Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Breastfeeding and Body Composition (Nursing, Lifting, and Fat Loss) | Ep 451

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Breastfeeding and Body Composition (Nursing, Lifting, and Fat Loss) | Ep 451 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: What do you do if you are breastfeeding, but you also care about body composition post-pregnancy?
• 0:05
  Philip Pape: You've probably gotten mixed messages like don't touch your diet while nursing, or just eat less and move more like everyone else.
• 0:12
  Philip Pape: These are all incomplete prescriptions, then they often ignore what's happening inside your body while you're producing milk.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: Today I'm going to walk through the hormonal and metabolic picture of a nursing mother, what the research says about when and how it's safe to adjust your nutrition, and three signs that tell you if you've pushed too far, because of course the priority is always your baby and your health first, and then your physique goals second.
• 0:40
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that puts a popular piece of fitness advice under the microscope, finds the hidden reason it doesn't work, and gives you the deceptively simple fix that does.
• 0:50
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today's episode was inspired by a listener question.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: It's one of the best that I've gotten in a while.
• 0:57
  Philip Pape: Katie S wrote in she's 42 years old, 5'2, nursing her nine-month-old, which is her eighth baby.
• 1:04
  Philip Pape: She's been lifting for about three years.
• 1:06
  Philip Pape: She hits her protein most days, and she's watching her body slowly change.
• 1:10
  Philip Pape: She's at about 145 pounds, which is 20 pounds above what used to be her normal weight.
• 1:16
  Philip Pape: But her goal is not to get back to 124.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: It's more like 130 because she's accounting for some of that muscle that she's built.
• 1:24
  Philip Pape: And Katie, if you're listening, that right there is what tells me that you are thinking about this correctly because you are not chasing a number from 10 years ago.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: You're building a different body for a different time of life.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: And what you described, losing five pounds during a winter illness and then seeing muscle definition emerge because the muscle was already there underneath shows me that you were going through body recomp, right?
• 1:49
  Philip Pape: It is happening.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: And sometimes that's very hard to see.
• 1:52
  Philip Pape: I just had a client call where she had lost 1.2 pounds, but within that was about six or seven pounds of fat loss and about four or five pounds of muscle gain.
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: So sometimes it's hard to see that because it's it's slow enough that it doesn't always feel like progress when you're living it day to day.
• 2:10
  Philip Pape: Now, quick note before we go further: I am not a doctor, I'm not a lactation consultant.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: Nothing in this episode replaces working with those experts.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: What I am is someone who reads research.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: I coach women through these situations.
• 2:22
  Philip Pape: Yes, I'm a husband.
• 2:23
  Philip Pape: Yes, I have children as well.
• 2:25
  Philip Pape: And I care about these things.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: I care about all the women in my life, no matter who they are.
• 2:29
  Philip Pape: And I think breastfeeding is an important topic.
• 2:30
  Philip Pape: I think we need to talk about these things and understand what's happening with the body.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: I've worked with women pre and post-pregnancy, those who lift up to very late in term, and then even right after.
• 2:40
  Philip Pape: One of my friends and former clients, she probably knows who she is listening to the show, you know, won a powerlifting meet just a few months after being uh having her child.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: So everything I'm gonna share today is grounded in peer-reviewed evidence.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: I'll be specific about where it's strong and where it's not so strong.
• 2:56
  Philip Pape: But if you have, you know, specific medical concerns about your milk supply, your hormones, your baby's growth, please, please work with your healthcare team on that.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: Um, and then stick around to the end because after the main content, I am gonna share three quick signs that tell you whether your nutrition approach is too aggressive for nursing.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: These are simple things you can check this week.
• 3:16
  Philip Pape: They'll give you some real-time feedback on whether your body is handling the adjustment well so that you know this before you make any changes.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: So here's what we're gonna cover today.
• 3:25
  Philip Pape: First, why the two main camps of advice for nursing mothers tend to miss the mark in different ways.
• 3:31
  Philip Pape: Second, what's actually happening hormonally, metabolically while you're breastfeeding, and why that tends to change the equation for things like muscle, fat storage, and even, of course, your recovery.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: And third, I'll give you some practical tips for supporting your body composition while protecting your milk supply and your health, because the order of those priorities does matter.
