Pregnancy

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beckyjane78
beckyjane78 Posts: 7 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Does anyone know if MFP can accommodate preganancy weight gain? I can't seem to find a way to change my settings to "pregnant" and I don't want to adjust it to 'gain weight'.

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  • nurit1979
    nurit1979 Posts: 88 Member
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    Can you just keep it at maintain?
  • ren_ascent
    ren_ascent Posts: 432 Member
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    Since the recommended calorie intake is approx 300 above your maintenance I set mine to gain .5 lbs a week. It nailed the numbers for me and I've stuck with it with much success. I'm gaining a healthy amount but not going overboard.

    I think this works a little better than just setting to maintenance/standardizing the 300 calories simply because it's already taking your height, weight and activity level into account.
  • GretchenReine
    GretchenReine Posts: 1,427 Member
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    I'd set it at maintain. I don't know that MFP can account for pregnancy weight gain since every woman gains at different rates for each pregnancy.
  • JDubIsShrinking
    JDubIsShrinking Posts: 207 Member
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    You can also search for/log "pregnancy" to add calories.
    Same goes for breastfeeding.
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
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    You only need about 300 calories more a day when you're pregnant. You can custom set your calories, and you can also customize whichever nutrients you want to track.

    I joined MFP when I was in my 2nd trimester, and set it to gain .5 lb per week (that's an extra 250 calories a day). When I hit my 3rd trimester, at the advice of my WIC nutritionist, I changed it to gain 1 pound per week. I ate back all of my exercise calories. I gained a total of 17 pounds with that pregnancy, but I was in the overweight BMI category to begin with, so it was ideal.

    This pregnancy, I set MFP to maintain as soon as I knew I was pregnant (I was starting in a healthy BMI this time). It was really helpful through morning sickness to be able to make sure I was getting enough calories in the day - or trying to at least! I'm in my 2nd trimester now, and I still have it set to maintain, but my personal goal is to be in the red ("over") every day. Again, I eat back exercise calories. I've gained around 8 pounds in the first 16 weeks, which is just fine considering where I started.

    MFP doesn't have specific "pregnancy" settings. I suspect one big reason is because every pregnancy is different, especially depending on the starting weight and health of the mother. Talk with your OB about how many calories you should be aiming for, and what nutrients (macro and micro) you need to be aware of, and customize MFP to fit those needs.

    And congratulations! :flowerforyou:
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    First off, congratulations!

    Second if you go to groups and search "pregnancy" there are some groups dedicated to healthy weight gain during pregnancy and using MFP. They would likely have some great suggestions for you.

    Hope that helps :flowerforyou:
  • misskris78
    misskris78 Posts: 136 Member
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    Congrats! I adjusted my settings for 0 lb/wk. Then I added pregnancy as exercise calories, then ate them :)

    I added 200 for 1st and 2nd trimester, and 300 for the third.

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