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help please, adjusting macros to include breastfeeding

sueclare38
sueclare38 Posts: 125
edited January 28 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I've been adding breastfeeding to my diary to deduct 200 calories a day, my daughter is almost 21months and feeds between 1-3 times a day, but just realized all the times I thought I was over on my macros I most probably wasn't as it doesn't alter this in mfp. Does anybody know of a site or online calculator where I can find this information to manually adjust the macros myself, I've searched but can only find information on calorie adjustment.

Replies

  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    don't you mean add 200 cals/day to your calorie goal? If you're deducting it from your calorie goal you'll be undereating.

    you can't really calculate calories out from breastfeeding easily. At 21 months it's really hard to say because some kids at this age are not taking much milk any more, while others could be taking quite a lot.

    It may be better to adjust your daily calorie goal based on results, if you're not losing, eat 100 less each day and see if that helps, if your milk supply isn't keeping up then add 100 or 200 each day. But at 21 months you may not notice a drop in supply because at 21 months your daughter may simply compensate by eating more solid food if you're not making enough milk. If you're losing weight too fast or feeling very tired, run down, grumpy, tempted to binge eat, those are signs of not eating enough and you should add calories to your daily goal. When i was losing fat and breastfeeding a toddler, this is what I did.

    If you feel fine, have energy, your daughter's fine and taking what milk she wants, and you're seeing slow and steady fat loss, then don't change anything unless/until weight loss stalls for several weeks.
  • sueclare38
    sueclare38 Posts: 125
    Mfp adds breastfeeding to food section and takes the calories off what you've already eaten so it's still adding them to your day, sorry sounded confusing the way I said it.

    I was losing at a steady pace but I've come to a stand still for the past month. Over the past month my daughter's bf pattern has also changed because she is going through a growth spurt, she was only on a short bedtime feed but added an extra 2 sometimes 3 longer feeds a day. I've upped my calorie intake to take this into account but I know it may take several weeks to see the proper results of doing this. I was just curious as to what the change in macros would be.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    thanks for explaining that :)
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