Caloric Balancing Act

Today was day 2 of walking the neighborhood. It was just me and another gal with a new baby. I've been wanting to hang out with her, so it worked out really well to be just the two of us. We went the route we meant to go yesterday and still managed to do it in about 30 minutes. I felt really good afterwards and tried to not sit down as much when I got home. I was better than yesterday, but not perfect. I did get two loads of laundry folded which is good. And tonight I was even able to go on a bike ride with the boys. I keep getting the reminder that my legs are not in as good a shape as they were last summer, but I didn't do too bad. I couldn't make it up any hills but by the end of our trip around the complex I was feeling a lot stronger. If only I can keep it up... Though I think I will be able to because I've committed the group to walking every week day.

My big dilemma is how much do I account for nursing and still lose weight. I've read a bunch of articles tonight and I should add 500 calories for nursing. In fact, I am seeing that my caloric intake should be between 2200 and 2500. I was thinking 1800-2000. I like that I can eat that much more, but what I can't figure out is how I gained all my baby weight back after delivery if I really should be eating more. I think the stress was causing me to hold on to it - although I was probably averaging closer to 3000 + on my roadtrip so that may have been a culprit as well. I am curious what the scales will reflect on Monday. I don't want to eat too many calories, but I don't want to eat too few and lose my milk supply either. It is a fine line and an experiment. The ironic/funny thing is that once I knew I had an extra load of calories my body says it's hungry. It had felt just fine before that :p