Breastfeeding and Weight Loss Vs Bottle Feeding and Weight Loss

The moot has raged for years. Breastfeeding vs Bottle feeding. Which is better? - Well, I guess it's only raged for the last 50 or 60 years, since they invented baby formula. There are lots of arguments for both side, dealing with nourishment for baby, condition for mom, bonding, and a ton of other things... But here's one thing that's not talked about as often as it should be: breastfeeding and weight loss.

No, not for the baby. Breastfed babies are ordinarily larger than their bottle fed brethren. But that's not the point  - this is weight loss for the mom! Every mom wonders if that extra baby weight from the gravidity will ever go away (so they can fit into their old jeans again). So let's assess bottle feeding with breastfeeding and weight loss.

Weight Loss Story

Let's start with bottle feeding and it's affect on the mother. This one is pretty simple... The mom holds up the bottle for the baby for the first few months, which does burn some calories, but not much. I guess you could count the frequent waking in the middle of the night and walking down the stairs to mix up the bottle as exercise - but that's probably affecting sleep more than anything. Then you have to take into inventory that in most family who bottle feed, there is at least a second someone who does the job half of the time (the Dad), thus removing any calorie burning effects that might have been gained by the mother.

Now let's talk about breastfeeding and weight loss. It has been shown that breastfeeding can burn up to 600 fat per day! That's the equivalent of two hours of intense aerobic workouts a day. That's pretty awesome.

There are also reports that Mothers who breastfeed more often lose weight faster than mothers who nurse less often, and mothers who nurse for shorter periods of time tend to lose weight more gently than mothers who nurse longer. So it's entirely possible that if you breastfeed you'll be able to eat more than you ever could before and still lose weight!

Why is that? Because breastfeeding and weight loss go hand in hand! in fact though, it's because you are feeding two people and you're body has to work pretty hard to make the milk and make sufficient of it to withhold an entirely cut off human being - that's growing like a freakin' weed.

So if you want to lose weight and keep it off after gravidity - stick with breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding and Weight Loss Vs Bottle Feeding and Weight Loss