South Beach Diet Experts....

[poorlittlefish]

Hi All,
I am 4 months postpartum and have lost all my baby weight. The weight loss has plateaued though and I am now still holding onto the 15 extra lbs from my first pregnancy. I have tried cutting calories but ended up just eating my calories in doughnuts and peanut M & M's---not good.

After hearing of a lot of sucess on South Beath, I decided I woudl like to try it. Since I am nursing though, I know that I have to start with Phase 2. I have the book but am confused about tsomething. Do I need to follow the menu plans exactly or can I just pick and chose for the "Foods to Enjoy" list and make my meals from that? HOw do I know how much to eat at each meal?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[DashsMama]

I'm on the SBD right now. I do not use the menus because they are way too low in calories for a woman of my size. I mostly stick to the foods that are on the "Foods to Enjoy" list, although I do allow myself whole fat dairy products, and fattier cuts of meat. I need to eat about 2500 calories a day right now to lose 2 pounds a week, and I could never come close to eating that many calories if I restricted my fat intake. I've lost 20 pounds since I started 6 weeks ago.

I figured out how many calories I should eat by going to The Daily Plate at Livestrong.com. They have a form there where you can put in how much you weigh, your height, how active you are, and how much weight you want to lose per week, and it will tell you how many calories to eat daily. You can also log what you've eaten and your exercise and keep track of how you're doing. Unfortunately, they do not have an option for nursing moms, so you would have to mentally add in at least another 500 calories to take nursing into account. Livestrong.com and the Daily Plate are FREE!

I want to remind you that your body naturally tries to hold on to some extra weight while you are nursing. The extra pounds are kind of a back-up reserve of calories in case food becomes scarce. Once you stop nursing, that weight will be easier to lose.

I also want to warn you, that restricting your calories might cause you to lose your milk supply. It happened to me when I tried Weight Watchers when my youngest was 12 mos old. I was eating about 2000 calories a day, but my milk supply plummeted because it was so much less than what I was used to eating (and much less than what I should have been eating for my size). So be very careful to monitor your baby's reaction while you're dieting. If you find your baby is staying at the breast longer than usual, getting fussy at the breast, or pulling on the breast while trying to nurse, you have probably experienced a loss in supply and should start eating more to get it back. (This is assuming you want to continue to nurse your baby.)

Hope this helps!