post-partum weight loss
 

my son is 3 months old now... i gained 31lbs during pregnancy and i have lost 32 since i gave birth.... a year before i was pregnant i gained almost 15 lbs so im working on losing that now.. i am considered overweight/obese. i am 5'1" 149lbs.... i was wondering if anyone knows if there is a way to add in Breastfeeding on the log? i tried adding it under activity but nothing comes up.. but i burn up to 500 cal a day because i breastfeed full time.

If you are still breastfeeding, you need to be careful about restricting your calories. When our youngest was about 6 months old I started trying to diet while still nursing, and I ended up having some issues with malnutrition. That is not to say that you shouldn't watch your calories or exercise, just that you need to be careful and make sure you're eating enough for 2. I don't know how to add breastfeeding as an activity or a custom food. You might try and find an activity that is similar in calories burned/min and use that as the activity for the time you spend nursing.

PP Weight Loss -- accounting for BF-ing
 

Hi there,

My daughter is just a month old, and I'm also BF-ing full time. I'm starting to track food now just so that I'm in the habit of it and eating a well-rounded diet. If I were trying to lose weight (which I will be in a few more weeks), I'd probably just create a custom nutrition goal of +500 calories in addition to whatever my basal metabolic rate is. So, for example, FitDay says that I burn 2499 for "seated, some movement" lifestyle. I'd take an extra 500 onto that to maintain. However, if I were trying to lose weight, I'd go lower. When I was doing WW for the last baby, I topped out at 32 points a day (about 1600 calories) + another 250 in flexpoints. So, I might set my calorie maximum at 1800-2000.

Does this make sense? Feel free to tell me I'm wrong...this is just how I've figured things in my head in the past, but if someone knows better, please tell me!

Emily

I did it the same way Emily did, by adding it to my bmr. I used 300 calories extra because my baby was a year old when I started fit day. I also kept my calorie deficit between 300 and 500 calories. I found it really was trial and error and it took a while to figure out the optimal deficit. And if you feel hungry, eat a healthy snack because you need it. When you are nursing you are giving your baby the nutrients it needs, even if you don't have enough for yourself.

Congrats on the weight loss so far!

Go to the "weight goal" tab, click on "calorie balance" in the window at the bottom. You can customize the "calories burned" there, adding on your estimated calories for breastfeeding. It's not perfect but as far as I know there isn't a way to add a custom activity.

My third daughter is just turning 2 months so I'm just getting started here, but I was wondering the same thing about nursing. What I do is add an hour of slow, leisure biking to my activities because it comes out to be about 450 calories. I have quite a bit of weight to lose, every pregnancy I've gained more :( I'm 5'11'' and 216 lbs and hope to get down to 170 at least, my prepregnancy weight was 155 but I was a twig :) Good luck to you and hope this helped!

Someone has already mentioned Weight Watchers, but I'll just add that I had a lot of success with that right after my kids were born because they have set number of points to add for breastfeeding moms. I adjusted that number of points as they got older and breastfed less. I was able to find a place where I was eating enough calories to feel good and feed my baby, but also lose weight. As folks have said above, you can do it with Fit Day, too, by custom setting BMR, and trial and error with calories.

best of luck - you can do it!

All I can say is: patience, patience, patience. My son is 22 months old and I just started really dieting. I watched what I ate before but never calorie counted. In the past 5 weeks I've lost 10 pounds and probably about 8-10 inches combined waist, chest, arms, thighs. Milk production is the same and I feel great. I suggest the 1800 - 2000 being on the low end with 90% fresh, unprocessed foods.

My son is 5 months now. I never logged my 'milk' calories coz it only encouraged me to eat more. I lost about 14lb during the first 4months and then my weight loss slowed down and almost stopped, so I set my activity level to lower (sedentary, some movement).
If you do want to log your milk calories, I'd just choose any activity and adjust the minutes so that you get 500kcal. The log doesn't distinguish between 500kcal burned by running or sleeping, it's still 500kcal :D