http://www.donielleschipper.com/nursing-mom-diet-too-many-calories-or-too-few.php
If you are a nursing mom, please tell me about your experiences with trying to balance your nursing diet while staying fit.
Wow! Last night was a little crazy. We went to Heritage and then decided to do a little shopping while in the cities. We didn't think it would take very long, so we decided to eat dinner when we got home. Heritage ended around 6 -- 6:30pm, so we figured we'd be home no later that 7:30 -- 8pm.
Boy were we wrong! Why does shopping always take longer than you think? I was getting soooo hungry, because we usually eat dinner around 5:30 -- 6pm. So, luckily I had some granola bars with me. I ended up eating THREE of them over the course of the shopping evening! I was a little worried about that, because I didn't want to overdo it on calories for the day. I'm trying to eat just enough for me and for nursing the baby, so that I can get rid of these few extra pounds of pregnancy weight.
So when we FINALLY got home, it was about 10:30! All the kids were starved to death and so was I. We scarfed down dinner and then watched "Gulliver's Travels" with the kids. Silly movie, but they got a laugh out of it!
After the kids went to bed I decided to do a calorie count of my day's food consumption. I hadn't done that since starting my P90X fitness program, so I was curious as to whether I was eating too much or too little. My projected calories should be around 2100 according to Beachbody's Meal Plan Wizard, but I figure I should add about 400-500 calories to that since I'm a nursing mom. I read somewhere that a nursing mom diet needs to include extra calories because the baby consumes around 500 calories each day! So I calculated everything I ate, and I ended up with only 1945 calories for the day... that included the 3 granola bars I ate! So I guess I don't have to be too worried about getting too many calories. Instead, I should be careful to get enough! That's a nice thing to worry about, if you ask me!
Now all I need to do is make sure those extra calories are good and healthy ones. It would be so easy to just eat junk food to make up the extra calories, but I'm going to try to stay on track and eat right. Maybe an apple or a few carrot sticks?
