When it comes to breastfeeding, it is often explained that one of the benefits of breastfeeding, in this case for the mother, is that she recovers her usual weight more easily , both due to the expenditure of calories produced by breastfeeding and because of the fat of breast milk comes from fat deposited on the hips and legs of women.
However, there are women who find that not only do they not lose weight when they breastfeed, they not only do not lose weight, they gain it. And they see that they get fat, feeling strange to hear others explain how quickly they lost weight with breastfeeding and, in a way, deceived, when someone says “of course, if breastfeeding makes you fat. Let’s talk about this today: when breastfeeding makes you gain weight instead of losing weight .
Producing milk generates a caloric expenditure of about 550 kcal per day
Let’s start by knowing how milk production works roughly . As we explained in its day, the fat that women accumulate in the hips and thighs is destined to be part of breast milk. Come on, milk is formed with those deposits, and that alone makes them start to shrink a bit. In addition, the mere fact of producing milk causes the body to consume about 550 kcal a day , which is the equivalent of going out for a run for almost an hour (at a leisurely pace).
These two factors suggest that breastfeeding loses weight, and in many cases, the majority (that is why it is generalized when talking about weight and breastfeeding), it is so. This high calorie consumption, together with a diet that does not vary much from what was taken before delivery (or a little more), makes the woman lose weight little by little .
However, there are women who do not lose weight (or gain weight)
I am an amateur runner. I go out for a run four times a week and do about 30-40 kilometers a week, and I don’t lose weight. I have a belly. Not much, but I have it, and there are those who do not understand how I can not lose it if I go out for a four-day run. But I do: my nutrition can be improved because I often consume more sugar than I should , or refined foods, and because my rest can also be improved . Resting poorly, or little, and consequently feeling tired during the day makes you tend to consume more foods rich in fast-absorbing carbohydrates, and this is a problem for weight, because this type of carbohydrate makes you fatter.
The fact is that when you go overboard with sugar a little, the body causes an increase in insulin production to take all the glucose that you have put into the blood and that produces a kind of feeling of down, which leads you to need more Again, more glucose, entering a vicious circle that is quite dangerous for weight (more sugar, more insulin, more insulin, more feeling of hunger, more feeling of hunger, more sugar …).
A mother does not usually rest well, so one way to fool tiredness is by eating things that provide energy . If, in addition to this, you are breastfeeding, the demand for calories is greater, and many feel that they are voraciously hungry, which in some cases would come to be called “absolute anxiety.” In a situation of hunger, and with little rest, when he realizes that it is four o’clock and he has not eaten yet, what do you think a woman ends up eating? Well, the same as me when I feel tired because I have gone out for a run and I have not rested well at night: energy bars, chocolate, sandwiches, juices … everything that will take away your hunger as soon as possible , but that can make you fatten.
In other words, breastfeeding will lose weight if the calories lost are not compensated for through diet. If, on the other hand, hunger is voracious and we add fatigue to it, you can fall into the solution of eating hypercaloric foods and then during the lactation period you do not lose weight, but rather gain weight.
In this case, if this is your situation, the ideal is to eat about five times a day so as not to let hunger increase a lot (with 3 meals you will arrive at each meal so hungry that you will destroy everything), controlling the consumption of fast-absorbing hydrates (Better those of slow absorption, such as those of unrefined foods) and having a very clear recommendation to try to consume 5 daily servings of fruits and vegetables, or what is the same, trying to eat a healthy diet .
But … I don’t eat that bad and I get fat too
Perhaps you will tell me that at first you were one of these tired women with a terrible hunger who ate the first thing they caught but then you stopped being it, you began to eat better and the weight continued to increase, or did not decrease. Well then we will have to think about an endocrine issue , hormones.
Menopause, are you fattening? Well, there are women who do, who get fat after menopause. And there are others that do not, that do not get fat despite stopping having the period. The lactation period is a period in which there is no menstruation because estrogen levels are very low … this means that it is like a “temporary menopause” , and there are women who retain more fluids, who suffer more markedly from the slowing down of the metabolism (the lack of estrogen makes the metabolism go a little slower and at rest they consume fewer calories) and that they notice when their period returns that they begin to lose those retained fluids.
On the other hand, have you had a control analysis after delivery? Because pregnancy is one of the times that causes the most hormonal changes and after childbirth, when everything should return to its place, it does not always do so. There is a malfunctioning situation of the thyroid hormonal balance called “postpartum thyroiditis” , an inflammation of the thyroid gland.
This, which you have probably never heard of, happens to 3-16% of women (as you can see, it is very frequent), and causes two states … initially a phase in which you could lose some weight, because produces a transitory hyperthyroidism and then a second phase in which everything can normalize or hypothyroidism with its associated symptoms, among which we find fatigue, weight gain and depression (many times it is considered postpartum depression), among others.
Postpartum thyroiditis resolves itself 12-18 months after delivery (when many stop breastfeeding and associate weight loss with weaning), although hypothyroidism remains in 20% of women.
But this is not all. Many women have hypothyroidism already before pregnancy and before delivery, without having been diagnosed with it, or because controls have not been done, or because they are considering normal results that should be taken into account. According to current guidelines, the maximum TSH value is 4.0 mlU / L, but for a time these values were considerably higher, and hypothyroidisms were considered normal and could have been controlled. In this situation, a pregnancy can unbalance the thyroid and make the woman suffer more significantly from hypothyroidism that is neither diagnosed, nor medicated nor controlled.
And also, add the genetics
And to all these factors, add the genetics of each woman. There are them that eat everything and do not get fat, there are those that only get fat if they eat everything and there are those that get fat eat what they eat (although this has to be seen if it is genetic or if there are endocrine problems). The fact is that no two women are the same, and although breastfeeding loses weight under normal conditions, because the expenditure of calories is very high, there are situations, as you can see, in which not only does it not happen, but weight is gained.
Why? Well, for any of the causes that we have described, or because more than one comes together. In any case, and as I often say (it is my opinion and my recommendation), the ideal would be for all women to have an analysis after childbirth . I cannot understand that during pregnancy they look at them with a magnifying glass and once they give birth, the health forgets about them. And no longer for a matter of gaining more or less weight, but because hormonal disorders affect vitality, energy, the mood with which you wake up and, consequently, the way you are going to take care of your child. Oh, and breastfeeding, that a significant hypothyroidism can cause poor milk production , and this is easily fixed by regulating the levels of thyroid hormones.
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In Babies and more | Postpartum thyroiditis, Foods rich in iodine, an essential nutrient, Do not breastfeed for cosmetic reasons
