An Effective Plan for Weight Loss While Breastfeeding

After spending nine months throughout pregnancy, and gaining a significance amount to wait to support the growth and birth of your child, you are likely hoping to start dieting soon, even though your breast feeding. In fact, nursing mothers tend to consider beginning an effective diet plan long before their newborn is ready to give up on breastfeeding.

It is never recommended that a nursing mother begin a weight loss diet because it can compromise the quantity and quality of the breast milk she produces for the newborn. However, losing a significant amount of weight while still nursing is not as challenging as it might appear. In fact, the action of breast feeding typically burns approximately 500 calories every day, which can put you at a significant advantage over new moms that are feeding their babies with formula.

Setting a Realistic Goal

It is essential to understand that the body’s requirements for generating breast milk take a lot of work. Because of that, it is better to work with the body in its efforts, then against it in an attempt to rush into quick weight loss. As a result, you need to follow specific guidelines that include:

•   Taking It Slow – Instead of giving up on eating a sufficient amount of food every day, decrease your daily caloric intake at a gradual pace. This will help avoid interfering with the body’s ability to produce a sufficient amount of nutritional breast milk. Recognize that your journey to lose weight and regain your shape may take up to 12 months.

•   Weight Loss Expectations – There should be a specific expectation of weight loss while breastfeeding. This means you should expect a slow and steady process through your weight loss regimen that produces weight loss at 1 to 2 pounds every week, or a total of six pounds each month. Losing weight quicker than that can rapidly diminish your ability to produce enough milk supply. Instead, aim for a steady slow progress in your weight loss plan.

Things to Avoid

To maintain the health and safety of your baby, you need to understand what to avoid during your process of losing weight slowly. This includes never a changing a part of your diet in the first two months of your baby’s life. This is because you need to provide an ample supply of healthy milk. Cutting out any calories during this time can negatively affect your ability to create a milk supply, and reduce your energy level.

In addition, you need to avoid any type of rapid weight loss while breastfeeding. This is because the process releases toxins that will end up in the baby’s milk and could pose a significant danger to the newborn. Finally, you will need to avoid any type of alcohol consumption. This is because it produces empty calories and has the ability to make its way into the baby’s breast milk.

Proper weight loss while breastfeeding is a slow and steady process that will likely take many months to accomplish.