Postnatal weight loss

carla_maree

Hello,I had my son 6 weeks ago and am trying to get my head around how many calories I should eat.I am currently losing about half a kilogram a week (after losing 10kgs in the week following birth)

I walk 5kms,5x a week with the double pram.Birthing injuries mean I can't run/do weights until things have healed so I am just trying to make the most of walking.

I have set my activity level as moderate which gives me 1600 cals/da to lose .5kg per week.

Each walk earns 260 cals and I am also breastfeeding which I think allows an extra 500 cals per day.

So that is 2360 a day total - how many of these calories do you think I should be eating?

I have 4kgs to lose to get back to pre pregnancy weight and 5 on top of that to be where I was before my first child in 2014.It just seems so slow!

Any advice/thoughts would be much appreciated. Thank you for reading!

jemhh

Congratulations on the new baby!

I would suggest setting your goal to maintain, your activity level to lightly active, and logging and eating your exercise calories. Let your breastfeeding create the deficit, in other words. Evaluate your progress after 4 weeks. Increase or decrease calories as needed at that point.

annacole94

If you're losing a half kg/week, I'd just carry on and give it time. You're only 6 weeks in. You're doing great. Limiting calories can lessen milk supply, so tread carefully. You should definitely be eating around 2,000 calories/day, but it could indeed be more. I was a "lucky one" who just ate moderately and did a little exercise and lost the baby weight fairly easily - but in 6 months, not six weeks.

Jules_farmgirl

Agreed that you should eat maintenance and let breast feeding be your deficit. Just monitor your baby's hunger. You may need to up your calories when your baby goes through growth spurts