want and still losing the odd pound here and there.

Sorry op I'm not sure I was that helpful earlier

I aimed for a 1,000 calorie a day deficit, and allowed for 500 a day from breastfeeding.

So for me I had net 700 calories a day. Takng into account diet breastfeeding and exercise. So from a baseline of 1,700 calories a day I ate 1,500, plus 300 from exercise and 500 from breastfeeding and it seemed about right as I lost a couple of pounds a week on average.

But I'd suggest you play around with it a bit as everyone is different.

If you allow baby to breastfeed frequently then that will drive supply.

I don't count calories. I eat when I'm hungry and don't eat if I'm not. If I feel I've been eating a lot of junk for a few days I try and cut down later. I go for lots of very long walks with the pram.

I don't know the answer... I lost ALL my baby weight breastfeeding within 2-4 weeks of the birth. After a month or two I was actually less than my pre-pregnancy weight.

But 10 months down the line I'm still breastfeeding and gone back up about 5kg/10lbs! No idea why. Well, actually I have a few ideas why: winter means no salads, heavy food, lots of tea and biscuits and not going out much or doing much walking. Older baby so breastfeeds less. Also the fact my baby is now mobile so I can just sit on my arse for hours while he crawls around the living room playing, compared to the beginning when I was always wearing him in a sling or bouncing him constantly.

So yeah, not got any answers I'm afraid.

Recent advice for me was 4000kcal per day. You are eating balanced and nutritious diet and allowing your baby to thrive from it. Well done. Get out for some walks as the weather improves and the weight is likely to disappear without you noticing. Enjoy your baby

Surely that's a typo - 4000cals is twice what you should be eating?!

I started to lose weight when I went for more walks and stopped eating best part of a packet of biscuits at the late afternoon feed

It's hard to lose weight when you're not getting enough sleep, and I think for me, weight gain or loss can be hormonal rather than linked to calorie intake or activity output. Be kind to yourself.

Those buggy fit classes are good and pretty good value too.

No Culture that is what some Midwives are telling people! I don't agree with calorie counting anyway. They also said it didn't matter the source! 4000 cals of cake it is then!

There must be a mistake somewhere with that information. 4000 calories a day is far too much.

400 cals extra is a figure that makes more sense, as values between 300 and 500 cals is often quoted as the amount "extra" you need for breastfeeding. So eating 4000 cals a day would put you 1500 cals a day over what a typical woman would need when breastfeeding (e.g. 2500 cals). This would lead to gaining weight, rather quickly - 3lbs a week roughly [1500 * 7 days, divided by 3500 cals, which is what is needed to put on around 1lb of fat].

I would go back to your midwive and question this, as it is very wrong. Somebody somewhere has misunderstood the numbers here.

Maybe 4000 kilojoules?

Maybe, but 4000kj is about 950cals which still doesn't make much sense!