Remember Beyonce Knowles, high profile breastfeeding mom and fantastic example for lactating mamas everywhere? Consider that stage of her life over. Blue Ivy's mama showed up as promised at a Memorial Day weekend concert series looking pretty bootylicious.
And as she told the crowd, the mother of a 5-month-old worked her tail off to get there. But her weight loss secret doesn't exactly jive with the super breastfeeding rep she's gotten since her daughter was born.
Beyonce told the crowd at her second of four shows that she dropped 60 pounds with constant work on the treadmill and a diet that consisted of lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce. Brave. Maybe even inspirational. But not a diet plan that any breastfeeding mom should follow, you hear?
I don't know how many times I see this happen. A mom decides she is going to breastfeed, but she still wants to lose the baby weight. She thinks she can do them both because hey, don'tcha know, breastfeeding burns calories?
It's true. BUT, and this is the big ol' BUT, it doesn't burn that many calories. And while it does, a breastfeeding mom's intake should remain somewhere between 1,500 to 1,800 calories at least: much more than a whole lot of lettuce will give you. That poor kid needs something to eat too! In fact, following the type of healthy weight loss recommended for a lactating mother, Beyonce would have only shed about half of the weight -- about 30 pounds.
I should make it clear that Beyonce may have given up breastfeeding a long time ago. She hasn't been caught nursing in public in awhile. If that's true, that's her choice, and I support a mom's ability to make the choices that best fit her own lifestyle. But that leaves us only two conclusions here. Either she didn't even make it to the six-month mark the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for nursing, or she nursed Blue Ivy while following a dangerous diet.
She's still a fabulous singer, and probably a pretty great mom. But for moms who are looking to the singer as some sort of fantastic postpartum breastfeeding role model, I think we can safely say that ship has sailed. Just look at her:
How do you balance weight loss against the need to provide your baby with nutrients? What do you think of Beyonce's post-baby transformation?
Image via AtlanticCityBeats/YouTube
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Comments 108
On stage, during a concert, she said she ate, "lettuce, lettuce and more lettuce." I wasn't there, but I'd wager that it was followed with a rueful chuckle and was meant as a joke, at least partially.
Whether or not she's still breastfeeding is nobody's business but her and Jay Z's and I sincerely doubt that, breastfeeding or not, she ACTUALLY has spent the last five months subsisting on lettuce and only lettuce. Beyonce is an incredibly active and athletic person and it's far more likely that she, literally, worked her a$$ off while following a reasonable diet plan that fit her lifestyle and was making a charming, eye-wink-at-other-moms joke out of how hard it is to lose the baby weight.
there are plenty of nursing mother's who don't eat the recommended calories and if she was eating lots of veggies she was probably healthier than most who eat processed junk. i wouldn't worry about blue ivy, i'm sure she's well taken care of and since you admit you don't know if she's still nursing or not it's all speculation.
I am still nursing baby number 3 and I admit that I have a VERY hard time eating. I have to force myself most mornings to choke down toast and a banana. I don't know what it is. I know that I'll lose the baby weight eventually but there is always something in the back of my head telling me I'm fat and not to eat.
It was probably a joke. And the truth is, most nursing mothers hardly have time to eat. When people would ask me how I lost the weight, I'd say exactly that..."I don't have time to eat!" I'm sure if she was big and overweight, we'd see an article about how unhealthy THAT is.