breastfeeding, is that excersise?

When I was nursing my twins - I would load in the calories as "cardio" so that I would be sure to eat enough to keep producing milk without being deficient. Having said that - 500 extra calories while nursing is on the high side.

I logged it as a food with -500 calories. It's in the database if you search (in fact, there are a lot of entries). Exclusively breastfeeding is the 500 calories, but remember as they start eating solids, it goes down.

It's not exercise unless you do jumping jacks while doing it. You may or may not need to eat extra calories because you are breastfeeding. It depends on how much milk you are producing and how much weight you have to lose. Your body needs extra fuel to produce the milk but no, it isn't exercise.

While I wouldn't log it as exercise, I see too many people think they don't need extra calories, and end up compromising their milk supply. Some women lose easily while breastfeeding, some don't. The important thing, though, is to make sure you are providing enough nutrition for you little one. I set MFP to my goal (lose 1/2 pound per week), then added in the breastfeeding as neg calorie food (as I noted above) and ate those calories back.

Breast milk contains 20 calories per ounce (on average), which comes from you. It also takes some calories (energy) to create it. No, it's not exercise, but you do need some extra calories. And water. Make sure to get plenty of water.

500 cals is generally reccomended, but not everyone needs all 500 to produce enough milk.