That One Time I Had a Meltdown About Postpartum Weight Loss

Hey, so…remember when I said I was going to do Weight Watchers?

Yeah…that’s not happening anymore.

Original Weight Watchers logo, property of Weight Watchers, International. ©Motherhood & Everything Else.

Now don’t all freak out at once! The weight loss challenge is very much on. Weight Watchers, though it has worked for me in the past, is just not what I need right now.

The week started out horribly. Several nights in a row, it was barely 10:00PM and I had maxed out my points—and was still so hungry. I ate, feeling guilty with every bite, wondering why it was so hard this time around. Weight Watchers had allotted me a hefty amount of additional points to accommodate my “breastfeeding” status, but I couldn’t stay full.

Halfway through the week, I was at a breaking point. Not being able to stay within my points was stressing me out, and stressing out (and maybe the calorie restriction?) was affecting my supply. I had three days of poor totals in a row. Of course, I took to Twitter and honestly stated that I was struggling. Within minutes, I had several friends asking me to text them.

And one of those friends, amazing person that she is, pointed me to this absolutely epic blog on pumping and losing weight. From this site I learned 3 very important things within minutes:

1. when it comes to weight loss, breastfeeding is NOT the same as exclusively pumping (I know, I haven’t gotten into this yet, I swear that post is coming soon)
2. 1 ounce of breastmilk = 20 burned calories for mama
3. producing milk also burns calories, but it is near impossible to determine how much and is therefore more or less irrelevant

 

So here I am, adding something like 300-400 extra calories to my daily allowance (in the form of Weight Watchers points), when I need more than double that.

Whoops!

The next morning, I unsubscribed from Weight Watchers. The afternoon before, I had purchased a Fitbit during the Prime Fail—I mean Day—Event and was anticipating it within a few days. I’d heard about My Fitness Pal in the past, and joined that morning.

©Motherhood & Everything Else.

©Motherhood & Everything Else.

And here I am. No longer on Weight Watchers, but doing a customized plan through Fitbit and MFP. I chose the “lose 1lb a day” option on MFP and then added an extra 1,000 calories to that total to accommodate my pumping. I’ve been doing MFP since Thursday, and my Fitbit arrived Saturday afternoon. Within 24 hours, I was already part of two Workweek Hustles thanks to my sister-in-law and a Twitter friend.

So, no update this week. I was officially onboard with both programs as of yesterday, so I want to post my first update next Sunday. Not sure what I’ll post about…weight? What I did to exercise that week? I don’t want to bore anyone…

I will say this: I lost 2lbs last week. Maybe. I weighed myself at night on Thursday, and again Sunday morning. Since it was at a different time of day, it could be a fluke. Either way, I’m 2lbs less than I thought I was! Weeee!

My Fitbit stats from earlier this morning. Workweek Hustle, baby! ©Motherhood & Everything Else.

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