How to account for breastfeeding?

Tdrake25

any breastfeeding moms here? I'm trying to lose 10 pounds and breastfeed at the same time. how do you account for the extra calories needed to continue to BF? Do you just add 300 or so what MFP recommends, or is there somewhere you can account for your BFing status in your account settings? I looked-- haven't found, but may not have been looking in the right place.

alexismacphee

You can add it in under one of the meals. Just search for 'breast feeding' and it will add 500 calories to your day.

kristinL16

There are a few different ways to do it. You can keep your goals where MFP puts you and then search the food items for "breastfeeding" and add that. It will be negative calories so it will subtract from your total. It is usually recommended to add 500 calories, especially if your baby is under 6 months old. You can also just change your goals to account for the 500 calories. I used to do it the first way but found that it messed with the number of macros that I was at so I just changed my goal to 1700. Some websites will say not to go below 1800 when breastfeeding. I will sometimes go over my 1700 if I am really hungry (like today) and sometimes I am slightly under. I have a low BMR, though, so 1700-1800 is right for me.

saihtnyc

I've been adding it as a 500-calorie "food" deduction in the Breakfast section but keep meaning to go to the custom goals and just manually set my calorie goal, so I can get a more accurate look at my nutrient tracking.

I was at 1200 calories + the 500 for breastfeeding, but felt it was not enough to maintain my milk supply (my pumping at work suffered immediately) so I put myself as a more active setting and changed my weight loss goal to maybe 1lb/week or something - it gave me 1,350 plus the 500 for BF that I add.

Sometimes I go over, which I try to allow myself if it's for something healthy before bed since I get hungry from nursing so much. But ti's good to remember that what I'm eating is the most important thing - I've been eating better overall and getting more vitamins and making healthier choices since I started tracking and the pounds are coming off, and my milk supply is back up.

Good luck!