Pregnant and not wanting to gain a ton!

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nickiejohnson
nickiejohnson Posts: 58
in Food and Nutrition
Hello all! I am about 10 weeks pregnant (yay!) with my first child. I have had morning sickness like crazy and the only thing that tends to stay down is anything that is a carb and I eat a lot of them; which is not doing so well for my bum! Any suggestions on how to eat right while pregnant w/crazy cravings?? This is my first time so I don't know anything! I just don't want to get to a point where I gain 40+ pounds because I do NOT want to go through what all my friends and family that have done that.
Thanks so much for your help :)

Replies

  • jakejacobsen
    jakejacobsen Posts: 595 Member
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    congratulations, don't worry about gaining take care of your self and the baby.
  • haleyhin
    haleyhin Posts: 4 Member
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    Hello all! I am about 10 weeks pregnant (yay!) with my first child. I have had morning sickness like crazy and the only thing that tends to stay down is anything that is a carb and I eat a lot of them; which is not doing so well for my bum! Any suggestions on how to eat right while pregnant w/crazy cravings?? This is my first time so I don't know anything! I just don't want to get to a point where I gain 40+ pounds because I do NOT want to go through what all my friends and family that have done that.
    Thanks so much for your help :)

    I suggest giving in to your cravings but with portion control. You want bread? Have a slice, not a loaf. You want pasta? Have a cup, not a pound. Enjoy, you lucky duck!
  • shannon121278
    shannon121278 Posts: 357
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    Congratulations! I'm currently TTC, while also trying to lose weight. Haha. So I'm losing, but once I conceive, I will be gaining it all back and I don't want to gain too much. Any advice people give you will also help me in the future once I conceive myself. But I like haleyhin's comment. Portion control is good advice, but you're still getting what you want! Sounds like a win win to me!
  • katbass
    katbass Posts: 351 Member
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    Me too!
    I am 10 weeks pregnant as well, due May 1st, and hoping to make sure I have a healthy pregnancy with healthy weight gain. It seems impossible right now since the ONLY thing that sounds good is salt and vinegar chips and skittles/jolly ranchers/candy. I occasionally get a craving for celery and ranch or carrots and ranch or grapes, so I try to really pack those healthy treats in as much as I can stand, while they still sound good. :)
    So far, I have lost weight since we found out at 7weeks along. (Surprise baby after YEARS of fertility treatments....we were NOT expecting this, but are totally welcoming and excited about it!) One of my girlfriends is a registered dietician and she said to eat whatever sounds good in the first trimester, and then to increase cals by 200 in second trimester and 250 in third trimester. That's an increase from my BMR of 2000, and I am having a hard time imagining eating THAT much food, but everyone assures me that food will start to sound good again soon :)
    Congratulations!!
    And I have to say...I sorta have to give MFP and the motivation I found here some credit for this miracle pregnancy. I started P90X with my husband in June, and we were both eating better, sleeping better, and feeling better....and then, against all odds and contrary to what several docs believed possible, POOF! We found ourselves 7 weeks pregnant before we knew what hit us!
  • cocolo89
    cocolo89 Posts: 1,171 Member
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    portion control and eating right!! i wish i had "known" about it before i was pregnant with my first child and gained 47lbs! but its okay... just eat healthy and if you end up eating something with high calories, just eat less of it!
  • sandijones5783
    sandijones5783 Posts: 57 Member
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    Conrats! I'm 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant! Yes portion control is the key and carbs seem to be helpful in the beginning. Just try to get some exercise in too. I try to walk 3 miles everyday cause i just lost over 50lbsso and i don't want to gain to much this time cause it has taken me 6 yrs to get all this weight off from my 2 sons. So far so good for me, so good luck to you!
  • Legalchica
    Legalchica Posts: 462
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    the morning sickness will pass. untill then eat what you can. right now your body doent need a whole lot extra but you can still safely do most things. talk with your doc. and walk walk walk. Congrats. I have three. My first was a great pregnancy and then I had twins!!! Have fun and enjoy it. :) You may even ask your doc about what your caloric intake should be if you are concerned.
  • rossi02
    rossi02 Posts: 549 Member
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    Congrats!!! The first trimester can be tricky.. as there really is no norm. Some women gain 10 lbs, some lose 10 lbs and some stay the exact same weight. If you are dealing with morning sickness and nausea.. I suggest you eat whatever you can keep down. One of the big keys is excercise. Try to keep walking or doing what you can, some days you are so tried that you just can't... trust me, I've been there. If you are able to push yourself to do it, it does help you feel better. Once your hormones level out and you are in the second trimester. I would then really put a focus on eating healthy.. and treating yourself every so often. For me, food tasted even better when I was pregnant.. my senses were on high alert, which also made some things I used to love awful, and others that I thought I hated... became my new favorites. One thing I would suggest. Keep fruits and veggies with you while at work and snack on some every couple of hours. If I let myself get too hungry, my energy would drop and I would feel awful and it would take a while to build myself back up. Also, if I had the heathly snacks I found I craved them more and more.

    Best of luck!!!!
  • Caperfae
    Caperfae Posts: 433
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    Just eat as healthy as possible and continue to be active. Walking is great while pregnant. I gained more than I would have liked in the first few weeks as well because I was nauseous and the only foods that were appealing were bad ones but then I got gestational diabetes and had to really watch what I ate. I lost about 10 lbs as a result and only had about a 15 lb gain in the end.

    Congrats and try not to fret too much.
  • SaraSatin
    SaraSatin Posts: 48 Member
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    I also had one baby and then just recently had twins. I gained 40 pounds with the twins, most of what I ate was protein. Once you get through the first trimester (you're SO close!) then focus more on protein than carbs if your tummy will allow. Protein makes the baby grow, carbs make the mommy grow. You still need carbs, but you should get tons of protein.
  • CMmrsfloyd
    CMmrsfloyd Posts: 2,383 Member
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    I recently discovered that in the MFP settings you can tell it you want to *gain* weight rather than lose or maintain - I have gone through 2 pregnancies and in each of them I gained 37 lbs - I do NOT want to gain that much next time. Currently my plan, the next time I get pregnant I will set my MFP goal to say that I want to gain 1/2 lb per week. Given a 40 week pregnancy where you find out at about 4 weeks, that would put you on track to gain approximately 18 lbs. My plan is to try to observe the recommended calorie intake to gain 1/2 lb per week, but to allow myself to indulge occasionally just not all day every day - I won't mind if I gain a little more than that, I just don't want it to get out of control. (preggos do have cravings, after all LOL) I think my problem in my first 2 pregnancies is that I felt like I should be able to eat whatever I wanted since I was pregnant. Reality is that they only recommend you eat about an extra 300 calories per day on top of what you would normally eat (that's an average though, it may really be less early on and more later, but I'm not completely sure - all I know is the 300 average). 'Eating like you're pregnant' sounds like a TON but it's not as much extra as it seems, and it doesn't mean you can suddenly live off of fast-food drivethroughs (um, like I did LOL). Eat quality, healthful food, get good variety, watch your portions. And of course if you are active you can eat a bit more (MFP adds back in the calories you burn off and tells you to eat them back). Also, talk to your doctor or midwife and ask if they have recommendations for how much of certain nutrients you should be getting each day - you can tweak those settings on MFP, too, to help you keep an eye out to make sure you're getting in enough of the 'good stuff'. :-)

    Just be mindful, but don't let it stress you out. Enjoy your pregnancy and congratulations!
  • krysydawn
    krysydawn Posts: 231 Member
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    Hey! I just started accepting members for our Fit pregnancy group on facebook! Let me know if you're interested!!

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