Can't control what I'm eating due to constant morning sickness and gaining weight too fast!

[Cornberry]

I'm 6+3 and have put on about 3lbs just in the last week. I hear you should only put that much on throughout the whole first trimester. The problem is that if I'm not eating constantly the stomach pain is unbearable, and I can basically only swallow potatoes and cheese and crumpets and such like. I could have stood to lose a few pounds as it was, but I'm concerned about how much weight I'm putting on and ironically having been lazy with dieting forever now that it's important for me to be healthy I feel powerless to control my eating. Does anyone else have this problem or any advice?

[AnythingNotEverything]

It's ok. No need to panic. A few things to mention:

Firstly, pregnancy weight gain isn't linear. It's not like on a diet where you want steady weight loss. Pregnancy weight gain is much more hormonal and down to fits and starts in baby/placenta/fluid/boob growth. Your body is increasing the amount of blood you have, expanding your boobs, growing a placenta, not to forget a baby too. All of these things have a weight and require energy (food!) to create.

Secondly, the first trimester is awful. Do whatever you need to to get through it.

Thirdly, you're growing a human being! Relax! This is one of the most important things you'll ever do. Try to enjoy it. Step away from the scales. Unless you're already clinically obese, weight gain is fine and normal.

Congratulations. I'm 17 weeks now and my appetite is pretty much back to normal.

[BlinkAndMiss]

This was me a few weeks ago, I've had to eat my way through the nausea and sickened myself at the thought of how much I ate. At 16 weeks this reduced significantly and now I'm 18 weeks I'm still having to eat regularly but I'm not having to eat specific foods. I gained a stone from the beginning until 16 weeks, after than I've gained virtually nothing by eating lots of fruit and veg. I never let myself go hungry though and that's very important.

It's very much out of our control whilst we're feeling rotten, it does even itself out throughout the 9 months though and I found that with my first pregnancy eating after 30 weeks was difficulty. My stomach couldn't fit much in at all so that naturally halted the weight gain. Try not to worry.

[ToffeePenny]

What Anything said.
Also, try grissini breadsticks as a nibble - easier to carry around/have ready next to the bed in the morning and probably less damaging than crumpets while allowing for constant nibbling.

[m33r]

What anything said! Don't worry. You're growing a person (who you will think is the best person EVER!). Do what you need to do.

[m33r]

Cross post toffee!

[ToffeePenny]

Just shows how right anything is :)

[minipie]

I ate huge amounts (mainly carbs and butter) during first trimester as it was the only way to ward off nausea. Second trimester my eating has gone back to normal. Don't worry too much. Your body knows what it needs, trust it.

[AnythingNotEverything]

Aw. Thanks ladies

[hippymama1]

High fives to Anything! I agree with everything she says!

The only thing I could eat in the first trimester was bread and butter and I am sure I have put on too much weight already too! I feel your pain and agree that the solution is to STAY AWAY FROM THE SCALES ;-)

I am living in blissful ignorance and to be honest, what is 3lbs? Not sure about you of course but I would have put that on over Christmas anyway even if I wasn't PG...

I am 15 + 1 and can still get in my work trousers (it's my first baby) but I feel a lot bigger... Might be TMI or might be a comfort to you... If your constipation is anything like mine you will probably poop that 3lbs right off when you get to 14 weeks or so ;-)

Congratulations and hope you are soon feeling better :-)

[Cornberry]

Thank you all, that's reassuring :) had no idea how horrendous morning sickness can be because it seems as though no one Ive ever met has it this badly simi feel like I'm doing it all wrong! Relief to think it will even out. And probably good advice about replacing crumpets with grissini ;)

[LIG1979]

Last pregnancy put on 10lb in the 1st trimester and this pregnancy 12 lb. (i had to eat high fat/carb food continuously to try and keep the nausea to a manageable level.) However, I put on 32 lb overall as the weight increase slowed right down after that and only picked up again after 20 weeks. I also lost it all plus another half a stone by 6 months after the birth.

[ToAvoidConversation]

Eat what you can when you can. If you can actually eat you are doing ok. How bad is the sickness?

[sleepybee]

I had/have hyperemis from 5 weeks & gradually faded away at 20 weeks. At first I could only cope by eating things like fizzy Cola bottles, mints, lemon sheberts etc plus bread, crackers, pasta & cheese. I couldn't touch fruit, cereal, milk, meat, garlic, spicy food. Then about week 13 it all went out of control & I couldn't keep anything down & I lost 7lbs in a week. Now Ive gained it back & then some ha! Im 24 weeks now & appetite/food aversions all sort of back to normal and I actually crave bananas, clementines & blueberries (with cream )

[Cornberry]

It's encouraging that for most people it passes! toavoidaconversation the sickness isn't that bad at the moment. Not much comes back up. It's more the feeling sick and generally feeling ill which is often very difficult. Going to work and pretending to be fine if a nightmare! Plus I've found my ante-natal vitamins make me vomit so I replaced them with just folic acid for now.

[Giantbabymama]

3lbs, pah, I'm between 35 and 36 weeks and I've gained more than 3 stone! I'm not thrilled about it but I had awful morning sickness that went on til week 24 and has come back again recently and the only thing that stops it is carbs, and if I had to choose between weight gain and feeling like hell, I choose weight gain.

I've had to lay off the carbs recently cos my doc is investigating whether I have gest diabetes and they don't help high blood sugar. I've done a bit of beating myself up about whether the high carbs and lack of exercise (I was totally laid up, sometimes even moving my head made me sick and the DH had to basically be my butler) caused gest diabetes, but as others have said, you need to just get through it and there's no way of knowing why GD happens, could be that it would have happened even if I had lived on lettuce and soya for the past six months.

[lovespoon]

Hello:-)
I haven't read all the other replies what wanted to share my experiences.
With my first, a boy, I had hyperemesis and was in and out of hospital having IV fluids and on nutritional drinks. I lost weight in pregnancy compared to my pre pregnancy weight.
In my second, a girl, I had normal morning sickness on and off, I lost weight again, weighed less than pre pregnancy weight. And I had to have nutritional drinks.

[LizziTea]

Hello,
I totally agree that whatever helps you get through the worst of the nausea is worth it, even if it's not your usual idea of what's 'healthy'. However, I just wanted to share a few things I found that helped with the nausea at various stages (though I kept going off things): ice cubes, cucumber, carrot sticks, fizzy water, peppermint or ginger tea, hot water and oatcakes! All of the above are a good way to vary the constant need to eat crumpets etc. Also, when I can handle 'real' food like a bowl of rice or pasta, I eat it from a teacup (to be fair, we have big teacups) which is about as big a portion as I need at one time - then the rest can be my next snack.

[ToAvoidConversation]

Like a few others I had hyperemesis too and became almost phobic of food in the first trimester, lost a fair bit of weight, but once they found the right drugs for me I had to keep eating to stave off the worst of the sick feeling so have now put on quite a bit of weight. But I just don't care because me and baby made it through alive and feeling so sick puts so much in perspective. Eat what you can and give yourself a break. If you have to tell work, you do. I hadn't planned on it but had to tell work really early, it's just the way it happened.

[Treesandbees]

Cornberry I'm exactly the same! This is my 2nd pg and it's worse this time for me. I've put on 3lbs in first 8 weeks but feel a lot bigger. The first time around I just ate whatever I could manage (crumpets etc) but I put on 3.5 stone and struggled to loose it after so I'm really trying to be selective on my snacks now. I've been eating lots of crackers, oatcakes, sucking on polos, fizzy water. I can't wait for the first trimester to be over...it's definitely the hardest in my opinion!!