Everyone who’s ever had a baby understands the concern about gaining and losing baby weight. While everyone knows that it’s necessary to gain weight, there is a very thin line between gaining enough weight for baby to grow healthy and keeping your weight gain under control to prevent other complications and allow you to lose it easily after the baby is born. Above is a picture of me, the day I had my first baby and a week after I had him. Now I am no healthcare professional, but I did listen to good doctors that I trusted to maintain my healthy pregnancy. Now, I want to pass that information along to help you on your own pregnancy journey!
First, lets talk nutrition. If you’ve ready my story, then you know that I have food intolerances that require me to follow a low-dairy, gluten-free lifestyle. While it has been an adjustment to make this change, I actually feel like it inadvertently helped my efforts to keep my weight down while pregnant. Think about it, if I wasn’t eating a lot of dairy or gluten, that cuts out a large majority of junk food including ice cream, donuts, cakes, cookies, and other delicious things that pregnant woman crave. And, I was forced to make healthier versions of the foods I really craved, just so that I could eat them. For example, ice cream made out of frozen bananas, gluten-free cake (when I really needed cake) made out of coconut flour or just substituting one sweet for another altogether, like frozen fruit and dark chocolate for an ice cream sundae. Unfortunately, so many woman feel that their newfound “pregnant” label allows them to “eat for two” and therefore eat whatever they want, whenever they want. However, it’s the complete opposite! You’re creating a human being, not to mention sustaining your own body in the process. You and your baby need the most nutritional bang for your buck that you can get! The key is to make your calories and consumption count. I am by no means saying that you should reduce your calories, diet, or cut back when you’re pregnant, but you don’t really need as many extra calories a day as you may think. In other words, you may be “eating for two,” but that other person is no bigger than a peanut at first and therefore, as you can imagine, doesn’t eat much. Most healthcare professionals recommend about an additional 300 calories in the second and third trimesters, but you really don’t need to alter what you eat in the first trimester at all. In fact, I don’t intentionally try to eat extra calories, but instead, I listen to my body and when I am more hungry, I eat more. But, I don’t eat a donut, I eat an apple and natural peanut butter, or air popped popcorn. Eating a mix of protein and fiber will sustain you and provide nutrition to you and your baby. The more focused you are on healthy, nutritional foods, the more you can get away with eating and feeling full.
Now let’s talk about fitness. Fitness is so incredibly vital when it comes to a healthy pregnancy. Not only does it help you maintain a healthy weight and minimize your baby weight gain, but it also helps keep your muscles strong for when you deliver. Of course there are many people that are restricted when it comes to exercising while pregnant, and you should ALWAYS consult your doctor about your activity level, but whether or not you exercise is the single biggest thing, in my opinion, that you can do to make the biggest impact on your pregnancy. For example, I have known many woman that were tiny before getting pregnant and some would assume that they would have a cute little belly, but they end up gaining a lot more weight than someone who does exercise. Besides controlling weight gain, exercise has had the biggest impact on my mood, anxiety level, energy level and pregnancy symptoms. While every pregnancy is different, I wholeheartedly believe that my first pregnancy was so much easier, with very minimal symptoms, because I ate so well and exercised daily. I always try to make my workouts a combination of cardio and strength training, with a focus on exercises that will strengthen muscles I will need to deliver or care for baby after they are born. For instance, my typical workout might include power walking for 20 minutes and then completing one of my Total Body Series workouts for a total workout of 40 minutes. And don’t be afraid to work your core. Exercises like planks, and even crunches, as long as your doctor says it’s ok, can be crucial in strengthening your pushing muscles, making your delivery shorter (and trust me, that is worth every single crunch!!).
To sum it up, eating healthy and exercising regularly can literally change your entire pregnancy and can help you to enjoy the experience all the more. And for those of us who want multiple children, anything you can do to improve the process is worth it! I ended up only gaining 17-20 pounds with my first baby, which was perfectly healthy for us both and I lost 13 of those pounds within the first week after his delivery. I am now 21 weeks into my second pregnancy and I have gained 5-7 pounds so far and am once again feeling great with an active, healthy baby on the way. If you have any questions about my personal journey with health and fitness while pregnant, or tips on workouts and snacks to cut cravings, I’m always here to help! Just comment below!