5. Breastfeed?

Pregnant women hear this advice ad nauseum (and really isn’t there enough nausea already going on?): Breastfeed and the baby weight will melt away like magic! While breastfeeding does have a host of benefits for both mom and baby (my fave: it’s free! I’m nothing if not cheap), the jury is still out on weight loss. For me in the past, I find that the weight comes off pretty easily in the first six months. That is until I get to the last 10 pounds. At which point my body decides it had better keep my thighs really well padded, you know, in case of famine or the need to double as Kim Kardashian. There is nothing I can do within the realms of good health to get those last 10 pounds off until I wean the little sucker. My goal this time around is to learn to enjoy my hips and boobs for the short time I actually have them rather than trying to fight those last ten pounds. That’s what I have the rest of my life for, right?

For other women it is different though. I have one friend who actually complains that she gets too thin while nursing. Either way, they say nursing burns about 500 calories a day. Like a calorie deficit from exercise, your body strives to maintain equilibrium and will make you hungrier to compensate. (Seriously, you have not seen starving until you’ve seen me eat when my milk comes in. Small animals hide in fear.)