Any other breastfeeding mamas??

QuinnLynn7

Hi everyone,
My little guy is 3 months old now. I'm 5ft and before pregnancy was a bit underweight at 93lbs. I'm now exclusively breastfeeding and weigh 101lbs. This is my third baby and in my experience a few pounds are here to stay until breastfeeding is over. I'm fine with that so I'm focusing on staying right near 100lbs. I had been splurging during pregnancy because I was having trouble gaining weight...well now I decided it was time to get back to healthier eating. When I input my stats myfitnesspal suggest 1,500+ calories. I know during breastfeeding you are supposed to add an extra 500 calories for supply. 2,000 calories seems like a lot! What does everyone else do? What does your food intake look like? I'm also working out three times a week twice a day. Hope some others with this type of experience are on here:)

brittneygreen562

I also EBF and I eat around 1800 calories a day . I'm currently 201 (lost 4lbs so far) and I would like to get down to 140 in time enough for my wedding in 2015 . I'm pretty new to MFP but what I can say is I add in 500 cal under exercise for breastfeeding

QuinnLynn7

I'm glad you mentioned adding breastfeeding as an exercise! I had my activity level set to the highest to add the extra calories for nursing haha. Congrats on your upcoming wedding! The hubby and I have our 1st wedding anniversary coming up this Monday.

honkytonks85

Hi all,
I am exclusively breastfeeding my 2 month old. I add in 500 calories worth of 'breastfeeding exercise' each day and set my calorie goal to 1850. I gained about 30lbs during pregnancy and I am looking to lose about 60lbs overall.

tonyajohn

Breastfeeding my 18 month old here. 5 feet tall and peaked at 144 lbs WHILE breastfeeding, ugh! I'd actually gotten down to 134 after giving birth (from 167 lbs) but within a year packed back on 10 pounds. My goal is 1200 cal a day to lose 30 pounds but adding the 500 breastfeeding puts it up to 1700. I originally only added 250 because I'm nursing a toddler BUT since she's still nursing every 2 hours or so around the clock (I know, she's such a boobie baby!) I noticed that my supply was suffering.

Edit to say that I add my breastfeeding calories to my food diary.

QuinnLynn7

Tonyajohn- What caused you to gain the weight? I'm nervous to consume the 500 extra calories because I'm afraid ill gain weight from it. Also, how do you add them to you food diary? I've got so much to learn about MFP!

tonyajohn

Sitting on my butt and stuffing my face. Lol. I went from having a very active, always on my feet kind of job to being a stay-at-home mom again. I didn't bother exercising and my portion sizes were out of control. I also never replaced my scale that broke back before I got pregnant so I wasn't even monitoring my weight. I was honestly eating out of boredom and just used my breastfeeding as an excuse to eat and eat and eat... Seeing that 144 lbs on the scale at my doctor's office was pretty eye opening. Not to mention that 2 years of wearing yoga pants has gotten pretty old. I'm ready to fit back into my pre-baby clothes because I'm certainly NOT about go out and buy a whole new larger wardrobe.

I think you're gonna do just fine. I wouldn't worry about that extra 500 especially since you're already being so proactive about it and monitoring your intake, weight, etc. I also didn't start to put on my extra weight until after my baby stopped exclusively breastfeeding. I was losing or maintaining until after my daughter was 6 months old. You can always reevaluate as your little one gets older and starts solids.

QuinnLynn7

Thanks for sharing! That's a good point to re evaluate once baby is a little older. Perhaps when he starts solids.

touchafaith

Hi ladies! Another breastfeeding mama here. I'm currently breastfeeding my 8 month old, I'm not in maintenance but thought I'd duck in and say hi. When my daughter was 3 months old I weighed 185lbs and was exclusively breastfeeding. She's now 8 months old and I weigh 154lbs. I add my breastfeeding calories in my food diary instead of exercise but think it all works out the same way in the end. Hopefully I'll get down to maintenance one day but the weight is coming off a little slowly.

Slasher09

im exclusively breastfeeding my 11week old. You can add breastfeeding if you search foods under breakfast....but I started changing it from -500 to -300 because I havent been losing the last month, so I think I'm accounting for too much somewhere. Im down 28lbs...but I put on 48 so I still have a bit to go.

jr235

I'm not BFing now, but I was about 2 years ago. I wasn't tracking my food intake then, just eating really well. Fruits, veggies, lean proteins, and whole grains while concentrating on getting back some stamina. I had a difficult pregnancy and delivery so this was plenty. I was told several times that I looked like I was losing weight, but I'm pretty sure I lost 15lbs with the delivery, and about another 10 over the course of 8 months while BFing, then the last few after that. I started the couch to 5K program when the little one was 3 months and completed it in about 3 months.

So anyways, I recommend eating and concentrating on fitness. Its not worth it to mess with your supply, imho, unless maybe you have a lot of weight to lose and your body can handle it.

shapefitter

I joined a month ago. My daily intake is 2000 kcal a day. In United Kingdom, it is suggested a breastfeeding mother should consume more than 2000 kcal a day. Calcium is especially important, so plenty of milk, cheese and green veg is good.