• 3:51
  Philip Pape: And we're gonna try to get that right for you.
• 3:53
  Philip Pape: All right, let's get into it.
• 3:55
  Philip Pape: So you are a woman who's nursing, or maybe you plan to nurse, or you wanna, you know somebody who's nursing, you want to share this with them.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: You care about how you look and how you feel.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: You do want to get back to some level of, you know, feeling like yourself again, let's say.
• 4:10
  Philip Pape: Although having a baby is is an incredible experience in its own right.
• 4:15
  Philip Pape: And please don't be so hard on yourself, ladies.
• 4:17
  Philip Pape: But that's easy for me to say as a guy, right?
• 4:19
  Philip Pape: I get it.
• 4:20
  Philip Pape: So you've probably run into different messages on social media, and they tend to be in opposition, but kind of two sides of the same coin.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: The first one is that you shouldn't mess with your diet while you're breastfeeding, that your baby needs every calorie, just wait till you're done nursing, then worry about your body.
• 4:39
  Philip Pape: And it sounds protective and responsible, right?
• 4:42
  Philip Pape: You're trying to nurse and bring up a human being and help them grow really quickly, you know, quickly compared to when they get older, right?
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: Because babies consume a lot and grow very fast.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: Um, so it comes from a real place of love.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: And in that first six to eight weeks postpartum, your supply is being established.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: There's all the new habits and the bond with your baby.
• 5:00
  Philip Pape: Any significant calorie restriction can genuinely interfere with milk production.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: That part is totally true.
• 5:06
  Philip Pape: And then during that early window, the the absolute right call for most women is you got to eat enough and you have to focus on your recovery and let your body do what it needs to do and just focus on the baby, focus on that bonding, focus on that, you know, your milk supply and all that, because you've gone through what amounts to kind of a trauma, right?
• 5:26
  Philip Pape: Having gone through pregnancy.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: But then those same people, they take that legitimate early postpartum caution and then they stretch it across the entire duration of breastfeeding, which could be a year, two years, or longer.
• 5:38
  Philip Pape: I mean, we have two daughters.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: Our first um had trouble getting enough from breast milk because she would spit up a lot, so we supplemented with formula.
• 5:46
  Philip Pape: And so she didn't breastfeed for too long, maybe up to a year max.
• 5:49
  Philip Pape: And our second went almost two years because she was, you know, she was drinking it up and growing from it, and that's all she needed.
• 5:56
  Philip Pape: And then we started to add in food when the time was right in addition to the breast milk.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: So it can be quite a long time.
• 6:02
  Philip Pape: So, you know, the first few months, as we just said, are super important to focus on the recovery in the milk supply.
• 6:07
  Philip Pape: But then after that, we could start looking at these other approaches.
• 6:11
  Philip Pape: The evidence just doesn't support a blanket prohibition that far out.
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: There was a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Love Lady and colleagues.
• 6:19
  Philip Pape: What a nice name, Love Lady.
• 6:21
  Philip Pape: 40 overweight exclusively breastfeeding women were randomized to either a 500 calorie-a-day deficit with exercise four times a week, or the control group.
• 6:31
  Philip Pape: And they started this at four weeks postpartum.
• 6:33
  Philip Pape: So the diet plus exercise group lost about 4.8 kilograms over 10 weeks, and there was no effect on infant growth.
• 6:41
  Philip Pape: None at all.
• 6:42
  Philip Pape: Another group went even more aggressive here, imposing a 35% deficit for 11 days in exclusively breastfeeding women.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: Again, no adverse effects on milk volume, milk composition, prolactin levels, or infant weight.
• 6:57
  Philip Pape: So the idea that a calorie restriction during established lactation, right?
• 7:03
  Philip Pape: You've gotten to the point where you've had a baseline of successful established lactation that it's going to hurt your baby, that is not supported by the research in well-nourished women.
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: Now that distinction matters.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: You have to have established lactation, adequate total intake, and be well-nourished.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: Not close to postpartum, not extreme restriction of your diet, not malnourished.
• 7:27
  Philip Pape: Now, the other camp, camp two here, has the opposite problem, I'll say, where they give generic postpartum body composition advice.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: You've heard of this, like just eat in a deficit, train hard, track your macros, same as everyone else.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: And that might work fine for some women, but it ignores the pretty significant hormone and metabolic shifts, right?
