breast feeding and calorie adjustment?

Search the food database for "breastfeeding" and use an entry for a younger child (even though she's 17 months, I'd go more by how often you're nursing, and at 6x a day I'd use the entry for a 6-12 month old). This will not only give you the extra calories you should be eating, but will add the extra protein, etc. And remember, you can always create a new food if you can't find one that will work in the database...just put the calories in as negative when you create it. HTH!

It really all depends on how much milk you're making. If you put in "breastfeeding" into the food database, you will get all kinds of different levels (6-12 month infant (adding 500 cals to your diet), older child, newborn etc.) Supposedly you burn 500 calories when you breastfeed an infant, and you should eat these calories back just like when you exercise and need to eat those calories back. I slowed down on my breastfeeding and was still eating the 500 calories back and notice I plateaued on my weight loss, and so now I do not count the 500 cals and I've started losing weight again and it has not affected my breast milk supply. If you are not counting your BM calories when you start your weight loss program and you notice your supply declining, then deifnitley start counting back in some calories to make BM! You will probably just have to try a few different things before finding what's right for you.