Breastfeeding and confused!

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MichelleWeddingBelle
MichelleWeddingBelle Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,

I’m confused about what I should be aiming for as a breastfeeding mum.

I’ve adjusted my goal to 1800 calories today as I feel my baby is getting really fussy at the breast at 1500 calories. I’ve now read that 1800 is the minimum I should be eating to maintain milk supply.

My question is that if I eat 1800 calories but walk off a 600 calorie burn, should I then be eating another 600 calories to maintain supply?

My baby is only 10 weeks old so the weight loss goal isn’t a huge deal for me right now, I’m happy to lose the lowest 0.5lb per week or even just maintain, I just started using MFP again to remind me that eating packets of biscuits isn’t a healthy way to live!!! Though it should be obvious why eating 8 biscuits for my breakfast (and not even the breakfast kind!) is not a healthy diet!

I’ve already gone from 12st 2lb to 11st 9lb since starting with MFP two weeks ago. I’m normally around 11st 5lb at my heaviest and goal weight is eventually 10st but I’d be pretty happy with 11st whilst nursing for the first year.
This is my second time breastfeeding and second time losing weight postpartum with MFP but I lost the baby weight without any real effort last time, MFP just helped me lose beyond my normal weight really.

Any help with the calorie burn question would be appreciated. Quite happy to eat 600 more calories if that is what I should be doing? I’m also not entering BFing as a negative food or as an exercise, so I’m potentially burning another 500 calories there that I haven’t even accounted for?

Replies

  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
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    I want to say that I followed the MFP goal, added in breastfeeding in the food diary, and ate back half my exercise calories. I was nursing a much older child though, so I didn't have to keep up with growth spurts. So that would be my suggestion. I see that you're using a FitBit, I'm not sure how the calorie counts from that compare to MFP, as I just logged my exercise in MFP.

    Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where you kind of have to just monitor your diary and milk production until you find the right numbers to keep everyone happy.
  • MichelleWeddingBelle
    MichelleWeddingBelle Posts: 8 Member
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    My only exercise is walking and the Fitbit seems to just do calories for my total steps for the day. Today I walked 13000 steps so quite a high burn for me compared to a more average day of 5-8000 steps.

    If I add BFing as a negative food I’m going to end up with over 1000 calories still available. Am I understanding it right that if I don’t eat those back then I’m massively under eating? And therefore going to affect my supply?
    I don’t have a massive milk supply anyway. Even with my other daughter (BF until 22 months) I could pump 2-3oz at best, which I know isn’t necessarily reflective of actual supply but I basically wasn’t one of those mums that could pump loads of the stuff. I don’t really pump much with this one yet as I haven’t left her so haven’t had a need.

    Weight loss isn’t as important to me as the breastfeeding is so I don’t want to jeopardise that just for the sake of losing a few lbs now. MFP is motivating me to eat proper meals though so I’d like to keep using it if I can but I want to at least understand it so I don’t accidentally make myself ill or lose my milk supply.
  • Lillymoo01
    Lillymoo01 Posts: 2,865 Member
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    Eat the 1800 calories plus your exercise calories (or most) on top of that. If you find your milk supply is suffering increase your calories. If you find you are not losing at all then drop back your calories a little.
  • candacemckeone
    candacemckeone Posts: 5 Member
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    Could the baby be fussy for another reason? I would add some calories back - are you putting the exercise in mfp - cause it will give you more calories for exercising which you will need if you are doing over 10k steps per day plus breastfeeding-maybe a 2000 calorie goal might work better
  • rvaugh07
    rvaugh07 Posts: 110 Member
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    I'm nursing my 6 month old that still refuses all solids, but am trying to lose weight to as I'm closer to 19 st so have a lot that I need to lose. Regaurdless I aim for 1800 calories a day and have noticed if I only eat 1200 for a couple days then he ends up fussy and calms down when I bump back up to the 1800.

    I usually count the extra calories allowed from exercising as kind of a bonus. Some days I eat about half of them, some days I don't eat any of them, but Regaurdless I have to have the minimum of 1800 calories eaten throughout the day and I try to make it 3 500cal meals and a few 100 cal snacks between.

    Good luck!
  • MichelleWeddingBelle
    MichelleWeddingBelle Posts: 8 Member
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    Thanks everyone. I think I have been massively under eating because I don’t count anything for breastfeeding and I haven’t even been eating my exercise (auto-added by my Fitbit for all the walking I do) so I guess I can afford to eat more!!! Probably explains why I have been getting headaches and occasionally light-headed as well!
  • Kfrase83
    Kfrase83 Posts: 42 Member
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    I met my goal weight using MFP before I got pregnant, and tracked throughout my pregnancy to make sure I was hitting my protein and other nutrients. But once the baby came and I was breastfeeding 6 - 10 times a day, I honestly just ate what I wanted. And I didn't have time to log my food. My supply was great throughout and I was only 10-15 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, which was quite small really.
    We finished breastfeeding at 15.5 months, and I waited another 2 weeks to make sure she was done. Now I'm focusing on me. I think it was just the horror stories of supply diminishing with reducing calories, so I didn't want to mess with that. I had a goal to lose all the weight by 1 year, but I wanted to keep our breastfeeding going, so didn't want to tempt fate. All that walking you're doing is great! If you have the time and the inclination, adding the breastfeeding will give you another 500 calories/day. And adding exercise will give you wiggle room, too.

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