• 7:48
  Philip Pape: Shifts in your metabolism that happen during lactation.
• 7:51
  Philip Pape: Because what's happening?
• 7:52
  Philip Pape: Your estrogen is suppressed, your prolactin is elevated, your body's allocating hundreds of calories a day to producing milk.
• 8:00
  Philip Pape: Your sleep is probably terrible.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: And these definitely change the whole equation for how aggressive you can be, like it would anybody, but in your case, you've got these specific pressures and it changes these, changes what your protein needs are.
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: It changes what your body does with the calorie deficit.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: You know, the calories in an equation can change drastically.
• 8:20
  Philip Pape: And so treating a nursing mother's body the same as a non-nursing body is just sloppy.
• 8:24
  Philip Pape: It's it's the generalization and oversimplification that so many people get into, even when they mean well.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: But honestly, I don't think you mean too well if you don't get to that next level.
• 8:33
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're nursing in your say late 30s or 40s, so we're getting to, I hate the term geriatric pregnancy, right?
• 8:41
  Philip Pape: It seems crazy at that age.
• 8:42
  Philip Pape: But you know, as we as you get closer to that, you know, menopause age and you're but you're you're nursing, there's like another layer of stuff to deal with where perimenopause is entering the picture and you have these two different hormonal states clashing together.
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: And I don't think that's been studied at all, to be honest, but we are gonna talk a little bit about that.
• 9:01
  Philip Pape: So those are the camps that we have.
• 9:03
  Philip Pape: That's where the advice is coming from as a baseline.
• 9:05
  Philip Pape: If we look at you know what's generally discussed out there.
• 9:08
  Philip Pape: But I want to actually go into the next topic here, which is what's happening in your body, what's going on with hormones?
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: Okay, when you're breastfeeding, especially when it's frequent breastfeeding, all you know, you you it's a it's a common thing for you, your body is suppressing the estrogen.
• 9:23
  Philip Pape: You've got prolactin is high.
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: That's that's what drives the milk production.
• 9:27
  Philip Pape: The elevated prolactin shuts down normal hormonocycline.
• 9:32
  Philip Pape: So your estradiol drops to somewhere around four to 47 picograms per milliliter, if you were to look at it on the lab.
• 9:40
  Philip Pape: Whereas a normal premenopausal woman is like up at 30 to 400, right?
• 9:45
  Philip Pape: Quite a bit higher.
• 9:46
  Philip Pape: A breastfeeding woman who doesn't have her period, so we call that amenorrheic, can be sitting at like as low as four picograms per milliliter.
• 9:54
  Philip Pape: And that's comparable to a postmenopausal woman.
• 9:57
  Philip Pape: So your progesterone is basically zero because you're not ovulating.
• 10:01
  Philip Pape: And hormonally, a nursing mother's body looks like a menopausal body in terms of estrogen status.
• 10:08
  Philip Pape: And that that's whatever age you are, whether you're 28 or 42 or whatever, that the lactation hormones do all that.
• 10:13
  Philip Pape: Now, why does all this matter?
• 10:15
  Philip Pape: Why is a dude on Wits and Weights talking about this?
• 10:17
  Philip Pape: Okay, a few reasons.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: First of all, we've never talked about this, and so this is like a definitive episode on this.
• 10:23
  Philip Pape: Low estrogen shifts fat storage toward your midsection.
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: Okay, we know this is a challenge for post for perimenopause, right?
• 10:31
  Philip Pape: It causes menobelly, that it's a popular term.
• 10:34
  Philip Pape: Research shows that when estrogen drops, whether from menopause or from lactation, you're going to preferentially deposit visceral fat.
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: So if your body shape feels like it's changing during breastfeeding, if you're carrying more around the middle than you used to, that's probably a real thing.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: There's an actual hormonal mechanism behind that.
• 10:52
  Philip Pape: And I know that's tough when you've just had a baby and you're trying to lose that belly weight, but now it seems to be counteracting it.
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: Low estrogen also creates anabolic resistance.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: Your muscles become less responsive to the signals that drive that muscle growth, like your training and your protein.
• 11:08
  Philip Pape: This means you probably need more protein, maybe more per meal, more per day, for the same muscle protein synthesis response.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: And then your insulin sensitivity can be affected because lactation adds insulin resistance to support milk production.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: And then that tilts the metabolism toward fat storage as well.
