Tuesday, March 31, 2009

i fear weight gain


really, i've had issues with my weight since high school. i've often felt i was bigger than i should be, even when i was underweight. when i started college, i started gaining weight and old high school friends said i actually looked healthy instead of like a stick. i became mostly comfortable with my weight when i started playing rugby, because you need to be strong and have some cushion :) except i kept gaining weight until i was over 185. that scared the crap out of me.

i started doing kickboxing and watching what i was eating more. no more sneaking over to mcd's for fries after work. naughty, naughty. i lost 15 lbs. i really wanted to get down to 165 before we got pregnant, but things worked faster than we though :)

now i'm stressing about gaining unnecessary weight. i know that i will gain weight because of the baby growing. but i am sooo afraid of getting close to 200 lbs. i also afraid of after the pregnancy, will i be able to loose it all? this stress is aggravated by the fact i'm hungry so much. yesterday, i was hungry all day, seriously. nothing could satisfy me. i'm being good and not grabbing unhealthy things, but it's hard.

if anyone has suggestions, i would greatly appreciate it. i'm not eating dairy right now. the only allergy i have is to walnuts. i need variety. help! :) off to eat some carrots. oh and that's a picture of me up there as a hungry monkey:)

7 comments:

  1. I'm skinny so you may not want my advice. I'll definitely tell you that avoiding dairy is a great idea...it's definitely a weight gain food (I gained 50 lbs in my last pregnancy and I drank a ton of milk) and you can get calcium from much better foods.

    Maybe you could get some raw food ideas from Melissa...she's your friend, right? She probably has some good ideas.

    For me I couldn't go near raw foods in the first trimester. Nothing healthy sounded good other than steamed veggies. If you can do fruits, steamed veggies, and whole grains, beans, etc, I think that would be a great start. If you give your body what it needs re: well-balanced nutrition, you will gain just the right amount for you and your baby. And if you plan to nurse, trust me, the weight will just drop right off of you.

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  2. popcorn with nutritional yeast... also known as brewers yeast. It makes things takes cheesy and is loaded with B vitamins. I sprinkle it on pretty much everything since I don't do dairy so much either.

    Honestly though, if you're like I was during the first trimester, the only thing that will satisfy is a big juicy hamburger. And you WILL gain weight. Expect at least 30lbs. I'm looking more like 50 this time around. Haha.

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  3. i tried having popcorn. i got so uncomfortably bloated. it might have been something else that day, like dairy, so i'll give it a shot when i'm home.

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  4. Just thought of something my nutritionist told me once about craving fatty foods. It's usually a craving for salt, not the fatty processed food. Since your body does require a bit more salt while pregnant, I would maybe try using a bit of salt on your food or water. I put salt in my water daily, just a pinch, can't taste the salt, just makes the water feel smooth. Get a good salt. Make sure it's either pink or gray in color.

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  5. Commenting on the salt, I've been putting a little bit of salt on my veggies and that helps but I do crave cheese like a crazy person. So, I'll do nachos with blue corn chips and whatever cheese I'm craving and dip it in Mild Salsa--salty delicious not so unhealthy snack that's filling. I know you're avoiding dairy but, it's worth a try if you know of a cheese that doesn't kill your body=) In the first few months I munched on bananas, wheat thins and water a lot and then when I got my appetite, I ate everything in site by about 4 months then my Dr. suggested I "slow down"=) You're very active so keep up on your excercise and maybe keep a log of what you eat if that helps you feel better. But, do give into those "I'm craving the Biggest, Juiciest Hamburger EVER!" cravings every once in awhile--I always think I'm making the baby happy even if I get bloated for a little while=)

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  6. There are some really good things about the lose-weight-later, get-pregnant-first plan. I decided that I needed to get down to a healthy weight before TTC, and wasted no time in doing so after graduation. I'm happy I did it, don't get me wrong, because I feel much better and healthier, but it also totally messed my cycles up for a looong time afterwards (like, well over a year). Even after losing 80 lbs I'm by no means underweight, but my periods and ovulation just came to a grinding halt at 165. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out that although my weight is at a totally appropriate BMI, my percent body fat had gone too low. Gaining 5 lbs back finally brought my periods back, but even then it took a long time for my body to get used to being smaller. Very frustrating if one is trying to conceive! I'm super-lucky that we had a surprise backup uterus available in our relationship, so we just changed the order in which we were doing TTC... but still, the moral is that you really don't want to mess with your weight to much while trying to get pregnant.

    What may help you in dealing with pregnancy weight gain - if you stay in the recommended weight ranges (25-35 lbs if you're in the healthy BMI range, a bit less if you're overweight and more if you're underweight), you are gaining almost entirely fluid and extra blood circulation and placenta and baby. The actual fat deposits are only about 5 out of the 30 lb. So, even if you exceed 200 lbs, it is NOT like you have (weight gain - baby weight) lbs of fat to lose at the end.

    Those 5 lbs are really helpful for breastfeeding, which burns an extra 500 calories a day, equivalent to running 5 miles. A 500 calorie deficit daily wipes out about a lb of fat deposits a week.

    I too will likely hit the 200 lb mark someday when pregnant, and I too am generally leary of being on that end of the scale again. However, I think that with general attention to good nutrition and eating healthily, and listening to your body's hunger signals, it will be a healthy weight gan, and thus, a manageable proposition to lose it again. And hey, at least it won't be 80 lbs. (I am determined.) :)

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  7. Food suggestions - I think every pregnancy is different. Stephanie was craving all of the things pregnant women are supposed to be finding nausea-inducing - garlic, curry, spicy foods, lemon, bitter greens. All the bland carbohydraty foods that I stocked up on because the pregnancy books said they'd help were totally not what she wanted to eat - and you know, I think you should listen to your cravings. Your body is probably trying to tell you something. If they're for junk foods, in moderation is a better way to avoid having cravings spiral out of control and leading to binges.

    Healthy portable snack ideas that have worked well as minimeals for Stephanie: edamame to throw in the freezer to microwave up quickly, apple with almond butter, jars of nuts stashed about to quell that fat/salt craving in a way that actually delivers healthy fats, yogurt with fruit and granola, and most of all, SMOOTHIES. If you're avoiding dairy, use Almond Milk (the unsweetened kind, Almond Breeze is the best!) and get a non-whey protein powder (I think I've had some rice ones that were pretty good) and stock up on frozen fruit when they're on sale (i.e. right now). Also throw in some flaxseed oil (omega three fatty acids are really important for the baby's brain, especially if you don't eat fish), or peanut butter. It's a pretty good mix of carbs and protein and fat and is all really good for you.

    Ultimately, I think the best bet for staying full is making sure you that you have some fiber and protein and a bit of healthy fat going on in your snack or meal... but if you're really and truly hungry, eat. :)

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