Losing weight while breastfeeding

hesn92

i am pregnant now and I'm not counting calories but will need to lose the weight after I have my baby in November. I've heard it is recommended to eat 500 extra calories per day while breastfeeding and I'm assuming that means 500 over maintenance. Who has lost weight/counted calories while breastfeeding and how many calories over/under maintenance did you eat? I don't want to sabotage the breastfeeding by eating too little but I also would like to lose weight. Thanks

Ninkyou

I had my baby in January.

I'm 5'2 (152ish lbs) and eating 2000 calories (without exercise calories) and losing weight.
According to Scooby, my TDEE without exercise is 1619.

LLL recommends a minimum of 1800 calories.
http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/lv/lvoctnov97p115.html

I've also used
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/breastfeeding_calorie_calculator.htm
to help calculate calories (there's also a pregnancy one on there).

I gained 24.6 lbs during my pregnancy (logging religiously) and 2 weeks ago (17w pp) I hit my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm now a little more than 3 lbs under that.

Definitely keep an eye on your milk supply and if you notice a drop, up your calories.