Breastfeeding and Losing Weight

So, a brief update: after two days of being PERFECT with my points, the scale finally went down!  Yay!  Not by a ton, but hey, it's moving in the right direction.  I'm feeling like this is something I really can do.

I wanted to write about one of the hurdles I'm facing: Breastfeeding.  I have a beautiful 3 month old baby I am currently exclusively breastfed:

Cute, right?

Now, there's lots of things people say about breastfeeding and losing weight.  The most common thing is that it's GREAT because it burns calories, so you can eat more and still lose weight!  Yay!  (Interesting side note: it actually takes more calories to make breastmilk than it does to be pregnant.  You need 300 extra calories for pregnancy, 500 for breastfeeding).

Here's the big downside: the hunger.  So, so hungry.  When I'm pregnant, I have no appetite.  When I'm nursing, I could eat an entire batch of cookies plus some ice cream to wash it down with.  The other problem is that some women don't lose weight while nursing, but rather their bodies hold on to as much fat as possible, because nursing is so demanding.  I have wondered if I'm in this latter group, but I've never got much past the hunger part to find out (meaning I can't stop eating long enough to actually try to lose weight.  Ha).

The other problem I struggled with when Lucy was younger was that if you cut out too many calories, your milk supply will drop.  This has made me extremely paranoid, even though I suspect that it's not as big of an issue now that my milk supply is well established.

The point is, breastfeeding doesn't make losing weight as cut and dry as some people say.  The increased appetite and the concern about milk supply are two things that can sabotage my efforts.