Breastfeeding,activity level and Fitbit confusion

adaouk

Hi I'm 5'7 175lbs 32 yo. Breastfeeding exclusively 15week old baby. Get about 10,000 steps per day or more. Have Fitbit blaze. Circuit Train 3 times a week and walk all other days most of the time. Just wondering do I set activity level to sedentary or lightly active. Do I add 500 extra for breastfeeding. And do I look at Fitbit calorie out burn to see how much I'm actually burning on a day. Just trying to figure out how many calories to eat to lose one pound a week. I've been trying to lose since August and nothing yet. Any help would be great. Totally confused and frustrated!?!

lissmayer

I was unable to figure out a good way to use my tracker (misfit) with breastfeeding. I found that it didn't adjust appropriately because those breastfeeding calories need to be added on top regardless of activity- and I don't want to risk my milk supply.

So I used my tracker to compare and check that my settings were right and now just rely on mfp and only use the tracker data for confirmation. It's a real issue with both mfp and the tracker app IMO.

For comparison, I track 7-9k steps, so I set to lightly active, log exercise separately (HIIT 4/week plus nightly stroller walk that barely feels like exercise), and add breastfeeding as an exercise. I add 250 because I'm nursing a toddler but would definitely do 500 for EBF. I'm set for 1 lb/week and have averaged a bit over (1.2), so I feel confident about my settings so far.

lissmayer

Oh and I eat at maintenance for a few days every single month because my period tends to drop my milk supply- plus, you know, chocolate.

sardelsa

I am the same height as you. When I first had my baby I was also was using my Fitbit and it gave me an avg of 2500 cals or so. I added 500 for breastfeeding and I think around the two month mark I was eating around 2700 so smaller deficit to lose very slowly and not affect supply. Since I customized my daily cal goal the MFP activity level had no bearing on it.

ETA: Sometimes Fitbit calorie estimates aren't accurate.. But they are a good starting point for the most part. If you aren't losing, either decrease your cals slightly and make sure you tighten up your logging (weigh, measure everything) if not already. But keep an eye on your milk supply

adaouk

Do any of you enable negative adjustments with Fitbit and mfp or do you disable it and manually add exercise calories?

ChristinePearlFNP

I log my exercise calories on MFP by what my Fitbit says. I do not use any of my steps adjustments-I just delete them. I eat up to 2150 per day but my guy is only 8 weeks just now. I'm averaging anywhere from about 1.8-2.5 lbs per week it seems. I stopped pumping so much because I have so much milk stored. Lol. But my milk hasn't changed at all. How many cals u eating? And do u pump? Is ur baby eating any cereals or anything except milk yet? How much are u losing on average?

ChristinePearlFNP

I see u said u haven't lost so that answers one of my questions. Do u use a food scale?? Do you weigh everything?

adaouk

I'm eating anywhere between 2100-2400 calories depending on how active I am. I don't pump. Just breastfeed. He hasn't started any solids yet. I have Fitbit synced with mfp and I always have so many calories leftover. I haven't lost anything yet. Not sure if I should decrease food intake. I do weigh and use a scale for everything. I even input my recipes into mfp for whatever I cook. So not sure if I'm eating too much. On Fitbit in calories out it says I burn around 2300-2500 per day. And if I add 500 on top of that for breastfeeding I should be around 2800-3000 per day. So eating between 2100 -2400 should result in some weight loss! Hence why I'm so frustrated.

jennb2096

I don't eat back my exercise calories that shows up in mfp that links with Fitbit.

jennb2096

I also don't eat back any calories from my steps.

jennb2096

So mfp gives me a goal of 1500, I manually changed it to 1750 to account for breastfeeding. I get between 7k to 11k steps in a day and don't eat any of it back. I also do a beach body workout and don't eat back any of those either

Pascal56

When I was nursing, I started with 500 extra calories a day and moved that to 250 when she turned 1. A few months later I dropped it entirely. I prefer to set my activity level to sedentary and my Fitbit just adds everything on. It's worked, for the most part, as I lost 40 pounds or so in a year (regained 8, working on it now).

lacandona

I just got a Fitbit so I'm interested in hearing more.

Older forum posts say to add breastfeeding in as a food with negative calories. I've been doing that but it doesn't seem to show up in any view. I think you can manually put it in as an exercise... at 15 week PP it might be 500 calories.