How much weight should I gain in pregnancy, and should I shift to whole foods now?
Dear GreenSmoothieGirl: How much weight should I gain in my pregnancy? I want to eat whole foods—but should I do it while I’m pregnant? Video answer here:
Posted in: Health Concerns, Healthy Weight, Relationships, Videos, Whole Food
Wrong video.
Great video about top 10 greens, but it’s not the pregnancy one. 🙁
Sorry….working on it.
I gained 40 pounds in each of my pregnancies. I like to believe that my body just does that, no matter how I eat, but I always admit that MAYBE the half-gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream every week contributed (that was mostly in my first pregnancy though, and I still gained 40 pounds each time!)
Katie, once I gained 50 and once I gained 65! That was “back in the day.” I thought my 34-lb. weight gain was GOOD, with my two girls. Haha.
This is Cassey and I am now in my 8th month of pregnancy and was signing onto the blog to see if there was more I could read about pregnancy. I stumbled across this video when doing so. Thank you for answering my question! My husband and I have been making a lot of changes to our lifestyle over the past year and look forward to continually changing to a more whole foods lifestyle. I get the question a LOT about protein and calcium since we haven’t eaten meat for 4 months now AND it has been intensified since I am pregnant. Well fun news I got all my blood work back and both my midwife and her assistant were raving about all the numbers on my blood work saying how good it looked. I know it is from the things we have incorporated to have a more whole foods lifestyle! Also one more thing we would like to thank you for… my husband won the entire 12 steps program at the last event and we have loved having all of that! I listen to the CDs in the car, we have read all the books and for the class in layton on January 20 we have about over 10 friends and family coming with us too! So thanks for everything!
Cassey, I’m so excited for you! I wish I had known everything in 12 Steps when I was pregnant! That’s why I spent a year full-time creating it—and lots of time updating it since then—so it can be SO much easier for other people. So excited for next Friday night in Layton and so excited that you want the big kahuna!
I started green smoothies when I was four months pregnant at the request of my husband. It saved me! Before the green smoothies, I was so nauseated I could hardly eat anything, and what I did eat frequently came back up. I lost 15 pounds in about three months. (I was almost in the range of those McDougall ideal weight charts, but the way I was getting there was NOT healthy!) I was tired all the time. I craved junk food non-stop, but we couldn’t afford to eat out or buy it, so I felt miserable. My husband and I started doing one green smoothie a day and worked up to three a day and pretty soon after, the nausea and cravings began to subside and I got some more energy back. DH and I began hiking again and for the rest of my pregnancy we walked or hiked for 1-2 hours a day. I put on 40 lbs during the rest of my pregnancy, but it came off very easily. I fit back into my old clothes at three weeks post-partum. I only wish we had found green smoothies before, because our son was born with a neural tube defect and the folate in the green smoothies may have prevented that.
I totally agree with you Robyn, about not worrying about your weight and worrying about your nutrition. When I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I was already a good 40-50 pounds overweight. I fully intended on eating right and exercising while pregnant, but when I told my midwife I wasn’t planning on gaining weight she was very concerned. I told her that as long as I was eating well and exercising the “excess” weight that was already there that wasn’t healthy would most likely come off, but it would still be healthy. I had to reassure her multiple times that I wasn’t going to starve myself or do some extreme pill or diet, I was just going to eat eat better. Well, that was the best pregnancy that I ever had. I felt so great. I would go on walks all the time with my other kids. I was eating healthier than I had been. (Mind you this was 8 years ago and I had no knowledge of green smoothies OR raw eating, etc) Anyways, I basically maintained my weight for the first 8 months, then had a slight gain in the end, which was totally normal. I felt great after the delivery. I recovered so much faster, and I did it all by just eating healthier and exercising…even though the midwife was extremely skeptical about me not having the “normal” weight gain. I would do it again in a heart beat if I were pregnant again, BUT like Robyn says in her video I would NOT do something radical during the pregnancy like a major detox. Just make smarter decisions, and if you are ALREADY OVERWEIGHT to begin with, don’t let the DR freak you out by saying that you have to gain weight during a pregnancy. As long as you are eating right and doing all the things you are supposed to be doing nutritionally and physically then you and your baby will be all the better for it!