Is there truth to the eat more to lose weight?

camrude

OK. I'm beyond frustrated. Jack is 7 weeks old and I've only lost 1/2 of the baby weight. I have 20ish lbs. to go to get back to pp weight and another 20 after that. I've been exercising 3-5 days a week for the past 3.5 weeks and I've only lost 2 lbs. since I started exercising. I'm spinning and run/walking for 40-60 minutes and lifting when I can (bodypump class).?I've been tracking my calories online, and I'm eating anywhere from 1800 - 2300 calories a day. Usually I'm right around 2000. I think that's PLENTY. BTW,?I am nursing.

I know quite a few of you have had success losing weight - I thought I would see what you all think? I am eating enough? I have a feeling I'm heading to WW....

katie277s

From what I have experienced and what I have heard from others on here, it's better to eat  more (healthy) foods throughout the day.  I have always been told that you should eat 6 small meals a day.  And with all the exercising you are doing, it may be that your body is storing fat because it is not getting enough nourishment.

WW is a good tool to use as they adjust for nursing moms.  GL! 

EliseB0323

I think a lot depends on what you are eating. Are you getting enough protein? Are you retaining water?

femmegem

The tricky part to losing weight is that you have to eat enough, but not too much. According to kellymom.com, you're burning 200-500 calories per day just from BFing. Add the fact that you're exercising 3-5 days per week, and you could be eating too little. Do you know how many calories you're burning while you're exercising?

Healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week, so you want to ensure that you're burning 3500-7000 calories per week (that breaks down to 500-1000 calories per day). If I were you (since I'm a nerd and I love numbers) I'd figure out how many calories you need per day to maintain your weight while BFing, add in what you're burning while exercising, and then subtract 500 calories from that to get an idea of how many calories you need to consume to lose approximately one pound per week.

If you don't feel like doing that, you can always try eating more for a week and see what happens.

ETA: I mean you want to make sure you're burning 500-1000 calories more than you're consuming each day. Try not to burn more than that between BFing and exercising.

camrude

On sparkpeople.com it says I should eat 1500-1800 to lose 1-2 lbs/week. This is without BFing calculated in. They won't do that. Spinning burns anywhere from 300-600 cals. depending on how hard I'm pushing and my run walks burn anywhere from 250-500 (again depending on how long I go and how hard I push).

I'm not one of those people who loses weight when nursing. With my first, I lost the rest of my weight once I stopped nursing. But I'll be damned if I'm going into this summer wearing my fat pants!?

dpdw

camrude:

On sparkpeople.com it says I should eat 1500-1800 to lose 1-2 lbs/week. This is without BFing calculated in. They won't do that. Spinning burns anywhere from 300-600 cals. depending on how hard I'm pushing and my run walks burn anywhere from 250-500 (again depending on how long I go and how hard I push).

I'm not one of those people who loses weight when nursing. With my first, I lost the rest of my weight once I stopped nursing. But I'll be damned if I'm going into this summer wearing my fat pants! 

I was going to suggest sparkpeople.com.  They have some new reports which show your calorie differential (cals comsumed vs cals expended).  The most important thing is that you not go below your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) or that will slow down your weight loss.  To take BFing into consideration you might add it as an exercise for 200-500 cals.  But, since you said you don't lose weight while BFing, maybe you shouldn't consider it at all.  I would suggest eating the 1500-1800 cals/ day for a few days & see how it goes -- most importantly watch your milk supply.  If it dips you are not eating enough.