Hey Janie,
How're you doing? Is your milk back to normal? Sure hope things are good.
Lisa

Hi Janie. I sure hope you can get your milk supply up. I wonder how hard we should be on ourselves with the whole dieting thing while we are breastfeeding. I think it's phenomenal that you lost thirty pounds. I had a similar experience for 2 weeks after I delivered. I had basically lost most of my weight from pregnancy and felt fantastic. The problem I had during this time is that I wasn't producing any milk. When my baby turned bright yellow and became very lethargic, I had to take note. I then went through a stressful process of increasing my supply through drugs and pumping. That is when I crashed and started gaining weight, became exhausted etc. When I started gaining I panicked and got into this bad cycle of deprivation followed by indulging cravings. 15 pounds later, I really committed to cutting the unhealthy carbs and any other trigger foods from my life, and just following good, balanced nutrition. What is the point I am trying to make because this is sounding more like my life story now... oh yeah, maybe the key for you to get your supply back is to let your body have the foods it needs (from healthy choices) and forget about the weight loss for now. I decided to make my focus not gaining instead of losing and have been successful (even though I'm dying to lose). And wow, I could not imagine raising 3 kids on my own. If you have alot of stress in your life that really makes a difference to your eating success.

My name is Sara, I have a 3 y.o. girl and a 15m.o. DS which I am TRYING to wean. I am in the unfortunate camp of gaining while BFing. I lose most of the weight by 3 weeks postpartum, but it creeps back on. I am at my all time heaviest non-pregnant weight and I'm only 10lbs under what I delievred my DD at. I'm hoping Atkins will workout for me. I'm concerned about the ketones.....

Welcome Sara!

I know what you mean with your 15mo.......my first nursed until he was 2, and I was more than ready at that time,

I think you will find that low carbing works well for you, and there are many different varieties of the same basic premise.......avoid sugar, flour, overly processed junk, and get some regular exercise. If you just follow these rules, you should lose without heavy ketosis, and therefore no worries.

Atkins site will recommend the maintenance phase for nursing moms, but I think that's just CYA....."covering their a$$"........induction is probably a bit harsh for a nursing mom, but starting at 30-60net carbs is working just fine for me.

Good luck to you!
Lisa

Hey gals. Well, the good news is that my milk supply is back to normal and, I must say, Ayden is quite happy about that! But the not so great news is that I'm finding it difficult to stick with lowcarbing for right now. I definitely plan to go back to lowcarbing once Ayden is older and weaned or at least eating more solid foods. Jende and Dane, I think you are right about just trying to eat healthy and focus more on the baby right now than losing a bunch of weight. It is hard though, I look at my old jeans and dream of wearing them again!! Sooo, what I have been able to do is just watch the really junky foods and overprocessed snacks and I have been able to lose five lbs just by doing that. So that makes me smile...Plus, I can't wait until it warms up and I can start taking the baby for walks outside and such.

I wonder why its so darn easy to gain weight and so hard to lose...it's quite unfair...

Hey Janie,

I think that's a really good plan. And I'm soooooooo pleased to hear you got your milk back on!

I remember my 6 week postpartum visit, and how I couldn't believe how big I was still, but wasn't ready to "diet" yet. I promised myself I'd try when the baby started solids, at 6 months. Well, I started a little earlier, but I'm glad I waited. And thinking back now, boy the time has flown by! I'm glad I waited to start, and instead focused on the those first few months. Take care of yourself. Post whenever you get the urge, and when the time is right to start, I'm sure I'll still be hanging around here.....

So many of us that can't lose, or even gain... there must be something to this. I even pigged out at Xmas while visiting family and thankfully didn't gain, but when I got back home and started eating normally again (which was probably about half the calories I had been eating over the holidays), I still didn't lose. My body just refuses to lose. I don't need to hold on to these fat stores for milk supply because I have enough fat on me to feed my baby for the next 5 years without ingesting any more food. It must be hormones. I have all the classic symptoms of hypothyroidism, but I'm not hypothyroid. I'm on a healing program and was reading through it again and I think I may be having problems with low serotonin and low cortisol. Treat yourselves well ladies and eat if you need to. If you are having cravings, maybe your body is telling you that it needs something, indulge it with a healthy choice. Breastfeeding really is a demanding time and maybe it takes a toll on our bodies, better to focus on health than weight loss.

I don't want to sound preachy, I feel very desparate to lose weight too, I just don't want to see anyone over do it and end up with my many "issues".

Our bodies haven't evolved. They still think there could be a famine at any point and therefore hold fat so that we can still nurse our babies. That's my therory anyway...

Hi All,

I'm bf-ing a 13 month old daughter and am hoping to keep at it til she's at least 2. I have put on way too much weight since having the baby and need to start doing something about it. I'm worried about ketosis and bf-ing, though. I did Atkins years back and lost 60 pounds, so I'm pretty hooked on it. Planning to try a few extra carbs to keep weight loss without heavy ketosis. Any thoughts on what has worked well for you and your babies?

I don't want to be selfish and risk harming her with my diet, but I think my weight is impacting my ability to keep up with her. I'm so confused!!!!

I'd love to hear what you've done.

Thanks and I'm so glad I found all of you

zoemom

Hello!! I am not breastfeeding yet but I will be in early October
I'm glad there is a thread for this because... well as much as I know that my primary concern after the birth will be breastfeeding (hopefully for a year+ ish) I know I will be about 30 lbs overweight (150 I am content, 145 ideal unless I'm carrying a lot of muscle).

