Postpartum weightloss

[KALB1989]

Hi all! 

I'm 31 and almost 5 months postpartum with baby #2. I'm REALLY struggling. 

About a year after baby #1 I ended up losing a ton of weight and got down to 143 lbs (a 50lb weight reduction). I looked and felt great! Then a pandemic happened, and I was pregnant with baby #2. 

Well I'm up 30 lbs from my pre-pandemic weight and the weight just isn't coming off like it did before! Could hormones still be playing a role 5 months postpartum? Full disclosure: I'm hypothyroid but I am medicated properly for that condition so I'm thinking it's not a factor in this?

I finished breastfeeding this child a couple months ago. And when we first stopped, all I had to do was look at food and I gained weight lol. Just kidding of course but I gained 10 lbs when we stopped breastfeeding (on top of the 20 I already gained) and it hasn't come off in spite of a major reduction in caloric intake, better quality nutrition and increase in activity.

I haven't had an activity tracker device in years but I do have the Aria scale and use the fitbit app to track activity and calories. My calories are consistently around 1300-1500/day (5'2") and I exercise at least 20 mins for at least 5 days per week (I really don't have any more spare time than that with two needy little kids).

Do I need to give my hormones more time to balance out? Looking for other postpartum experience? Thanks!

[Heybales]

Regarding thyroid - vast majority of people with even no thyroid still fall within 5% of calculated metabolism - BMR.

But the daily energy level sucks - a tough sleep schedule could cause that too. New baby, tough sleep schedule - I could see that!

And a fair amount of calorie burn can be won or lost from daily activity.

Hormones can not change the basic formula you will lose fat if you eat less than you burn.

They can change how hard it is to eat the level you desire, and they can change how much you feel like burning.

And they can cause a more negative body reaction to stress. Like lack of sleep, or diet (which is a stress).

I'm going to suggest that increasing activity - at the same time as further reducing caloric intake - in essence making your diet possibly extreme - was the step in the wrong direction.

Please tell me you aren't estimating your calories on MFP by selecting Sedentary (or Not Very Active) when you have 2 kids and a household to run?

Have you been measuring in several spots besides scale weight? Because weight is not always a complete story.

Water has weight, but no calories and when spread out barely any inches.

When your body is stressed and cortisol increases - you can slowly gain up to 20 lbs of water weight - how many weeks of fat loss could that hide?

Now the other side of that - perhaps your daily calorie burn was inflated (did you manually log breastfeeding as something?), and your food logging was terrible accuracy (do you weigh everything you eat?), and you had no deficit in place actually.

Did you manually pick your eating level, or that's what you get with your selected weight loss rate (1 lb weekly could be reasonable for now, 1/2 lb when only 10 lbs left) with activity level?

I don't want to assume inaccuracy is the reason, because the answer there is eat less - and if it's actually the problem of stressed body - that is totally the wrong suggestion.

How big your deficit has been, do you manually log workouts now, do you log food by weight, and your MFP selected activity level - can help discern what it may be, and what direction to attempt.

Wrong method can lead to wrong action and more stress water weight and cause real problems with body. Or could luck out.

But since effect can take awhile to show up, not a good gamble.