Maintaining Your Weight during Pregnancy

The term “eating for two” is a complete old wives tale and this is not the option to go with if you want to maintain your current weight during your pregnancy. Many expecting mothers take comfort in carbohydrates, and they often focus on the wrong kind, like breads, bagels and pastas. Gaining a few extra pounds is completely normal, but additional weight from an unhealthy diet isn’t.
 

Healthy Guidelines for Expecting Moms

Try to eliminate “empty” calorie foods. These are junk foods, sweet treats and other simple carbohydrates. Replace these unhealthy choices with healthy ones; including fruit, vegetables, whole wheat products, nuts and seeds. Also make sure that you get enough lean protein in your diet, which you can gain from lean meat and fish.

Eliminate fat from your diet. This of course does not refer to the “good” fats like olive oil and avocados but rather the ones found in almost all junk food and processed products. Read your labels carefully and avoid all the unwanted calories that fat brings to your body. Also keep in mind that too much calories – regardless where they come from – can also lead to weight gain. Keep your portions reasonable and count the total calories that you ingest, whether they come from healthy foods or not. If you stay within your caloric requirement for the day you will not gain additional weight.

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Substitutions are another way to reduce your calories. Opt for fat-free milk with your cereal instead of full cream, choose baked fries over fried ones, add mustard on your sandwich instead of mayonnaise, go for frozen yoghurt instead of ice cream, etc. There are many ways that you can eliminate calories without giving up on your whole diet.

After the baby is born, remember to exercise when you are ready to do so. Once given the go-ahead by your doctor, start getting active immediately. Go for a walk, take up swimming, or even do moderate weight training. Any activity that can burn calories and keep you healthy will be sufficient. You can gradually work your way up to something more demanding, for example, if you start with a brisk walk in the mornings, try to keep going for at least 20 minutes. After a few weeks, increase that to 30 minutes, and so on. It’s a great way to improve your fitness levels while continuously pushing yourself to do more.

As you can see, there is a huge variety of healthy snacks that you can consume while expecting. The most important aspect of a healthy diet is to stick to the basic, proven methods of losing or maintaining your weight. Combined with a low or moderate exercise plan you won’t have to worry about picking up any unwanted weight during your pregnancy.