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: So combined with low estrogen, your body's in a state where it is prioritizing the baby's energy supply.
• 11:36
  Philip Pape: And that makes total sense, right?
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: From an evolutionary standpoint, your body's doing its job, but it means you just can't follow standard advice and think it's going to work.
• 11:45
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're nursing in your late 30s or 40s, there's that second layer I mentioned.
• 11:49
  Philip Pape: We talked about estrogen, estrogen fluctuating wildly irregular cycles, you know, your progesterone's declining.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: And then that combines with the lactation stuff going on.
• 12:00
  Philip Pape: And now you have this like deeper, more sustained, low estrogen state than either of those would create on their own.
• 12:07
  Philip Pape: And I don't I don't know that this has been studied directly.
• 12:09
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna be honest about that.
• 12:11
  Philip Pape: I think any recommendation for a woman who is simultaneously nursing and perimenopausal is probably extrapolated from like adjacent research, right?
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: Not not direct studies for that population, which is a problem in women's health in general, as we know.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: There is a bright spot here.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: I always like to find the silver linings here.
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: Every time you nurse, your body releases oxytocin.
• 12:35
  Philip Pape: Oxytocin suppresses cortisol and lowers blood pressure.
• 12:40
  Philip Pape: This is the this is the one released because of the bond with your baby, right?
• 12:44
  Philip Pape: It's the motherhood coming out.
• 12:46
  Philip Pape: It even have even fathers can have an impact when you're with your baby.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: That's why they like all the touching and being close, you know, right after the baby's born.
• 12:54
  Philip Pape: So after about six weeks of breastfeeding, this buffer on your stress persists.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: Even six weeks after of breastfeeding, even between feedings.
• 13:04
  Philip Pape: So the breastfeeding is giving you some protection against the cortisol-driven visceral fat storage that sleep, you know, sleep deprivation and the stress you have would otherwise cause.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: So it kind of gives you a little bit of an advantage there.
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: One more thing worth knowing is that extended breastfeeding seems to delay menopause onset.
• 13:26
  Philip Pape: Uh, data from the nurses' health study found that women who breastfed 25 or more months total had AMH levels.
• 13:33
  Philip Pape: That's like your ovarian reserve, like a marker of your ovarian reserve, how many eggs you have?
• 13:38
  Philip Pape: It's about 39% higher than those who breastfed less.
• 13:42
  Philip Pape: So, our listener who wrote in, Katie, with your history, your perimenopausal symptoms could be partly lactation-driven and partly reversible once you wean off.
• 13:53
  Philip Pape: It doesn't change what you're doing now, but it's it's worth knowing that context.
• 13:57
  Philip Pape: So, when we summarize it all together, what do you have?
• 13:59
  Philip Pape: You have suppressed estrogen, elevated prolactin, some insulin resistance, tendency to store more fat in your belly, anabolic resistance in your muscles, but also a built-in buffer against the stress, the cortisol from because of the nursing.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: So that's kind of what you have to play with.
• 14:14
  Philip Pape: What do you do with this information now?
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: Okay, so I just got done telling you that sleep might be the single most important variable for body composition while nursing, and that a three-hour difference in sleep changed fat loss by more than half in a controlled study.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: And I know if you're nursing a baby, the idea of getting better sleep seems uh hilarious, maybe, maybe like a cruel joke.
• 14:37
  Philip Pape: Whether or not your husband's helping out.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: Now, I was working, my wife wasn't.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: Fortunately, I was able to get a little more sleep because she was breastfeeding, but that's not always the situation.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: You can't control when the baby wakes up either.
• 14:48
  Philip Pape: So there's that.
• 14:49
  Philip Pape: But here's what you do control: what happens when you finally lie down?
• 14:52
  Philip Pape: How fast you fall asleep, how deeply you stay asleep during those windows that you actually get, and that's where the physical environment matters a ton more than people think.
• 15:03
  Philip Pape: Temperature regulation is a huge one.
• 15:05
  Philip Pape: Nursing mothers tend to run warmer, especially at night, and overheating is one of the most common sleep disruptors.