DarthPato

My 11m son still nurses on demand. I log breastfeeding, but use the "older child-minimal feeding" option which adds 200 cals back into my diary. I have my daily goal set at 1640. So I eat 1840. I'm also about 80lbs overweight (gross). For awhile I thought I was using the breastfeeding cals as a crutch so for a week I stopped logging it. I couldn't go without. By the end of the day I was incredibly hungry and shaky. So I'm logging it again and only losing on average a lb a week. I think if you are bit on the underweight side 2000 sounds reasonable. I have other bf moms who are at their goal weight and they are eating about 2200 cals a day and maintaining.

honkytonks85

Sitting on my butt and stuffing my face. Lol. I went from having a very active, always on my feet kind of job to being a stay-at-home mom again. I didn't bother exercising and my portion sizes were out of control. I also never replaced my scale that broke back before I got pregnant so I wasn't even monitoring my weight. I was honestly eating out of boredom and just used my breastfeeding as an excuse to eat and eat and eat... Seeing that 144 lbs on the scale at my doctor's office was pretty eye opening. Not to mention that 2 years of wearing yoga pants has gotten pretty old. I'm ready to fit back into my pre-baby clothes because I'm certainly NOT about go out and buy a whole new larger wardrobe.

I think you're gonna do just fine. I wouldn't worry about that extra 500 especially since you're already being so proactive about it and monitoring your intake, weight, etc. I also didn't start to put on my extra weight until after my baby stopped exclusively breastfeeding. I was losing or maintaining until after my daughter was 6 months old. You can always reevaluate as your little one gets older and starts solids.

I had the same problem with my first, I managed to gain a lot of weight but as you say it was just out of boredom (it's kind of hard when you are at home all day with a baby to not be bored at times!) and an excuse of 'well I'm breastfeeding so I need the extra energy' - even though I was probably eating a good 1000 extra calories per day. I have a definite tendency to snack my calories away - all the snacking just adds up.

This time tracking my calories I am hoping that the '500 calories extra a day' requirement is applying to me and I will lose weight without a huge caloric deficit.

cinloo87

Hello other breastfeeding moms! I have a 3 month old and exclusively breastfeed. I also was wondering what to do as I can't find an option on MFP for taking breastfeeding into consideration. I now weigh 225lbs which was my starting weight when I got pregnant, and have a goal of losing 1.5lbs a week until I'm at 175lb which I haven't been in years. MFP has a calorie goal of 1550 a day for me but I'm going to start adding 300-500 a day under additional exercise and see how that goes.

tonyajohn

Hello other breastfeeding moms! I have a 3 month old and exclusively breastfeed. I also was wondering what to do as I can't find an option on MFP for taking breastfeeding into consideration. I now weigh 225lbs which was my starting weight when I got pregnant, and have a goal of losing 1.5lbs a week until I'm at 175lb which I haven't been in years. MFP has a calorie goal of 1550 a day for me but I'm going to start adding 300-500 a day under additional exercise and see how that goes.

You can go into your food diary and add 'breastfeeding' through the search function. It will deduct 250 to 500 calories depending on which you chose.

nxd10

I nursed both my kids for 3 years. It did take me 8 months to take the weight off (with just aquacize and walking for exercise and not real effort). But after that I couldn't eat enough to keep weight on. As they get bigger they eat a LOT. See what your body does.

DarthPato

Hello other breastfeeding moms! I have a 3 month old and exclusively breastfeed. I also was wondering what to do as I can't find an option on MFP for taking breastfeeding into consideration. I now weigh 225lbs which was my starting weight when I got pregnant, and have a goal of losing 1.5lbs a week until I'm at 175lb which I haven't been in years. MFP has a calorie goal of 1550 a day for me but I'm going to start adding 300-500 a day under additional exercise and see how that goes.

You can go into your food diary and add 'breastfeeding' through the search function. It will deduct 250 to 500 calories depending on which you chose.

What she said. Search for it like its a food.

touchafaith

Hello other breastfeeding moms! I have a 3 month old and exclusively breastfeed. I also was wondering what to do as I can't find an option on MFP for taking breastfeeding into consideration. I now weigh 225lbs which was my starting weight when I got pregnant, and have a goal of losing 1.5lbs a week until I'm at 175lb which I haven't been in years. MFP has a calorie goal of 1550 a day for me but I'm going to start adding 300-500 a day under additional exercise and see how that goes.

You can go into your food diary and add 'breastfeeding' through the search function. It will deduct 250 to 500 calories depending on which you chose.

What she said. Search for it like its a food.

This is the way I do mine too. I add mine under breakfast so I know how many calories I have left for the rest of the day.

VictoryGarden

I'm BFing my 7 mo as well. I started out with my goals set to -2# a week, but that made my supply tank, so I'm set to -1.5# a week now, and that seems to be better. I have 100+ to lose, and I need to get started asap for health reasons, so I am walking a fine line of max weight loss and nourishing baby.

To the OP, maybe do a trial of a few weeks with the extra 500 calories and see what that does? You can adjust it from there.

I set up a food diary category called "nursing" and add my BF as a food under that category.

It's nice to see so many BFing mamas here!:flowerforyou:

QuinnLynn7

I love hearing everyone's stories and experience! I added the extra 500 calories in and like lots of you mentioned I'm going to see how it goes for a bit. I've really increased my veggie and fruit intake over the paste week. My little one is currently going through a growth spurt and surprisingly I'm keeping up well with it so I think this is going to work out nice. I've added a lot of you as friends. If I missed you and you want another breastfeeding friend please add me:)