Breastfeeding

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churchim808
churchim808 Posts: 14 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am trying to lose weight with MFP and fitbit having recently dropped WW. I have a 6 month old baby who I breastfeed. She is eating solid foods now so in the Weight Watcher world, that gave me extra points every day but not the maximum since I wasn't exclusively feeding her with breastmilk.

My question is, how can I adjust my calorie total to account for nursing? How much should I adjust it (assuming I can)?

Replies

  • sa11yjane
    sa11yjane Posts: 491 Member
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    Firstly, many congratulations for doing so well with the breastfeeding- a fantastic job! I think that you should maybe ask a midwife or doctor for specialised advice regarding your calories. As your baby is part-weaned I wouldn't imagine that you would need a lot of extra calories; maybe you need to play around a bit, trial and error may be the best way forward. This site generally gives you 1200 a day, maybe you could start by adding an extra 200 calories and then see how it goes? All the very best with your weight loss and keep up with the breastfeeding!
  • healthymom76
    healthymom76 Posts: 99 Member
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    check in the exercise database. I think they list breastfeeding exclusively as well as partial. Good luck.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    Generally, you add 300-500 calories.
  • graycalico
    graycalico Posts: 30 Member
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    You log it under snacks. There are different amounts. I'm still doing 500. My nine month old is starting solids but he still nurses at night. I might cut it down to three hundred extra next week though.
  • Rubyayn
    Rubyayn Posts: 433 Member
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    Way to go for nursing your baby! If I were you I would eat a MINIMUM of 300 extra for nursing and also eat and calories you burn. See how your body reacts and go from there. :) LLL mother to mother forums and Kellymom.com can probably help as well.
  • turningstar
    turningstar Posts: 393 Member
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    Generally 500 if you are exclusively breastfeeding, 300 if partial. My son is 18 months and still nurses a little, but since his nutritional needs are met from solids and nursing is just for comfort, I don't add anything in.
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
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    This site generally gives you 1200 a day
    Not true.
  • jfrankic
    jfrankic Posts: 747 Member
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    I have a 9 1/2 month old that I still nurse about six times a day, so I add 500 calories by searching the food database for "breastfeeding". My goal was set to 2 pounds, but I recently changed to 1 1/2 lbs per week because I have noticed a slow decrease in my milk. I drastically increased my exercise, so maybe that combined with the reduced calories had an effect (or maybe he has not been nursing as efficiently, hard to tell).

    How many times a day are you breastfeeding? Even with the introduction of solids, I assume breastmilk is still the baby's primary source of nutrition. So you body is still working hard to produce milk. I would recommend starting with the additional 500 calories, after you set your weight loss goal, and then slowly reduce calories if you don't see a regular weight loss. Even if your goal is one pound per week, eating an additional 500 per day would, at worse, take your weight loss to .5 per week. Does that make sense?

    It is way easier to start that way and lose more slowly than to increase your supply after the fact. I'm taking 6 fenugreek tablets and drinking tea daily, along with pumping, nursing more and increasing calories. Learned my lesson. I never had a supply issue until the past few months. :ohwell:

    Congrats on breastfeeding! Congrats on new baby! And congrats on getting healthy!!
  • churchim808
    churchim808 Posts: 14 Member
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    Thanks guys! This is a big help. I know I'm not getting enough calories because when I went for a run this morning, I had ZERO energy. :noway:

    Melissa
  • julieh391
    julieh391 Posts: 683 Member
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    Breastfeeding has several options in the food database. You can enter it like you enter food you eat.
  • MollyB78
    MollyB78 Posts: 5
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    Just found the breastfeeding entry under foods ... this thread was very helpful!

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