active or lightly active, also breastfeeding

emilygduran

I'm just trying to figure out a few things. I'm a part time server and work 4 to 8 hr shifts constantly moving 3 days a week. The days I'm home I'm looking after my 3 children, so also lots of moving and cleaning. Would that be lightly active or active? Also does breastfeeding a toddler affect that, or should I add any calories for it? Thanks for any insight

TavistockToad

Start light active and see how you get on.

Add breastfeeding to your food log to get the extra cals for it

Okohme

I would say active for 3 days a week, probably lightly active otherwise. I am unsure on the breastfeeding question but I'm curious to know, as I am also still nursing my toddler as well. The stat I've heard is 300-500 calories, but I think that may have been itty bitties who nurse all day long.

emilygduran

TavistockToad wrote: »

Start light active and see how you get on.

Add breastfeeding to your food log to get the extra cals for it

So would it take a few weeks to see if it was the right choice, or a couple months? I ask because I've been tracking for a week at active and throwing in an extra snack for bfing and already lost around 6 lbs in that time.

emilygduran

I forgot to add that I do body weight exercise 5-6 days a week

TavistockToad

emilygduran wrote: »

TavistockToad wrote: »

Start light active and see how you get on.

Add breastfeeding to your food log to get the extra cals for it

So would it take a few weeks to see if it was the right choice, or a couple months? I ask because I've been tracking for a week at active and throwing in an extra snack for bfing and already lost around 6 lbs in that time.

4-6 weeks.

Week 1 is usually a lot of water weight

emilygduran

Thank you!

SusanMFindlay

Do you have a pedometer? If you're over 10,000 steps/day, start with "active". (I'm 15-25,000 steps/day and burn 400-600 calories more than "active". Don't underestimate the calories you can burn by being on your feet a lot.)

What have you set as your goal weight loss? 1 pound/week or less, I hope? That'll give you room for error if it turns our you're underestimating your activity level.

How often does your toddler breastfeed? That'll affect how many calories to log for that. Exclusively breastfeeding a baby is ~500 cals/day. Breastfeeding a toddler part time is probably in the 100-200 range. So, yes, a small snack sounds like a good way to address that.

It's really common to lose a lot of weight the first week because of dropping water weight. If you choose to start with "lightly active" and continue to lose 2+ pounds/week for 2-3 more weeks, increase your calorie intake because that will mean you're underestimating your activity level.

PAV8888

server all day by itself is active. breastfeeding by itself is one half to one full activity level. At home looking after children is lightly active to active. 6lbs may be initial water weight etc and may stabilise. Nevertheless, it does sounds based on the rest of the information that you're cutting at a pretty good deficit. generally a complete monthly cycle is recommended to judge weight because water retention associated with it can often amount to 3+lbs (sometimes 5+lbs) in a month. Given that many people lose that or less on a monthly basis... hard to figure out the actual loss when you're dealing with water weight variation. Hence the recommendation to track for more than a couple of weeks ;-)