I'm moving to Germany next month (Erlangen in case anyone is familiar with the area) and being pregnant it was easy to choose which clothes to pack heheh ALL of them since nothing fits. Anyway, it was really hard to look at all of the gorgeous/sexy jeans and clothes I have packed away that will never see my body until it is under 150 again. Since we're takinga drastic pay cut in order to move there a new wardrobe is not an option

So..that's where I'm at. I'll probably mostly lurk until the time is nearer - although the other day I was lying in bed and DH was rubbing cream on my belly and breasts and we had just a little colostrum production. HE WAS SO EXCITED it was the cutest thing..I wish I could have gotten his face on camera. He thought it was amazing and was so happy that they "worked" and for the next week kept on spying and trying to get me to reveal myself in case it happened again From my point I was like "oh! well that's good, but I hope it doesn't happen during the day and show through my clothes."

Hi, I'm April. Thought I'd join in here. I'm still nursing my 2 1/2 yr old, though since I'm almost 30 weeks pregnant now he is only getting colostrum not milk. He is still hooked on his "mama milk" though, for bed and nap times. It will be interesting to see what happens when the baby arrives and milk comes in again, how he will react to it.

I have gained 20lbs this pregnancy and I'm trying desperately to at least maintain the weight I am currently at. I'm at 234 and holding over the last two week. I'm sticking around 90-100 grams of carbs per day at this point and am really trying to make them healthy carbs, although as I get closer to my due date it does seem harder to resist the urge to indulge.

When Jakob was born I lost about 34 lbs within a month (17 came off just from the birth). I was down to 203 at that point, but alas I slowly but surely gained some back. I pretty much have wavered between 215-220 since about 5 or 6 months after he was born. I was 214 lb when I got pregnant this time. If I can maintain at 234 or even if I could managage to lose 4 lbs before the baby is born, theoretically I could be about 15 lbs or so lighter than I was when I got pregnant within a month of birth That sure would be nice. The trick is going to be keeping it off. My supply would almost disappear when I reduced carbs with Jakob. But I didn't really put much effort into finding a carb level that worked, I think I went pretty low and then just gave up. So this time I'm going to start out with the 90-100 grams I'm doing now, stick with whole foods, mainenance type plan. Then when I feel I'm ready I will slowly reduce and see what happens with the milk supply. Also, I need to keep the exercise in. That makes a huge difference for me. I have been exercising fairly consistently this pregnancy. If I can keep that in once the baby is born and do 4-5 days a week of exercise ... yoga, swimming, treadmill...I know that will help tremendously. I do some light free weights too, but not very often..I want to do more of that.

It will be great to have support from other breastfeeding moms .

Hi everyone

I am a newie to this site. Today is my first day of doing the Atkins diet, although I am starting with the fourth phase not the first one as I am breast feeding my 3 month old son. I have 3 children all up, my newborn son and two girls, one will be 2 in 10 days and the other is 3. I am pretty busy as u can imagine. Am also studying at uni so that when I go back to work when the children are at school, I will be a qualified software engineer.

I was sitting and thinking last night about how much carbs I eat on a daily basis and I am sure that I am well into the 300grams if not more category. Probably why I am not losing weight. I get out and walk 4 times a week for an hour at a time, and these walks are very gruelling as they are up a mountain and back down. So I should be shedding the kilos but instead I find I am maintaining. So today I am cutting down to 100grams of carbs a day. I figure that since I do regular exercise and breast feed, that would probably be a safe level. I am however open to suggestions. What does everyone else do??

Look forward to getting to know you all

Hello everyone!
My baby just turned one this past Thursday, and I am still breastfeeding. I am also still low carbing, and weight lifting. My weight loss continues to be very slow, and I have experimented with a variety of low carb/diet and exercise routines. I have had my carbs as low as 20g net, and as high as 300g (CKD carb-ups). Despite all my trials, the one thing that never changed was my milk supply........as long as I'm eating enough calories (which I am....usually took in 1600-2000), I have PLENTY of milk. My baby hasn't been sick, save for a rare cold or two my other son brought home from daycare.

My current routine seems to be the most successful to date.....sort of carb cycling. Calories are ~1800, P ~150g, netC vary from 50-100g, and a cheat day. I'm also weight training 4 tmes a week, and some cardio tossed in there. The fat is finally starting to shift, though I realize that until I wean my son, the lactation hormones will probably make this a long haul. Oh well!

Hello All-

I am breastfeeding my almost 7 month old son.
I am down to my prepreggo weight, but have another 15 pounds to lose to reach goal.

I am trying to keep carbs around 80 grams and calories below 2000. I am also trying to walk 5 times/week.

On good days my carbs come exclusively from vegetable and dairy. With a few whole grains thrown in.

On bad days I have been known to eat too much pizza.

Hey all-

I am still BFing my 20 month ds...going on 4 straight years of lactation. I know of moms who lactated for 12 straight years. UFF DA!!

I am still having fairly slow weight loss but I am okay with that. I am less than pre-prego weight and have actually flirted with the idea of lowering my goal weight, so overall I am happy with it all. This is such a WOL now and I have no plans of stopping.

Dane- I think we have a similar situation going on with our weight loss. I was wondering how often you 'carb-up'. I have been trying to do it for one day a week (usually Saturday) for the last month to see if that would move things any quicker. Not really sure, though, because I have lost 3-4 in the last few weeks, but I was due for a whoosh anyway. I usually have 2-4 pound whooshes every 3-4 weeks.

Does anyone notice that weight loss seems slower when DC is nursing more often (growth spurt, sick, etc.)?