Pregnancy Weight Gain.

Gaining weight during pregnancy is inevitable. You're growing a human and your body needs more food, the baby needs the nutrients to develop and so you get to eat more. The problem is that figuring out exactly how much extra to eat, and that's my main problem.

During my life, I've been on two sides - loose weight, or eat whatever you want and don't worry about the consequences. I've never gotten to the point where I had to maintain my weight. I've never figured out just how much my body needs to stay at a happy weight. Frankly, I've never figured out what my body's happy weight is. Even at the lowest that I was last summer before getting pregnant, I knew I wasn't done yet, and if I didn't get pregnant, I know I would have kept loosing weight.

However, once I got pregnant, I was determined to not let myself go overboard with eating. My cousin kept saying that it's the only time in your life where you can eat what you want and gain weight. I don't completely agree with that statement, but I understand what she was saying though. You get to eat extra! You have to eat extra!

The first trimester, even with being nauseous and not eating very nutritious food, I only gained 2.6 pounds, which was normal. If I regret anything, it's how much I gained in the second trimester. That's when I let myself get out of hand. I gained about 17 pounds in the second trimester. Not terrible, but that's when I should have focused more on exercising and eating a balanced diet, and I didn't. Didn't help that winter and the holidays were during that time and I definitely used that as an excuse. That's mostly where I blame myself. I know that I can't go back in time now, but it's hard to not kick myself for it.

End of first trimester - 13 weeks

End of second trimester - 27 weeks

I'm not sure when I started to weight myself daily instead of weekly, but that really helped for a while. I was taking the average of the week and using that as my weekly weigh-in. I could see the fluctuations and I could usually pinpoint that it was from too much dessert the night before, or not enough water the day before. But then I couldn't pinpoint it anymore. I started counting calories. I wanted to see if I was just using the excuse of not tracking to eat an enormous amount of food each day. While I was counting calories, I was doing just fine. But I didn't know how many calories I should be eating. The whole thing was very frustrating.

Now I'm up 26 pounds total. I know it's normal to gain up to 2 pounds each week in the third trimester, but that scares me. I still have 10 pounds to go, and if I gain 2 pounds a week, that's another 20 pounds that I could gain. I know that now it's more of what the baby needs compared to just how much I eat, but it's a scary number. If I creep up higher than my highest weight, that's really going to scare me. Which I probably will. I want to do what's right for this little girl, and now's the time that really matters. I can't go backwards and loose weight or start over again, but I can focus on healthy foods from here on out, cut out the extra foods and go from there. Which is what I'm trying to do, but it's hard.

And I hid the scale. I have been quite comfortable with the scale and knew it had to go up, but now that we're nearing the end, I put it away. I already feel like I'm freed. With my doctor's appointments every 2 weeks for a month, then weekly, I can just go by my weight there. They haven't said anything about me gaining too much and hopefully they don't. I'm aware that I've already gained too much, but I'm also confident that I can loose it. I've lost weight before, and although it'll be little different for me to see how I am with breastfeeding, I know I can do it. Sure it might take longer, but I can do it. That's something I'm confident I can do.

For right now, I'll focus on eating healthy, with correct portions and really step up my exercise. That's been hugely slacking, too. But now that it's warm, I can walk with Mr. Skinny when he comes home, and I can walk during the day since it's so nice out. Sure, I might gain close to 50 pounds with this pregnancy, but I can loose it, and I can't go back in time to change what it already done, but I most certainly will learn for next time.

Tell me:


What's your biggest concern with your health right now?