Yes, you should add the calories. I have read different info on how many calories to eat when nursing, but generally most resources say to add 300-500 calories or eat around 1800 calories for weight loss while maintaining supply. MFP gave me a goal of 1200 a day but I add the 500 to make my goal 1700. If I am hungry I will eat a bit more but don't stress if I am under my 1700-1800 goals once in awhile if I am not hungry.

Also wanted to add that if your MFP calorie goal is determined based on calories needed for weight loss. So, you would already be at a calorie deficit if you were not breastfeeding. Adding the 500 calories you burn through breastfeeding ensures that you are still eating enough to maintain supply while still being at a calorie deficit. Hope that makes sense. There is lots of info on the boards about eating at or above your BMR, etc, which gets a bit confusing. But, basically, you don't want to eat too few calories that your metabolism starts to slow down, which defeats the purpose in the long run.

Edited again to add that I don't usually eat back my exercise calories. I don't do strenuous exercise, though (just your usual gym workout for now). IMO, MFP overestimates the calories burned through exercise. Again, if I was super hungry and had no more calories left I would eat something healthy, but in general I don't eat those calories back.

For simplicity, if you do the math, the average female needs let's say 2000-2100 cals/day to survive/maintain - if you have roughly a 20-30% deficit (which BTW you should not dip below very often) of 400-600 cals/day lets say, multiply that by 7 it's roughly a pound a week (2800-4200 less cals/week). think about it... the typical 1200 cals is 8-900 cals less/day - almost half of what you should be eating... your body will likely think you're starving if u keep that high of a deficit regularly and furthermore if you're breastfeeding and exercising and not adding that back??? OMG!!. To start, what I did was go to http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm and figured out how many calories I need: for example: 34 years old, 5'4" @ 188 w/ little exercise (I don't add the exercise to the calculator since the calories burned vary) it says I need the following: for Maintenance 1847 CALORIES/DAY, for Fat Loss :1504 CALORIES/DAY and for Extreme Fat Loss it says it's TOO LOW. Taking that into consideration, I have set up MyFitnessPal to match that 1500 goal and try my hardest to get 1500 net calories per day. BUT... I am breastfeeding... typically if your little one gets most or all of their calories from you, it's roughly 500 cals / day burned (20 cals per ounce x 24-30 oz on average- plus if I pump and store, I add those calories back too- say 3 oz x 20= 60 extra), so..... normally I add 500 calories / day via the food section for a whopping 2000 calories to eat and then if I get exercise, say 200 calories burned, then I eat those back for a whopping 2200 /day... bottom line is I aim to get at least 1300-1500 net calories/day so I don't go into starvation mode. It's hard because I'm "satisfied" with 1000-1200 calories/day with how much healthier I'm eating, so I have to remember to eat enough. My typical day consists of 400 cals for breakfast, 400 cals for lunch, 4-600 cals for snacks, 5-800 for dinner. I aim to get protein in at every meal... goal for the meals is to have protein, a starchy carb, and a veggie or a fruit at every meal and I try to get enough water and healthy liquid fats so my milk supply doesn't dip too. I'm limiting packaged foods... hardly adding any salt or sugar to my meals I make (when I do, it's morton's light salt along w/ some Mrs. Dash salt free seasoning or honey for sugar- and I've replaced butter w olive oil/italian dressing. Oh, and I try to eat every 3 hours. If you want to look at my food diary on MyFitnessPal, it's open to my friends, just add me. Exercise is minimal right now, but as much as I can, usually 3x a week for 20-30 mins is my goal- some crunches, leg lifts, arm workouts, walking, dancing... nothin too heavy. :-) I'm losing anywhere from 1-3.5 lbs/week and have lost 62 lbs since 12/14 (and only 25-30 of that was baby). Hope this helps! I run a free post pregnancy weight loss group on FB - if you'd like to join, it's a really great group & we'd love more active/supportive members - let me know!

Great explination! Im at a standstill and i HAVE to lose weight. Im military and have my fitness test in 2 months. Im having a hard time figuring out how many calories I really actually need daily. Id love to be added to your group!