• 15:13
  Philip Pape: So, naturally, I'm gonna segue into our sponsor for today's episode, Cozy Earth, because Cozy Earth, who I love as a company, very ethical, really good people at that company.
• 15:23
  Philip Pape: They make bamboo-derived bedding and sleepwear that regulates temperature and it does so better than anything I've tried.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: So if you're nursing, this could be a nice luxurious gift for you, for yourself, or maybe hint hint to somebody who's looking to get you a gift.
• 15:38
  Philip Pape: Maybe for the baby shower, I don't know.
• 15:40
  Philip Pape: Their sheets are very breathable, they stay cool without feeling cold, they get softer over time instead of piling.
• 15:47
  Philip Pape: I also use their bamboo-derived pajamas along with the sheets and the cuddle blanket.
• 15:53
  Philip Pape: And anyway, the difference for me with all of this is falling asleep faster, waking up less.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: And so for someone who's nursing who only gets sleep in two or three hour blocks, getting deeper sleep during those blocks is a huge advantage.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: So that's cozy earth.
• 16:07
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• 16:13
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• 16:16
  Philip Pape: So absolutely no risk on that.
• 16:18
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• 16:20
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• 16:26
  Philip Pape: If you're in that season where every hour of rest has to count, then just make it count.
• 16:30
  Philip Pape: And Cozy Earth is a great move for that, and you would support the show.
• 16:34
  Philip Pape: Witsandweights.com slash cozy earth.
• 16:37
  Philip Pape: All right, so after that very natural segue to our sponsor, we're now gonna get back to the framework here.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: What is happening in the body is what we just covered.
• 16:46
  Philip Pape: Now we're gonna talk about what the approach should look like.
• 16:50
  Philip Pape: Now, the goal here is not to lose weight while breastfeeding.
• 16:54
  Philip Pape: Okay, let me say that again.
• 16:55
  Philip Pape: The goal is not to lose weight while breastfeeding, the goal is to support your health, to protect your milk supply, to preserve and build your muscle, and let your body composition improve as a byproduct of doing those things well.
• 17:07
  Philip Pape: Does that make sense?
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: I hope that makes sense.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: It's a very healthy approach to take that I prefer for anybody, let alone nursing mothers who have these extra challenges going on.
• 17:16
  Philip Pape: If you approach it that way with the baby and your health as the top priorities, then the physique changes actually follow, from what I've seen.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: So don't look at this as a guy trying to, you know, tell you what to do and that you can't lose weight or can't lose fat.
• 17:28
  Philip Pape: I'm saying that actually a more efficient way to do it is to prioritize the health and your muscle and things like that.
• 17:36
  Philip Pape: If you flip those around, if you chase the number on the scale while you nurse, you're definitely gonna run into problems because there's a lot of other variables at play that are that make it more complicated.
• 17:44
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 17:45
  Philip Pape: So we've got we've got our four pieces here.
• 17:47
  Philip Pape: We've got nutrition, protein, sleep, and movement.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: For nutrition, I'm gonna say that after you've established your lactation and you've been well fed and well nourished and not worried too much about calories during those first two to three months, then a moderate calorie adjustment, which usually comes by tracking in awareness, is totally doable.
• 18:06
  Philip Pape: It's totally supported by the research.
• 18:08
  Philip Pape: It doesn't, shouldn't be a huge deficit if you're still breastfeeding.
• 18:11
  Philip Pape: But as much as 500 calories a day, which is one pound a week of weight loss, is totally doable.
• 18:17
  Philip Pape: It's totally doable, it's perfectly healthy, it's perfectly fine.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: Of course, it's gonna, the actual number is gonna depend on your size and how you can handle it with things like hunger and biofeedback.
• 18:27
  Philip Pape: But you're still burning a lot of calories, like around 350 to 450 calories a day producing milk at nine months postpartum.
• 18:36
  Philip Pape: So your energy expenditure is higher than a non-nursing woman of the same size, and then that works in your favor because then you can eat more total food and still be in that modest deficit, right?
• 18:48
  Philip Pape: But the calorie floor itself depends on your size.
• 18:51
  Philip Pape: You know, the when you hear never go below X while nursing, or I don't know, 1800 calories while nursing.
• 18:56
  Philip Pape: That comes from the love lady study I mentioned because they didn't prescribe anything below that, but that's all that was.
