Nursing Mom can't eat all my "nursing" calories...

jtodacheeny
jtodacheeny Posts: 181 Member
edited September 21 in Health and Weight Loss
Ok, I am having a bit of trouble eating all my calories. I am a nursing mom with a 5 week old, and I have just started tracking my calorie intake. I have my daily goal set at 1700 calories so that my milk supply doesn't decrease, but since I log nursing as well, it adds 500 calories a day back. I haven't started any serious exersice yet (waiting until my 6 week postnatal Dr. visit) but I an a bit concerned that I am not getting really anywhere near my calories eaten (1700 + 500 = 2200 per day).

My other concern is that once I do start my exercise program, it will be even more difficult to eat all those calories. To be perfectly honest I'm a bit confused on the whole eating your exercise calorie thing, so I guess I am just asking for any advice or clarification on how and why I need to consume all those excess calories...does that make sense or am I just rambling????? I understand that I don't want to eat too few calories and go into starvation mode, but I don't want to eat all these extra calories and stall my weightloss.....Any advice or pointers will be greatly appreciated!!!

Replies

  • jhmomofmany
    jhmomofmany Posts: 571 Member
    If I understand your question correctly, you've added calories to your goal to compensate for bf'ing? If that's the case, it maybe is unnecessary to log it as well. I'm bf'ing also (my babe is 7 weeks old)... mainly at this point I'm tracking calories to get a feel for what will work for me, then I will adjust MFP's goals for me as needed.

    Congrats on your new baby- you have a cute family! :)
  • MyaPapaya75
    MyaPapaya75 Posts: 3,143 Member
    its pretty easy to hit a high calorie amount if you add nuts to your diet ..and sprinkling them on salads works well too...how many calories does your Doc say you need?
  • jljohnson
    jljohnson Posts: 719 Member
    I let MFP set my calories to the limit for the weight loss I wanted to see, then add back calories for breastfeeding. You can give yourself a flat 500 calories, which is average and worked well for me at first. I just added an exercise entry for breastfeeding and set the calories there. If you're pumping and you know how much milk you're producing, you can enter it as food. There's a database entry already there (if you search for "nursing" you'll find it), and you just enter the number of oz. you pumped, and you'll get a negative calorie amount credited to your food intake. Both ways have worked well for me, and I've been losing pretty consistently doing this. Definitely don't eat too little and stay hydrated. I had a similar calorie count to your 2200, and I got my calories in by drinking 2% milk instead of skim, eating full-fat cheese, almonds, avocados, and other healthy foods that are a little higher in good fats. Hopefully this helps!
  • nightingale1005
    nightingale1005 Posts: 1
    First off, congrats on the new baby! I love babies!

    Now to your question. Regarding the number of calories you have to eat in a day verses your exercise calories. I've only been using this website for about a month now, but here's my understanding from previous weightloss program experience and my personal trainer's advise: Depending on your weight, age, height, we all have a sedentary calories burned rage, for example lets say 1500 calories burned during a typical day, on your own, just sitting at your desk working, hanging out around the house, etc. The total number of daily calories I'm suppose to consume according to myfitnesspal is 1380. According to my traniner, a person has to has a minimum of 500 calories extra burned a day, between their calorie intake and their sedentary calories, to loose a pound a week, which happens to be my goal. So if I'm consuming all of my 1380 calories with food and drink, and I'm sitting on my butt all day, butstill burn around 1500 cals, there's only a difference of 120 cals burned, which is clearly not enough to loose weight. So we need to exericse and burn additional calories. If I go to gym and burn 400 cals, I can add that to my 120, which equals 540 cals burned that day. Myfitness pal adds these exercise cals to your calorie consumption, but you don't have to use them. As long as your eating your minimim cals each day, again mine is 1380 cals, whatever exercise cals, or calories burned you have left over go to maintaining your weight or weight loss. So even though at the end of your day you have 2200 cals, you don't have to eat them all, just eat your 1500 or 1700 and you'll be fine! Even when you start working out, it's ok to eat a few more cals here and there, you need to keep yourself and your baby happy and healthy. Please let me know if this has helped you at all, hopefully it does.
  • stellcorb
    stellcorb Posts: 294 Member
    I am also a nursing mom but I do not log my "nursing" calories. I do not, however, have to worry about my supply as much b/c my baby is 10mos (so not a baby anymore) so it may be different. I get pretty close to my calories and use my exercise calories when I have them. Dark chocolate's good for getting your calories up and it's full of antioxidents.
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