For simplicity, if you do the math, the average female needs let's say 2000-2100 cals/day to survive/maintain - if you have roughly a 20-30% deficit (which BTW you should not dip below very often) of 400-600 cals/day lets say, multiply that by 7 it's roughly a pound a week (2800-4200 less cals/week). think about it... the typical 1200 cals is 8-900 cals less/day - almost half of what you should be eating... your body will likely think you're starving if u keep that high of a deficit regularly and furthermore if you're breastfeeding and exercising and not adding that back??? OMG!!. To start, what I did was go to http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm and figured out how many calories I need: for example: 34 years old, 5'4" @ 188 w/ little exercise (I don't add the exercise to the calculator since the calories burned vary) it says I need the following: for Maintenance 1847 CALORIES/DAY, for Fat Loss :1504 CALORIES/DAY and for Extreme Fat Loss it says it's TOO LOW. Taking that into consideration, I have set up MyFitnessPal to match that 1500 goal and try my hardest to get 1500 net calories per day. BUT... I am breastfeeding... typically if your little one gets most or all of their calories from you, it's roughly 500 cals / day burned (20 cals per ounce x 24-30 oz on average- plus if I pump and store, I add those calories back too- say 3 oz x 20= 60 extra), so..... normally I add 500 calories / day via the food section for a whopping 2000 calories to eat and then if I get exercise, say 200 calories burned, then I eat those back for a whopping 2200 /day... bottom line is I aim to get at least 1300-1500 net calories/day so I don't go into starvation mode. It's hard because I'm "satisfied" with 1000-1200 calories/day with how much healthier I'm eating, so I have to remember to eat enough. My typical day consists of 400 cals for breakfast, 400 cals for lunch, 4-600 cals for snacks, 5-800 for dinner. I aim to get protein in at every meal... goal for the meals is to have protein, a starchy carb, and a veggie or a fruit at every meal and I try to get enough water and healthy liquid fats so my milk supply doesn't dip too. I'm limiting packaged foods... hardly adding any salt or sugar to my meals I make (when I do, it's morton's light salt along w/ some Mrs. Dash salt free seasoning or honey for sugar- and I've replaced butter w olive oil/italian dressing. Oh, and I try to eat every 3 hours. If you want to look at my food diary on MyFitnessPal, it's open to my friends, just add me. Exercise is minimal right now, but as much as I can, usually 3x a week for 20-30 mins is my goal- some crunches, leg lifts, arm workouts, walking, dancing... nothin too heavy. :-) I'm losing anywhere from 1-3.5 lbs/week and have lost 62 lbs since 12/14 (and only 25-30 of that was baby). Hope this helps! I run a free post pregnancy weight loss group on FB - if you'd like to join, it's a really great group & we'd love more active/supportive members - let me know!

zukkiz--have you figured out your BMR or TDEE? If so, what are those numbers?

i added mine back for the longest time, then i stoped and just set my daily goal to 1644(my tdee), i have read that if bfing full time you prolly should keep your cal goal around 2000 daily.

To be honest my plateau wasn't very long at all. I just wanted to stop it before it got too bad.

I only count 300 calories for breastfeeding, since he is 10 months. Though he still nurses just as much as before and eats regular food like a champ.

I would eat 1750 and burn 200 for exercise and 300 for breastfeeding. I was doing it all wrong.

So I put my MFP goal at 1565 and didn't count my bf as exercise I put it in my food diary instead. Then I exercised and ate back those calories. My net eating was 1565 yesterday. I still think I have this wrong.

I have seen your 40/30/30 thread and I am going to do some more research. You see this time around I want to make a definite
lifestyle change.

Thanks for all your help.

Think of it this way - the average woman needs 2000 cals to survive/maintain their current weight, average breastfeeding burns 500 cals for the first 6 months of life. 500 cals x 7 days = 3500 cals = 1 lb / week. You really could do nothing more than breastfeed and lose plenty of weight. I am losing anywhere from 1-2 lbs/week consistently, not plateauing since I started this way of eating, and I've recently even bumped my calories up even further, and I started losing FASTER still after slowing down a tad!!

The thing to keep in mind is your body adapts and adjusts / catches up to what you're doing- it's job is to keep you alive. You need to re-evaluate your goals if you're stuck. Sometimes that means UPPING your calories, not decreasing them... and lightening up on your exercise unless you've eaten a ton more than you should have. I'm not saying exercise is bad... I'm just saying don't get too much of a deficit. 1200 cals net is far too low and will VERY likely result in damage to your metabolism and possibly even your milk supply.

Yes, you will lose weight on 1200 calories a day, but it'll stop and you'll be confused and frustrated and then likely give up because nothing is working anymore... then when you give up, the weight comes pouring back on because your body has "ramped down" it's metabolism because you "told it" for so long that you needed less to survive.

Exercise will cause you to lose inches more-so than pounds, but strength training boosts your metabolism... as long as you're getting proper fuel to sustain that activity. If you are exercising, I can't stress enough that you should take before pics and measurements to gauge your success vs. the scale so that you remain motivated to stick with it. But please, get enough to eat... a double deficit doesn't help you in the long run unless you plan to keep that way of life up for the rest of your life. You'll see even better results by giving your body the calories it needs to build muscle.

Moderation is the key most times with everything in life. Keep that in mind. :bigsmile:

Best of luck in your weight loss journey!!

PS - don't be discouraged if you gain at first by increasing your cals... you may want to slowly ramp up to allow your metabolism time to adjust, or just go for the gusto and understand this very likely will happen but only at first then the pounds start melting away.

I;'m confused about why you are taking your TDEE x .20 and adding it to your TDEE. You should subtract 10-20% from your TDEE, not add to it. Then add your 300 breastfeeding calories. If you aren't accounting for your exercise when you calculated your TDEE then eat back some of your exercise cals if you want. If you already accounted for them then you probably shouldn't eat them back.

I'm not sure why sar13bear is adding 20% to her TDEE. Maybe she can clarify that. I haven't seen that anywhere and it doesn't make sense to me. If your TDEE is the amount of calories that you need to maintain your current weight, adding 20% to it would mean a weight gain, not a loss.

I'm not sure why sar13bear is adding 20% to her TDEE. Maybe she can clarify that. I haven't seen that anywhere and it doesn't make sense to me. If your TDEE is the amount of calories that you need to maintain your current weight, adding 20% to it would mean a weight gain, not a loss.

I'm adding 20% to the recommended calorie deficit, which is equivalent to your "FUTURE" TDEE, not your current one.... It's important to understand the distinction between your current TDEE and your recommended TDEE at your GOAL WEIGHT. These are two very different things. Does that help?