Ok…I am not over weight, but I am at the top of my weight for height & being small boned, I find the maximum average to be high for me. I am 20lbs over what I was prior to having my daughter, but I am content with only losing 10 more lbs. These 20 lbs have not budged I think due to nursing. I plan on weaning before we start trying anyway so maybe it will fall away?
My question is, have all of you waited to lose the baby weight from #1 to try for #2? Is letting myself go for these 10 (20!) lbs a big mistake? Did anyone find they lost slower due to nursing despite the propaganda that nursing helps you lose quickly?
Well, I actually gained weight at first while I was nursing. And this was when I was exclusively nursing a newborn. It drives me crazy when moms cheerily say, “Oh, I just nursed and all the weight plus some fell off in a couple months!” Ha! That being said, I lost a little weight when my son started some solids, and a little more when I weaned him at 17 months, but not a huge amount. I did not lose all his baby weight before getting pregnant with this one, and thus far I’ve been fine. I am definitely overweight, and PCOS doesn’t help that, but all my tests have been normal and this pregnancy has been very healthy (if uncomfortable). I think you would be just fine TTC before you lose those 10 pounds, but that is of course up to you. Good luck!
I have no personal experience w. this BUT I do think that the idea that nursing makes all women lose the baby weight quickly is a myth. I am just going by the experience of friends. Most of my friends lost most of the baby weight quickly and then could not lose the last few pounds until they weaned. A few of my mom friends could not keep weight on while nursing and looked alarmingly emaciated. And then quite a few of them could not lose any weight at all until they weaned. My point here is that all women react differently to breastfeeding. I would not be surprised if you were able to lose the rest of the weight quickly once you wean.
I hate feeling like the weight is holding me back from baby #2, but I also don’t want to bury myself under it one baby at a time! I guess I can wean & work out harder & give myself 4 months. That seems like a good amount of time to lose in a healthful way.
I think the biggest change is not lactation (which, when done exclusively, requires between 300 and 500 calories a day-- that’s the amount of energy in the breastmilk itself which your newborn consumes, and that amount goes up as the child grows and needs more milk), but rather the huge lifestyle change. I have become orders of magnitude more sedentary than I was before having a child. No more marathons for me; I used to run almost 50 miles a week, and now literally push a stroller maybe half a mile every few days. I can’t imagine I’m any different than most women with young children.
That is part of why am willing to remain 10 lbs over my pre-baby weight. My lifestyle and by body shape (yay I finally got boobs!) were different than and I’m ok with that. Breast feeding is such an annoyingly sedentary activity! But I am a big walker, it just makes sense where I live, and I bought an elliptical, that way I don’t have to get to/from a gym, I can just go upstairs when I have some spare time!
I can’t agree with [name]Blade[/name] more. I was more in the underweight category before I got pregnant and gained a whooping 40 lbs during my pregnancy. I nursed DS until he lost interest at 12 months, and during that time I lost 20 lbs, but obviously am still carrying around the extra baby weight. In my case, I have gone from running/working out every day to maybe going on a thirty minute stroll with DS in the stroller.
It’s hard to accept the weight change and accept my new body. I still would love to lose it, but as a full time working momma there is only so many hours in the day ya know? I wouldn’t put too much pressure on yourself. [name]Set[/name] a realistic goal but don’t be too hard on yourself. Nutrition and eating clean is a change that you can make outside of working out (since we don’t always have time to go to the gym) that will help you feel better. If you aren’t ready to stop breastfeeding then don’t. I didn’t really see that big of a difference in my body (instead of my boobs going back to a normal size) after I stopped.
No experience, but I think I would start TTC anyway. Unless you’re very, very small framed and have a low weight/size to begin with, 10 lbs isn’t very much weight. And after having a child/breastfeeding, a bit of that weight is likely right in your boobs.
Instead, I’d focus on goals like “make sure I get X amount of exercise each day” and being sure to eat healthy/cut out excess junk food (if you need more calories while breastfeeding, be sure they’re healthy). If you lose the weight before getting pregnant, great! If not, I wouldn’t worry about it.
I would lose it first, personally. You don’t want to go into pregnancy already feeling bigger than you want to.
We breastfed exclusively and I echo the sentiments of a previous poster - didn’t do much for weight loss for me at all. I don’t doubt that it burns calories, but bodies aren’t stupid. If you are burning more calories than usual your body adjusts so that you are hungrier than usual!
We will be TTC soon - one of the things I knew I wanted to do was lose the baby weight from bub #1 before bub #2. I used to run a lot and stopped because of morning sickness. It took me 2 years to get back into it! This time I really want to stay active throughout the pregnancy.