Fueling Yourself Properly While Breastfeeding
As a Mom who is now 9 months postpartum, I wanted to share what I learned in the first months of my baby girl’s life when it came to fueling myself properly while breastfeeding. Some of these thoughts below can be a bit discombobulated, but I just wanted to be able to get them down to share the most important points for other women that are learning about the balance they should have with their diet while breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is one of the most beautiful things God created. Breast milk literally changes composition in real time based on your babies needs. It’s magical that our bodies can pass a cue through salvia to produce more milk with illness-specific antibodies. Not to mention breastfeeding helps women be less likely to get cancer or diabetes later in life. This is just the beginning of why breast milk is so amazing.
That being said, breastfeeding is a full time job. Especially in the first 2 months of life feeding on-demand. I felt hungry ALL THE TIME. My appetite was absolutely incessant. And insatiable. It just seemed as though there was no way to curb it.
Now that I’ve been breastfeeding for this long, I’ve learned a lot about the best way approach to my diet when burning the extra calories.
If I could tell you 3 main things to focus on while fueling yourself breastfeeding - they would be:
PROTEIN. PROTEIN. PROTEIN.
Hydrate
Sleep! (nap)
Let’s hone in on the first, most important subject:
Protein!
You can burn an extra 500 calories per day while breastfeeding. That was shocking to me. That’s constitutes an entire meal!! I really didn’t realize just how many more calories I was supposed to allot myself.
This was my first problem.
In the first months of breastfeeding, I was undereating and I didn’t realize it. Then on say the 4th or 5th day of that trajectory of eating, I felt so hungry, I would gorge. Then naturally, I became frustrated with myself for gorging and would feel the need to work it off…all the while to find myself starving again from underfueling myself.
One day, I remembered that I was given a list of how much protein I should be eating a day and where I could get that protein from. I thought to myself - I should download the MyFitnessPal app to input what I’m eating, so I can see quantitatively how much protein I’m eating.
This was extremely eye opening! I definitely wasn’t getting enough protein throughout the day, which should be about 0.8 grams per 1 kilogram of bodyweight.
To gauge how many calories I should put into MyFitnessPal, I used this Calorie Calculator tool.
Eating needs to be purposeful. Especially while breastfeeding. Think of your intention: Your intention is to fuel yourself well so that you can also fuel your child well.
I have to say - I had to relearn a lot of things when it came to my diet during this season of life. I’m thankful for this time to reshape my connection with food and fueling myself.
And then I went on a search for what a good Postpartum Diet should look like. The first website that popped up when I googled “Postpartum Diet” was What to Expect: A very popular website that has a lot of fantastic information. I found a quick article that was to the point and provided a sample Postpartum Diet. The quick snapshot they provided was alright. However, I would add a lot more real protein to it.
For example:
Breakfast - add eggs. There is absolutely NOTHING that satiates like eggs do in the morning. They provide you with the proper fats and proteins to start your day right.
If you’re not into eggs (like my husband - wth!! love you), here are some other high-protein breakfast options to check out: 15 High-Protein Breakfasts without Eggs
Another article with a great snapshot of How to Eat a Healthy Breastfeeding Diet.
Lastly, after I had Madeline, I discovered The Prenatal Nutritionist. She has fantastic meal and snack ideas and I really enjoy her Instagram content. Go give her a follow! I wish I would’ve had access to more of her posts while I was pregnant. Her 3rd Trimester Meal Plan is wonderful. Even now!
Here is where I get my Main Sources of Protein:
Eggs
Chicken, Ground Turkey and Beef
Greek Yogurt: Not all yogurt is the same. Look at the labels. You want to find yogurt with under 5 grams of sugar per serving. The Kirkland Costco brand is great and doesn’t have a lot of extra nonsense in it.
Cottage Cheese: I just discovered Good Culture. Oh my goshhhhh I did not know that cottage cheese could be so deliciously creamy! Good Culture is unlike any other cottage cheese I have ever had. Definitely give it a try!
Cheese: Don’t be afraid of cheese! I love Tillamook Farmstyle Mozzarella. I add it to my salads for extra flavor and texture and another 6 grams of protein.
Seafood
Sardines: You can stock up on sardines at Costco.
Favorite Easy Snacks High in Protein:
Protein Green Smoothie: 1/2 cup Spinach, 1/2 cup Lettuce, 1/4 cup Ice, 1/4 cup Blueberries and 1 scoop Orgain Protein Powder.
Hard boiled eggs or eggs in any form
Tuna packets
Trail mix - My favorite (I buy Power Up Trail Mix every 6 weeks from Amazon. I eat it alone or over the top of Greek Yogurt. I also love adding Hemp Seeds to my yogurt now as well)
Other Ways I Sneak Protein into My Diet: LINKED at the bottom of this post!
Anthony’s Collagen Peptide Powder - 11 grams. I add a tablespoon of this to my hot water with lemon first thing in the morning. It disintegrates right away and doesn’t have any sort of taste to it. I think a lot of people fail to mention this when talking about Collagen powders.
PB2 Crunchy Powdered Peanut Butter - 5 grams. I absolutely LOVE this on top of my protein banana pancake every morning.
Naked PB Chocolate Peanut Butter - 6 grams. This is delicious in Greek Yogurt or just swirled on top frozen blueberries.
Orgain Peppermint Hot Cocoa - 21 grams. You can find me downing some hot cocoa with whipped cream on top! I love this protein hot cocoa. I find it way too chalky if I actually put 2 scoops in my hot water - so what I do is pour a 1/4 scoop (5 grams of protein) into a cup with some dark chocolate powder and cinnamon, and it’s a perfect blend of spicy chocolate. I think it definitely helps curb sweet cravings too!
Bone broth powder - 10 grams.
For more healthy snacking ideas, see: 25 Best Snacks for Breastfeeding That'll Keep Your Energy and Supply Up.
Next topic - hydration.
Hydrate.
You should drink double the amount of water that is normally recommended for an adult.
It’s almost impossible not to feel thirsty all day in the beginning stages of breastfeeding. What saved me was LMNT. Drinking an electrolyte powder 1-2 times per day helped aid my thirst and also even helped me curb my hunger when I wasn’t hungry - I was just thirsty.
My absolute favorite flavors are watermelon and chocolate. The chocolate I LOVE as a little something sweet treat. I make it as hot cocoa and add whipped cream to the top (if I actually have the chocolate LMNT on hand instead of the Orgain hot cocoa).
Sleep.
Sleep is the single most important thing we could do for ourselves. Prioritizing sleep is one of the best things for your healing and your mental state. My husband has always so supportive of me getting as much sleep as I can, because he knows the benefits of it’s healing properties. Did you know that sleep deprivation lowers your body’s leptin levels, the hormone produced by your fat cells that tells your brain when you are full? So you feel less satisfied after eating. It then triggers other hormones which stimulates the appetite.
I know it may seem that there are so many factors working against us postpartum mother’s, but there are also so many amazing factors working for us as well! We are all in this together.
I’m still learning.
I am grateful for the journey that has been given to me to navigate hard things for myself while also looking after my beautiful daughter. Relearning some basic life needs now just inspires me to be a better example for her and to Nunc Coepi (“begin again”) everyday in the hopes that I can do better / do my best to set an example for her moving forward.
Shop the Post:
