Pregnancy

Tracking during pregnancy is a great idea. Try the 1700 per day for a few weeks, if you are gaining at an appropriate rate then you are all set. If you are still losing or not gaining enough, recalculate.

I am almost 32 weeks pregnant with my third and I have tracked my food and continued to exercise throughout this entire pregnancy so far. Granted, in the beginning I ate like crazy but it leveled out in the second trimester. I started out at the lower end of a healthy BMI so I have gained 39 lbs so far. I'm hoping to keep it around 45 lbs gained if I can.
I find that tracking has kept me accountable and prevented me from over eating more than I should. It hasn't been easy cause everyone just assumes when you're pregnant you should eat as much as you want but I gained a lot of weight with my first two pregnancies doing that.
Anyway, good luck with your pregnancy

Would your insurance cover speaking to a dietician or nutritionist? You may be able to find someone who works with pregnant women and get some more firm answers that way.

Your body will give you a lot of clues. If you're feeling run down, nauseous or shaky, it's a good idea to eat, even if it means going over by a little bit within reason.

It all seemed to even out for me. I was ravenous in the second trimester after the morning sickness finally chilled out but by the time I was in the third, my baby was pushing so hard on my stomach that a few bites at every meal was beyond enough to fill me up.

genareho wrote: »

I was always around 160-165, in my first trimester I gained 10 pounds. The only thing I held down was carbs, pasta and bread. I took comfort food to a whole new limit. The foods that I normally restricted. I just want to finish my pregnancy off on the right foot. Now at 175 MFP is allowing me 1770, which I've always been trying to lose so my goals used to be at 1300.

@genareho How tall are you? How old are you? 1770 sounds a bit low to gain weight on unless you are shorter than I am by at least a few inches or more.
What happens if you set MFP to gain 0.5lb a week (that's 250 calories)?

I used this calculator quickly:
http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

I assumed you were 4' 10" (i'm thinking odds are you're taller so you will want to re-do these calculations), completely sedentary and that you weighed 160 lb. You'd need to eat 1744 to maintain your weight (yours would be higher if you are 175 lb and taller than that - 1885 for 175 lb weight @ 4'10"). Which is not what you really want, you want to be gaining... so you should probably eat 250-300 calories more a day than that which means you could be eating 1994 (call it 2000) a day.

It sounds to me like your calculation isn't quite right.

My suggestion would be to eat as much as feels right - more than 1885, perhaps around 2000 calories. You can keep weighing weekly to see how you're progressing (too much/too little). If I assume you're also about 14 weeks pregnant (second tri) and you already gained 10ish, you can still gain 0.96 lb a week and be in a healthy weight gain range (assuming 25-35 lb gain is what your doctor recommended). You might gain a bit faster in the third tri though so 0.5lb per week sounds alright for now.

Of course none of this should be taken over what your doctor or a registered dietian says. This is just based on the research I've done.

In the Fit Fabulous and Pregnant group I see women eating maintenance for the first few weeks of the second trimester. Not sure of their logging habits though. I'm currently TTC if you're wondering why I have been researching all this.... trying to be prepared lol.

I found this post explains things nicely:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10176233/gaining-weight-during-pregnancy-and-losing-it-post-partum

I'm sort of the same boat here .. I'm 15 weeks with my 3rd... with my other two I ate as much and whatever I wanted and gained way to much. I lost it all within the last couple years and started my pregnancy at 137 I'm 5'7 and 25 years old .. I went for my checkup yesterday to find out I gained 10 lbs. Now It's been a hectic couple months I have been so run down tired and carbs felt the best in my stomach also I stopped working out cause I was so beat everyday. Now that I feel good again I'm starting back in the gym and tracking my food and trying to eat a lot better.. when I was losing it said 1700 calories a day was what I should be at cause I wasn't trying to lose a whole lot more at 137 but gain muscle .. now that I'm pregnant I'm wondering if I stay at 1700 or add the 300 to hit 2000... I am starting to get anxiety about the weight gain just cause I worked so hard to get where I was I don't want it all to come back. Any thoughts ?
I'm hoping now that summer is over and off vacation and back to real life schedule my habits should go back to normal.

SusanMFindlay wrote: »

bmcnulty1990 wrote: »

I'm sort of the same boat here .. I'm 15 weeks with my 3rd... with my other two I ate as much and whatever I wanted and gained way to much. I lost it all within the last couple years and started my pregnancy at 137 I'm 5'7 and 25 years old .. I went for my checkup yesterday to find out I gained 10 lbs. Now It's been a hectic couple months I have been so run down tired and carbs felt the best in my stomach also I stopped working out cause I was so beat everyday. Now that I feel good again I'm starting back in the gym and tracking my food and trying to eat a lot better.. when I was losing it said 1700 calories a day was what I should be at cause I wasn't trying to lose a whole lot more at 137 but gain muscle .. now that I'm pregnant I'm wondering if I stay at 1700 or add the 300 to hit 2000... I am starting to get anxiety about the weight gain just cause I worked so hard to get where I was I don't want it all to come back. Any thoughts ?
I'm hoping now that summer is over and off vacation and back to real life schedule my habits should go back to normal.

How much were you aiming to lose when MFP told you 1700? You don't add 300 cals/day to your weightloss target. You add 300 cals/day to your maintenance calories. So, if you were aiming for 1 pound/week, add 500 to get to maintenance then 300 for the baby - which puts you at 2500 cals/day. If you were aiming for 0.5 pounds/week, add 250 to get to maintenance then 300 for the baby - which puts you at 2250 cals/day.

You're at a healthy weight so you should NOT be trying to lose or maintain weight while pregnant. You need to gain for baby. If you gained a lot of weight with the previous pregnancies you were likely eating much more than 2500 cals/day. It's very easy to do - especially when your hormones are telling you the only thing you want to eat is mac and cheese (or ice cream or whatever).

The typical recommendation is that you gain between 15 and 40 pounds while pregnant. Heavier women should be on the low end of that range while someone underweight might need to be on the higher end. If I recall correctly, women at healthy weights aim for somewhere in the ballpark of 25-30 pounds - but water retention can put you much higher and doesn't really count. (I lost 30 pounds by two weeks after giving birth to my first. I was retaining a crapload of water!)

It's been a couple of years since I did the prenatal class, but they broke it down for us - about 8 pounds for baby, several more for amniotic fluid, placenta, etc., a few more for increase in breast tissue and increased fat stores so that the body can produce milk to feed baby. Here's a link with a breakdown consistent with the one I remember: http://www.thebump.com/a/pregnancy-weight-gain-breakdown and here's the official paper: http://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Obstetric-Practice/Weight-Gain-During-Pregnancy

Thanks.. yeah 1700 I believe was losing 0.5 lbs per week or something I calculates it out and my maintenence is 1900 roughly...
Also ended up weighing myself at home on my regular scale first thing in the morning without the heavy shoes sweaters and pants on and it showed I only have gained 3 lbs since finding out at week 4 I was pregnant.
I think I'll trust my scale over the doctors office only because this is the one I have used throughout my weight loss and it's good to be consistent.
I'm usually still hitting around 1800 calories a day mind you I have changed my diet to a lot healthier foods with fewer calories but eat more volume. Basically I'm eating whatever I want though if I want an ice cream I'll eat it .. or if I'm out and want a burger I'll have it .. just in moderation luckily for me I live pretty far in the bush so fast food or ordering isn't an option for me so it's helping for sure .. I think I'm just seeing a lot of changes on my body that stresses me out as I used to work out a lot and was tightening and since I got pregnant it all got puffy and squishy hahah.
I'll get over it though I just don't want to gain a whole bunch of extra weight besides the recommended 25 lbs