Breastfeeding and trying to lose weight?

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TinaMici
TinaMici Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi, is anyone here breastfeeding but also trying to lose the pregnancy weight gain? I'm not sure how many calories I should be eating since I'm breastfeeding. I am 5"6' and currently 187 pounds. Thank you!

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  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    You can either set MFP to maintain, and then use breastfeeding to create a deficit, or set MFP to lose 1lb per week and then add breastfeeding to your food diary to get extra calories back.
  • Fit_Fox88
    Fit_Fox88 Posts: 410 Member
    edited January 2019
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    I'm in the weaning process now (YAY!!!) Well, kinda yay. Happy to have my body back and get back to a serious weight loss/lifting/workout routine. Anyway, typically for breastfeeding you're going to want to eat about 500 calories above your normal. So, as TavistockToad said, figure out what your cals are for losing the weight, then add in those add'l 500 cals. However, you'll likely find that you'll lose the baby weight pretty fast while breastfeeding since you'll be burning through those calories so fast with milk production. Good luck and congrats on the baby! :smile: my little guy just turned 1 last month :(

    ETA: just make sure you're eating when you're hungry. You'll likely find you're starving at times so don't skip the snacks/meals just to try and stay in your calorie goal. Also, you may already know all this but I wasn't sure how far into your BF journey you were so I'm trying to be thorough ;)
  • phill_143
    phill_143 Posts: 64 Member
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    Just to add, do add the extra calories to your food diary as a negative food.

    I started out incorrectly logging it as a custom exercise, but also had my fitbit linked up - so my BF calories were getting subtracted from the exercise calories.

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