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: And that population was larger women on average.
• 19:08
  Philip Pape: There's another research-based floor from data that's 1500 calories, where below that it got a little bit dicey.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: But in reality, below 1500 or 1200 for most people, it starts to get a little dicey anyway.
• 19:20
  Philip Pape: So for a smaller woman like our listener Katie at 5'2, the hard floor is probably closer to her around 1500, not 1800.
• 19:27
  Philip Pape: But again, I don't know the exact number, it depends.
• 19:30
  Philip Pape: So the practical approach to do it is calculate your deficit from your actual TDEE, your actual expenditure.
• 19:37
  Philip Pape: Use something like macrofactor so you're not just doing a calculator.
• 19:41
  Philip Pape: You want to be have been tracking.
• 19:42
  Philip Pape: So actually, it's it's helpful if you're tracking your food while pre while postpartum, even if you're not using that to go into deficit yet, just so you know what your maintenance calories are.
• 19:51
  Philip Pape: And it might be pretty cool to see what happens to your maintenance over the course of breastfeeding over that time.
• 19:57
  Philip Pape: So that's something we can definitely help with if you if you wanted to reach out.
• 20:00
  Philip Pape: But you know, if you're early postpartum or if you have any concerns with your supply, don't use a deficit.
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: Eat to support your recovery and your baby.
• 20:07
  Philip Pape: There's no rush on this.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: Now, protein, this is probably where most nursing mothers are falling short, even if you think you're doing well, because most people fall short.
• 20:17
  Philip Pape: And the the need for breastfeeding women is probably 50 to 100% higher than the RDA.
• 20:26
  Philip Pape: And there are there are recommendations out there that are higher.
• 20:29
  Philip Pape: I don't know if like from an official agency, and that's before you add strength training and the other things that we want you to do on top of that.
• 20:36
  Philip Pape: So, guess what?
• 20:37
  Philip Pape: We're gonna go with a typical advice for protein for a pregnant woman just as well, 0.7 to 1 grams per pound or more.
• 20:44
  Philip Pape: So for someone Katie's size, our listener at 145 pounds, that's you know, anywhere from like 120 to one, even up to 160 if you want to go above the one gram per pound, and then spread your protein across meals at least 30 to 40 per meal, so that you can just maximize all of this and make it more practical.
• 21:03
  Philip Pape: And that that's what I would say for that.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: If you think about breast tissue, the mammary gland, it consumes a significant amount of those branch chain amino acids to produce milk.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: So you're actually draining your amino acids, and that's why probably even going higher on the protein can be helpful.
• 21:20
  Philip Pape: All right, now sleep.
• 21:21
  Philip Pape: Come on, this is the most important variable for of all in this population, and I'll be honest, in most people's lives, period, because we don't get enough of it, but it is also the hardest one to control.
• 21:32
  Philip Pape: There was a study from Nedelcheva that put subjects on the exact same calorie deficit with the exact same exercise, but one group slept eight and a half hours and the other slept five and a half.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: Uh, this is a famous study about sleep deprivation.
• 21:47
  Philip Pape: And the sleep restricted group lost 55% less fat and lost 60% more muscle.
• 21:54
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 21:54
  Philip Pape: So they had less fat loss and more muscle loss with the same food and the same exercise, but they had less sleep.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: So their bodies preferentially broke down muscle and preserve fat.
• 22:03
  Philip Pape: And that's not what we want generally.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: We know that sleep deprivation also increases ghrelin and by 28%, decreases leptin by about 18%.
• 22:12
  Philip Pape: And that means you're going to consume up to 500 more calories a day, and you're going to seek out higher sugar, higher fat type comfort foods.
• 22:19
  Philip Pape: So you're hungrier, you crave foods that don't serve you as much, the deficit you're in maybe is actually coming somewhat from your muscle.
• 22:28
  Philip Pape: And that's why aggressive dieting on bad sleep is one of the worst things you can do.
• 22:33
  Philip Pape: So for a nursing mother where you're nursing through the night, I'm not going to pretend you can just sleep more, but there are some findings from the research that are helpful to know.
• 22:43
  Philip Pape: The first one is that resistance training during periods of sleep restriction help maintain muscle protein synthesis at normal levels.
