Need advice!
Mindmovesbody
Posts: 399 Member
Hello! Some of you know me but for those who don't my name is Celina. I have a 10 month old daughter (3rd child) that I am currently nursing. She is on regular food so she nurses approximately 3 or 4 times a day. I work from home so I do not pump. No idea how much she is actually drinking in ounces. If I had to venture a guess, I would say 4 oz per side, per feeding. Again, a complete guess. I started MFP of course at the usual 1200 cals. Dropped weight and lost milk supply. Started eating at TDEE minus 15% and lost a little more...like 2 pounds. Now nothing....for weeks. I have about 15 lbs to go. I am moderately active. For now I have set my MFP goals to maintain (per the sites numbers) and I am not adding in breast feeding, just using that as a deficit. That is not working either. Do I need to increase again? I am really frustrated and at a loss here. Scooby says my TDEE minus 15 is 1778. My fitbit tells me anywhere between 1800-2300 a day. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Edited to add: Yes, it is a true plateau. It's been over a month. No, my measurements are not changing. :sad: They were steadily for a while but have stopped. Also, I have slowed down on exercise to see if that helped and try to keep my activity levels to a 300 or so caloric burn a day.
Edited to add: Yes, it is a true plateau. It's been over a month. No, my measurements are not changing. :sad: They were steadily for a while but have stopped. Also, I have slowed down on exercise to see if that helped and try to keep my activity levels to a 300 or so caloric burn a day.
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Anyone out there?0
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Maybe average your Fitbit readings and start there? I think that's what I would do anyway. Also I always find the last 10 lbs or so very hard to lose while nursing, but my body will do anything it can to maintain my supply, including thwart my weight loss efforts, lol. Nonetheless, the ONLY reason I'm okay with a little extra weight is for nursing. It's worth it. My little is self weaning slowly but surely so if I could master this healthy weight loss thing I could probably actually get to goal now.0
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Other people might have some more helpful advice but it is REALLY common to hold on to 10-15 extra pounds while breastfeeding. It might not be a plateau, it might be the weight your body needs right now.0
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This is what another friend of mine said as well...that maybe my body is holding on to 'fat stores' for nursing. I think she is self weaning also. She really likes to nurse first thing in the morning and just before bed, during the day she is really occupied with what's going on around her. Maybe if I increase my calories my body will trust that I will continuously feed it and let go of the fat stores? It's storing right in my belly :grumble:0
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My fat likes to hang out on my rear lol, but I had lost a ton of it before joining EM2LM and he was nursing the same then as he is now so I can't blame that for it. It's all food. :P0
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The average from the last 7 days from my fitbit is 2063. If I eat at a 15 % deficit it would be 1754, which is essentially what I am doing now. Do I then add 300 calories for nursing on top of that for a total of 2054 calories per day???
Edit to add my stats are on my page but, for the sake of the thread, I am 5' 3.75" and bouncing around between 129-131 right now. I should be about 115. That is where I was before and I was comfortable and had some nice muscles back then :ohwell:0 -
Where are my EM2LW peeps? Maybe on the website? I should go there....0
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Hey lady, my advice is to eat your cut and add the nursing calories:flowerforyou: if your just eating cut your deficit is too steep. I actually just did a vlog on this topic. Hard to copy paste on phone but if you go to youtube just search for the youtube channel eatmore2weighless or I think I put the link in the videos sticky topic. There is also a blog on www.eatmore2weighless.com on this topic. Link is on home page.
Hope this helps
Lucia0 -
I am also a nursing mom and I eat my nursing calories on top of my cut.
When I tried to eat less my milk supply was suffering.
I also do hold on to 10-15 lbs when nursing. I am actually thinking I might not lose anymore weight until I stop nursing...which I don't plan to do for a while yet. BUT I am still building muscle so when I eventually stop nursing I think I will be a lean mean fat burning machine lol.0 -
Hey lady, my advice is to eat your cut and add the nursing calories:flowerforyou: if your just eating cut your deficit is too steep. I actually just did a vlog on this topic. Hard to copy paste on phone but if you go to youtube just search for the youtube channel eatmore2weighless or I think I put the link in the videos sticky topic. There is also a blog on www.eatmore2weighless.com on this topic. Link is on home page.
Hope this helps
Lucia
I'll check it out, thank you!0 -
I am also a nursing mom and I eat my nursing calories on top of my cut.
When I tried to eat less my milk supply was suffering.
I also do hold on to 10-15 lbs when nursing. I am actually thinking I might not lose anymore weight until I stop nursing...which I don't plan to do for a while yet. BUT I am still building muscle so when I eventually stop nursing I think I will be a lean mean fat burning machine lol.
I am wondering if that's what's going on with me. I guess I will increase cals again and pray for the best :bigsmile: Right now I am maintaining, not gaining so I'm scared to increase!0 -
I am also a nursing mom and I eat my nursing calories on top of my cut.
When I tried to eat less my milk supply was suffering.
I also do hold on to 10-15 lbs when nursing. I am actually thinking I might not lose anymore weight until I stop nursing...which I don't plan to do for a while yet. BUT I am still building muscle so when I eventually stop nursing I think I will be a lean mean fat burning machine lol.
I am wondering if that's what's going on with me. I guess I will increase cals again and pray for the best :bigsmile: Right now I am maintaining, not gaining so I'm scared to increase!
I actually lost more when I increased! I even ate at maintenance for a week and maintained my weight while losing a half inch in my waist.0 -
I am also a nursing mom and I eat my nursing calories on top of my cut.
When I tried to eat less my milk supply was suffering.
I also do hold on to 10-15 lbs when nursing. I am actually thinking I might not lose anymore weight until I stop nursing...which I don't plan to do for a while yet. BUT I am still building muscle so when I eventually stop nursing I think I will be a lean mean fat burning machine lol.
I am wondering if that's what's going on with me. I guess I will increase cals again and pray for the best :bigsmile: Right now I am maintaining, not gaining so I'm scared to increase!
Don't be afraid your body and baby needs it:flowerforyou:0 -
Hi Celina! I'm also nursing. I've been adding the breastfeeding calories in to my food diary. I don't know if you knew that it was listed in there. For me personally I like to do it this way so that I'm aware of what my calorie number would be if I weren't nursing right now. So even though for maintenance I'm at 2600ish calories I add in breastfeeding for -300 calories with my breakfast foods, so I'm actually eating 2900 calories a day and maintaining weight, which just seems insane but it's true. I think we burn so much more than we realize. It makes me sad for those times I did weight watcher's while breastfeeding.
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I am wondering if that's what's going on with me. I guess I will increase cals again and pray for the best :bigsmile: Right now I am maintaining, not gaining so I'm scared to increase!
Don't be scared! I started on MFP eating 1750 calories but kept gaining and losing the same 3 pounds. So I decided to do a reset and upped my calories by 500 and I'm STILL gaining and losing the same 3 pounds. You will be really surprised at how much you can eat without gaining!0
