Hi, Not sure if I should post here but this section gets more hits than the “woman’s” section. Not much a newbie but going back to basics. Im 2 months postpartum and want to do a recomposition type diet or slight clean bulk. I lost a lot of muscle through my pregnancy and I also don’t want to cut calories for fear of losing my milk supply while breastfeeding.
How can I/should I determine appropriate caloric intake? And carb intake? Would cycling carbs be a good idea since I don’t want to cut them drastically but at the same time would like to minimize any fat gain. Hope this doesn’t sound redundant to other posts. Thanks
I’m a male, can’t comment on how to approach your diet only 8 weeks out from birthing…but I can say that when my daughter was born, naturally (not c-section) that mom lost a lot of weight doing…nothing. She did breast feed for 1 year and she swears that made a lot of the difference. We never ate out often, did not eat crap at home, etc. Just followed the sensible eating patterns of a healthy person without going over eating. Basically, she did end up with loose skin in the ab area but was never unhealthy.
Focus on baby, what you eat, he/she eats. My manly opinion would be to eat at your baseline/maintenance calorie level at the very least. Exercise as you will, eat the carbs and protein to support your activity. But to cut calories at all to me would not be a good thing. Keep protein at 1g/lb of bodyweight. Limit bad shitty fats, you know, the hydrogenated crap in processed foods.
Once baby is weaned off, then experiment with carb cycling, etc. Baby first, imho since she’s relying on you to get her nutrition too.
The additional caloric expenditure for the typical nursing mother is only 3-5% over baseline, contrary to popular belief. And if you’ve lost muscle, then your baseline is likely even less than what you are used to. That said, if you are not producing enough milk, eating more may help, but only if you are in a severe caloric deficit.
Make sure to get plenty of fat, with an emphasis on Omega 3s. A DHA supplement is always a good idea for your child’s brain development, and if you take a lot of it that may be all the additional calories you need.
Thanks for the replies. My main focus is baby and putting back muscle so I’m not looking to cut calories. I know nursing takes 500-600 calories per day to produce so I think I’m just going to add that to maintenance and go from there for now. Thanks