Breastfeeding and high intensity exercise

Ok, I am looking for some very specific individuals here, or people with specific experience.

I am a physique athlete who hopes to return to the stage after the birth of this LO. They are due in Feb and I plan to prep for a comp in September. By prep involves LOTS of heavy weight lifting and only about 3 x HIIT sessions per week for cardio. Diet for this prep will be vastly different to my last preps. Why? Well I intend on bfing right through my prep.

So my main question is - Is there anyone here experienced with bfing while completing training and competition for high level sports such as triathlon, marathon running, other physique or figure competitors. Primarily sports where your body fat is usually under 10%

Thanks in advance ladies :)

there was a story on ABA FB group recently of a mum who was doing Tough Mudder 5 months post partum. Instagram

i know her if you wanted any more details.

There is this article on ABA page too

https://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfi...-breastfeeding

ETA - i obviously have no personal experience, i just like reading and hearing about other people participating in high intensity exercise! ;)

Thanks HotI. I'd actually read the tough mudder story. Not quite what I'm looking for. While it's intense, and I think her effort was awesome, the bodyfat that is run at is still a fair bit higher than I run at during comp prep. :)

Always good to see inspiring pics like that though.

Hopefully you can find someone with specific experience/information. I do know that it's normal to lay down extra fat during pregnancy to support breastfeeding post-birth and rapid weight loss can affect supply in some instances. I don't actually know, but having very low body fat *might* affect lactation - at any rate, it's probably a good idea to find out.
Good luck with your prep

Hi there,

I follow Ildilko Browning AKA 'Ildifit' on her FB page and Instagram. I don't think she ended up BF though - she had twins and one had feeding issues and ended up on goats milk but she might be a start and she might know of other mums who may have bf and competed. GL on your search

Thanks girls.

RhiChiChi - I'm actually already in regular contact with Ildiko :) She's 150% awesome! But you're right regarding the feeding thing for her. But she did make a FANTASTIC 2 months. With twins and training I applaud her! Sadly, us nutcases wanting to do both at the same time are few and far between :(

I would be interested if anyone knew as well .. I'm breastfeeding my 12 week old DD2 and Iv started up some weight training , wondering if this would be to much ?

In addition to the breastfeeding, i would also chat to medicos or others who have done it, so you minimise your injury risk. The relaxin hormone hangs around for awhile after birth, and going too hard too soon (or perhaps doing wrong exercises too soon) could put you at higher risk of injury.

There was discussion about exercise and breastfeeding recently in my ABA group, just trying to find the info to see if it is relevant to what you are looking for.

Sadly, there is heaps of info out there on moderate exercise post baby, but what I call moderate vs what the ABA calls moderate are very different. All across the relaxin etc hoti, and good with the potential injuries. That info is available en mass. (and trust me, I wont be going straight back to 150kg squats or bench presses above my body weight.)
Its bfing while doing it that is lacking in info.

How do we know what "moderate " is when talking about exercise ?

Moderate - you can usually carry on a conversation during the cardio and it's generally only 3-4 days a week. Your weights training would not be engineered to take you to failure.

Comp prep - 6 days a week. Weights on 5 of those days HIIT on 3. Even the weights sessions should leave you like jelly.

have you contacted ABA lactation resource centre (LRC), they have access to heaps of evidence based research. maybe someone else has written about it. each woman reacts differently to different situations, might be a case of trial and error and see what happens. maybe you can write up your experience later, if you find the information is lacking.

Hey HotI - I emailed ABA but haven't heard anything back yet. I will def be documenting my experiences as I go, things I learn and tweaks I make as I go through the whole process.

:-) small world hey?! GL on finding some information.... if I stumble accross anything I'll be sure to post (I follow heaps on FB & Instagram)