• 22:51
  Philip Pape: So training kind of rescues you a bit from muscle loss, which makes sense because we talk about strength training as a way to preserve muscle.
• 22:58
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 22:59
  Philip Pape: So, you know, training postpartum is still something highly encouraged.
• 23:04
  Philip Pape: Secondly, even an extra 1.2 hours of sleep per night led to eating 270 fewer calories the next day without any other intervention.
• 23:12
  Philip Pape: So really every extra hour of sleep you just can figure out to negotiate in there somehow.
• 23:18
  Philip Pape: A nap when the baby naps, going to bed 30 minutes earlier, having your partner take a feeding if that's possible, all of that's gonna help you.
• 23:26
  Philip Pape: And then we have movement.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: Katie mentioned that steps and swimming for her are hard to fit in.
• 23:31
  Philip Pape: And, you know, she's right that the activity matters, but the type matters more than anything here.
• 23:36
  Philip Pape: You guys know how I talk about strategic cardio versus your neat, your non-exercise activity, which is primarily your steps and your walking.
• 23:45
  Philip Pape: And when I look at Katie's day, I can see where it's tough to get that neat because she's sitting in the passenger seat for her the hours her teens are driving.
• 23:56
  Philip Pape: She's sitting while homeschooling, she's sitting while nursing, she's standing in the kitchen cooking, and that's still stationary.
• 24:03
  Philip Pape: No offense, Katie.
• 24:04
  Philip Pape: Standing burns a few more calories than sitting, but obviously if you're in place, it's still a lot of stationary lack of movement, not because you're not trying, it's how your life is structured and how crazy things are.
• 24:14
  Philip Pape: And a lot of nursing mothers are going to recognize something very similar, probably in their own routines.
• 24:18
  Philip Pape: So the fix is not, let me add in a 45-minute swim.
• 24:23
  Philip Pape: It's rethinking or reframing the hours that you're stationary.
• 24:26
  Philip Pape: What can you do instead?
• 24:27
  Philip Pape: Can you stand at the counter for homeschool instead of the table?
• 24:30
  Philip Pape: Can you walk your younger kids around the block while the teens drive?
• 24:34
  Philip Pape: I don't know.
• 24:34
  Philip Pape: Can you pace during the room, you know, phone calls during pace your room during phone calls?
• 24:39
  Philip Pape: And these sound like small things, but they add up.
• 24:41
  Philip Pape: That, you know, going from like five to seven thousand steps can be helpful.
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: And an extra 20 minutes a day spread throughout the day could be an extra two or three hundred calories burned, right?
• 24:52
  Philip Pape: On the swimming specifically, Katie, I think it's an awesome option for like joint-friendly conditioning.
• 24:59
  Philip Pape: But the the cork here is that there was a study that found swimmers lost no weight over six months while walkers lost 10% of the body weight because cold water stimulates appetite.
• 25:10
  Philip Pape: Now, I'm not saying swimming's bad for you.
• 25:12
  Philip Pape: I'm just saying if body composition is a goal, walking in general daily movement might give you a better return per hour without appetite compensation.
• 25:19
  Philip Pape: But that was just a little uh side tangent that I found in my research.
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: So I guess what I'm saying is this nursing doesn't mean you have to put your body on hold for a year or two.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: The evidence does support a moderate patient uh protein forward approach once you've established lactation.
• 25:35
  Philip Pape: And then the biggest threats to that process are not the calorie deficit, but things like inadequate protein, inadequate sleep, and of course inadequate patience.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: Before we wrap up, I did promise you three signs that tell you whether your nutritional approach is too aggressive for nursing.
• 25:51
  Philip Pape: That's coming up in a second.
• 25:52
  Philip Pape: But if this episode resonated with you, if you're a woman who lifts and pays attention to her nutrition, but isn't seeing the results you expected, whether you're nursing or not, especially if the hormonal shifts feel like a factor in your life, I want to tell you about Eat More Lift Heavy.
• 26:08
  Philip Pape: It's a 26-week coaching program that I built with Coach Carol.
• 26:12
  Philip Pape: It launches March 30th.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: Today, as this episode comes out, is the last day to get on the wait list for founders pricing because it's going to go up pretty darn soon.
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: So as soon as you hear this episode, I want you to go to witsandweights.com slash eatmore.
