My Prenatal Diet: A Healthy Eating Plan That Worked for Me

Hello everyone! I'm excited to share my thoughts on prenatal diet.

My experience is a bit dated, but it might still be useful for some future moms. When I was expecting my daughter, I was thrilled and a bit nervous. As soon as I registered for prenatal care, I started mentally preparing myself for natural childbirth.

I'm not a fan of restrictive diets during pregnancy, I thought you should just eat whatever your body wants. If it doesn't want something, don't eat it. Before I got pregnant, I weighed 52 kg and was 165 cm tall.

First and second trimesters.

For the most part, I ate veggies, and I had a soft spot for tomatoes.

I also ate apples, bananas, oranges, and I went crazy for grapefruits.

Soups were always on my menu, and in the first trimester, I mostly drank tomato juice. Later on, I started trying different flavors.

My diet didn't change much, and I didn't experience morning sickness. I didn't follow any diets, and my clothes size remained 46. My belly was small, and I went for weigh-ins every two weeks. My doctor was always satisfied.

At the gynecologist's office. 3rd trimester.

Fast forward to the third trimester, when I went for my regular check-up, my doctor told me I had gained 900 grams, which is way above the normal 300-400 grams.

She asked me what I'd been eating, and I confessed that I'd been indulging in sweets: cookies, candies, and pastries. I just can't resist sweets.

My doctor gave me some advice: 'If you want something sweet, eat a spoonful of honey, instead of candies, eat yogurt with sour cream, add dried fruits to your yogurt: dates, raisins, because your hemoglobin is low. Eat more veggies, fruits, and make sure to include greens in your diet, don't be lazy, make some salads, but without mayonnaise, use oil instead.'

'But I don't like yogurt!' I said.

'Get used to eating healthy, think about your baby!' my doctor replied.

Time to take control. Cutting down on sweets.

In the third trimester, I had some serious constipation issues, and I had to boil beets, make borscht twice a week, drink kefir, and snack on sunflower seeds.

I had to give up coffee as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and chocolate was too calorie-rich, so I made juices and compotes from berries and dried fruits.

I ate honey when I really craved something sweet, but I only had one tablespoon three times a day. Eating more honey would've blown my diet out of the water.

I ate greens and greens, and salad leaves and parsley were frequent companions in my diet.

I'm not going to say I completely gave up sweets, but I could allow myself a few cookies a day or a couple of candies.

THE VERDICT

I stuck to my diet, or rather, my healthy eating plan, until the end of my pregnancy and gained 10 kg by the end. I weighed 62 kg when I gave birth.

The gynecologist's warnings about me gaining too much weight and having a hard time giving birth didn't come to pass.

I mostly stuck to my usual diet, minimized my intake of sweets and cookies, replaced them with whole-grain bread, and added milk, cheese, eggs, and butter to my diet, whole-grain bread, cottage cheese, kefir, rye, and natural yogurt, berries, and honey.

What I cut out

- white bread.

- sweets (almost)

I was happy with my weight and figure during pregnancy. When I went into labor, my neighbors didn't believe me when I said I had an emergency delivery.

But, unfortunately, I started gaining weight later, during breastfeeding, as I drank a lot of liquid, added condensed milk to my milk, and ate walnuts, supposedly for the fat content of the milk.

I'd give my diet during pregnancy 4 out of 4 stars, as I still can't call it a diet, but rather a healthy eating plan.

Thanks for reading!