How Many Calories Do You Burn Breastfeeding?

A lot of moms worry about their weight after giving birth to their babies. There are many who try their best to exercise right away, but this can be too arduous for moms who recently gave birth, especially tothose who had a C-section. Fortunately, breastfeeding has been known to help burn calories.

So how many calories do you burn breastfeeding?

The Production Of Breast Milk In Itself Will Require Calories

We all know that breast milk in itself contains a lot of calories, vitamins, minerals, and a wide array of nutrients that are vital for your child’s growth and development. This simply means that mothers will have to burn her own calories, and share the calories from her diet in order to produce milk.

This process benefits mothers in 2 ways:

First, it means that mothers can burn calories and lose weight just by breastfeeding.
Second, it means that unless their doctors tell them to do so, mothers do not have to go on avery strict diet simply because some of the calories that they consume will go to the baby anyway.

You should know that not all mothers benefit from this process. But by taking both benefits into consideration, mothers can increase or decrease the amount of calories that they burn per day from breastfeeding.

How Many Calories Can The Mother Burn During Breast Feeding?

The amount of calories that you burn during breast feeding will all depend upon how often you feed the baby, and how much the baby consumes during each feeding. On average, mothers can actually burn as much as 200-500 calories per day!

To give you a good idea on exactly how many calories are being burned in breast feeding, you should know that a runner can burn 100 calories after running a mile. This gives us mothers a huge advantage as we can actually burn a lot without even breaking a sweat.

Of course, this information has to be taken with caution. By getting the proper facts, we can actually use the calories burned during breastfeeding to our advantage.

How Can You Take Advantage Of This Calorie-Burning Process?

Experts say that during the first few weeks after giving birth, you should focus mainly on recovery and you should just let breastfeeding take care of your calories for now. And as soon as you are able to eat anything that you want, you can then focus on improving your diet.

It is very important for moms who want to lose weight to make sure that they consume food items that are high in nutrients, but low in fat like vegetables, and lean sources of protein. Moms should also do their best to avoid consuming foods and beverages that have a lot of sugars like sodas and pastries.

A few months after giving birth, moms can now do light exercises. If you have gone through a C-section however, you need to make sure that your body has healed properly. You can do light barbell exercises,light dumbbell exercises, and a few minutes of cardio so you can lose weight faster.

If you want to burn calories faster by breastfeeding, you can opt to buy a breast pump. You can express more milk daily, and store the milk in a freezer for your baby’s future use. You can use products like The Medela Pump in Style Advanced Breast Pump so you can easily produce milk with ease.

Does The Burning Of Calories During Breastfeeding Mean The Same Thing For All Mothers?

Unfortunately, this does not mean the same thing to all moms. There are mothers who are not able to take advantage of it because they are not able to produce a lot of breast milk. Also, there are babies that will consume more milk only when they are in a growth spurt.

While mothers who have gained weight during pregnancy will be happy about it, there are those who actually need to eat more just to be able to produce enough milk that can satisfy their baby’s growing needs. Moms with low fat reserves must consume an average of 1800-2200 (or more) calories per day.

What is great about breastfeeding however, is that even if the mother has to eat a lot, the calories are not stored in her body. It is converted into energy to produce breast milk, and it is also being given for the baby’s nutrition.

Conclusion

Breastfeeding can actually help mothers burn a lot of calories each day. Here are what you need to know about it:

Mothers need to make sure that they are eating right, and taking adequate amounts of water daily.
The calorie-burning process brought about by breastfeeding can be taken advantage of especially if you want to lose weight.
Moms can opt to maintain a diet that is full of nutrients but low in fat while they are still in the recovery process.
Mothers with low fat reserves will have to increase their daily calorie intake to produce adequate milk
Use products like The Medela Pump in Style Advanced Breast Pump so you can produce more milk daily.

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