• 26:30
  Philip Pape: Witsandweights.com slash eat more.
• 26:33
  Philip Pape: What's gonna happen is you'll lock in a lower rate permanently for as long as you stay enrolled with that pricing that's gonna go away within a few days and it's gonna go up and never come down again.
• 26:43
  Philip Pape: What do you get?
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: You get a training program assigned to you in week one based on your specific situation.
• 26:48
  Philip Pape: There's a monthly live coaching call with me and Carol.
• 26:51
  Philip Pape: There is a 26-week program.
• 26:54
  Philip Pape: It's a process week by week with one focus per week.
• 26:58
  Philip Pape: It sequences you through along the way, it makes it very accessible, low stress, and achievable.
• 27:04
  Philip Pape: So you can build those skills.
• 27:06
  Philip Pape: 54% of our members report hormonal concerns.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: And so the curriculum has a dedicated module on hormonal pattern awareness.
• 27:15
  Philip Pape: So this is a coaching program.
• 27:17
  Philip Pape: It's not a content library.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: We have a section that has all these other courses and things that were part of Physique University.
• 27:24
  Philip Pape: But this program is one sequence over 26 weeks that gives you a custom launch plan in week one, custom, you know, selected training plan, and then all the support and accountability along the way to get to the goal that you want.
• 27:38
  Philip Pape: If that sounds like what you need, go to witsandwaist.com slash eatmore, get on the wait list, witsandwaist.com slash eatmore.
• 27:46
  Philip Pape: All right, if you're nursing and you're adjusting your nutrition at the same time, here are three signs that tell you you've gone too far.
• 27:54
  Philip Pape: Number one, when your supply dips at a specific feed, usually the late afternoon or the evening one, milk production is lowest when cortisol is highest.
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: So if your energy intake's too low, then that vulnerable feed is the first one to drop.
• 28:11
  Philip Pape: If you notice the baby is fussier or less satisfied at one particular feeding and then it's consistent for a few days, that's the signal.
• 28:19
  Philip Pape: So again, your supply dips at a specific feeding.
• 28:22
  Philip Pape: And again, it's usually late afternoon or evening, but it does not necessarily.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: Number two is a wet diaper count.
• 28:28
  Philip Pape: This is this is a very objective measure.
• 28:30
  Philip Pape: So talk about data tracking.
• 28:32
  Philip Pape: Wet diapers.
• 28:33
  Philip Pape: Less than six wet diapers per day in an infant probably means inadequate hydration, which can reflect reduced milk volume.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: No need to freak out.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: It's just something to track.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: If you've been tracking this, I think you should be.
• 28:46
  Philip Pape: Uh most, most of us.
• 28:47
  Philip Pape: I mean, I remember us, we knew exactly how many diaper wet diapers there were a day.
• 28:51
  Philip Pape: If there's a drop from your baby's normal baseline, that's something to look at.
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: That's that's what I'm suggesting.
• 28:57
  Philip Pape: Number three is that your own hunger is constant and very intense, right?
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: Not just like, yeah, I could eat, but I can't stop thinking about food.
• 29:06
  Philip Pape: And if you have that level of hunger while you're nursing, it means your deficit is too big for what your body is trying to produce.
• 29:12
  Philip Pape: That is your brain through biofeedback telling you that the energy math isn't working right now.
• 29:16
  Philip Pape: So if you see any of these, the fix is actually quite simple.
• 29:19
  Philip Pape: Eat more.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: Eat more.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: Add two to three hundred calories for a few days, reassess all of these things.
• 29:24
  Philip Pape: You can always tighten it up later.
• 29:26
  Philip Pape: You know, your milk supply is harder to rebuild than the deficit is to reintroduce.
• 29:31
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 29:31
  Philip Pape: I hope this was helpful.
• 29:32
  Philip Pape: I know it's a very unique topic for wits and weights, but I think it's an important one.
• 29:36
  Philip Pape: And thank you, Katie, for the question.
• 29:38
  Philip Pape: Uh, if anybody wants to submit a question for the podcast, go to wits and weights.com slash question.
• 29:43
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 29:46
  Philip Pape: And remember, your body is doing incredible work right now.
• 29:50
  Philip Pape: Support it first, and the results will come.
• 29:53
  Philip Pape: I'm Philip Pape, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.