To ask if I’m eating enough? **PLEASE READ OP'S RECENT POSTS BEFORE RESPONDING** Title edited by MNHQ

[mummytoonetryingfortwo]

I posted in the week about my husband being against me continuing to exercise, as I am pregnant with twins. We moved past that (I thought) after agreeing that I would stop running, start swimming and doing pregnancy specific workouts such as yoga and Pilates. We clashed on this because I had a bleed, just before I found out I was pregnant, and because it took us a long time to conceive.

My first pregnancy, I was young and at university, I was very unhealthy in my diet and gained a lot of weight, which I started to lose when my daughter was about 6 months old. Since then, I’ve been very responsible with my diet and activity. I’ve always focussed on fuelling myself properly and keeping active.

My husband is now concerned that I am not eating enough. My normal day of eating will look something like this:

Breakfast - full fat Greek yoghurt, berries, nuts, a small amount of honey, and chia seeds OR wholemeal sourdough toast (from a bakery, not the supermarket), avocado, scrambled eggs (made with real butter) and tomatoes on the side.

Lunch - some combination of a lean protein, vegetables and a carb. Rice, salmon and a salad with a soy sauce dressing has been something I’ve been craving lately.

Dinner - again, a protein, vegetables and a carb. We tend to cycle through steaks, chicken, lots of charred greens, rice or pasta.

Snacks - I have made a concerted effort to add more snacks because of the fact I’m pregnant. I’ll have veggies with hummus, celery sticks or apple with peanut butter, sometimes some chocolate or just fruit, but not that often.

I’ve counted calories for the last three days to show him I’m eating, and I’m hitting about 1800 to 2000 calories a day. He thinks this isn’t enough, and that I’ll be losing weight. Is this enough?

I rather stupidly assumed she might have been breastfeeding at 6 months. (Look up the dietary guidelines and recommended calorie intake for breastfeeding mothers if you're still wondering.) I'm out.

Exercising is fine during pregnancy unless you have complications. I was still racing and winning races when I was 4 months pregnant and ran until I was 8.5 months. I had a really quick labour, under a hour, and i am sure that is because I kept fit till the end.

Yep. My friend has her one and only child at 44. She was a former champion swimmer. She swam up until she was induced and was back in the pool 8 days later. Won a competition 4 months later

This is what concerns me. Getting to a point where my babies are at risk because of GD, and me negatively impacting my health post birth.

Your diet sounds fine to me, but I expect that you will want to eat more as the pregnancy progresses.

It does sound as though you are extremely invested in your diet and exercise. That can be very positive, but it can also tip into an unhealthy obsession. I have no idea which side of this scale you currently are, though it's always worth questioning oneself about habits that may no longer serve one well.

But why do you think that's in any way a risk for you? Putting on the recommended amount of weight and eating the right amount of additional calories won't make you overweight or at risk of GD.

But you are worrying about a risk that is tiny, given where you are at the moment, while ignoring the much bigger risk that you and your babies are not going to get enough nutrition, with the potential for that to impact on their birth weight and your own future health.

Look, no-one is suggesting that you throw caution to the winds and eat takeaway, crisps and ice cream 7 days a week, or put on 5 stone. It's great to eat a healthy diet, to get a good intake of protein, fruit and veg, etc. But it is important to accept that a healthy pregnancy, especially of multiples, necessarily involves eating a bit more and putting on weight. All people are suggesting is that you increase your intake of healthy, nutrient dense but higher calorie foods to make sure you're getting enough calories and nutrients for a twin pregnancy. You cannot base this on the requirements for a non-pregnant woman.

Your extreme unwillingness to consider this is the thing that is making people wonder about an eating disorder. OP

I wish you all the best with your pregnancy OP.

I don’t know what you’re all looking for me to say? That I don’t want to get fat? Of course I don’t. Nobody wants to be fat, surely? Getting and staying fat is my worst nightmare

Your weight will be closely monitored. I know two people who had twins. One was slim before pregnancy, one at the higher end of normal BMI. Neither of them got GD. Both returned to their pre-pregnancy weights. Having twins doesn’t mean you’ll get GD.

You say accusations that you have or are verging on an eating disorder/orthorexia are “vile”. No, they’re born of concern. Read back through you replies, eg the one about modelling for your daughter by not eating cake, homemade apple crumble being full of sugar, having a ‘sweet treat’ of some peanut butter on fruit, Size 10 being fat, etc etc. Look at your current diet, that’s akin to something a slimmer would eat not a woman pregnant with twins. Your responses absolutely do suggest there are some issues.

I actually think now that you won’t be able to turn this round without support, as your thinking has gone a bit astray. Please, please speak to your midwife honestly. You’ll get kindness, understanding and support.

I think what your husband wants is for you to see your babies as the priority and that the impact on your body is something you can handle, because at the moment it is worryingly looking like it isn’t .
Pregnancy isn’t about getting fat it is about creating an environment for your babies to grow. It isn’t an excuse to eat whatever you want but your nutritional needs will change and you will need to increase your calories up as you reach the second trimester.

This is why I really do think you need to tell your midwife about this because as much as you find the idea of having an eating disorder vile and disgusting you are showing all the signs of one. Be honest and get a professional support as what the correct and healthy diet is for a twin pregnancy to meet their needs

I’ve always been fat, guess what I have much worse things going on in my life, being bigger being your worse nightmare? Really

We’re going private. So no extra mental health support and I don’t have an eating disorder.

Hi op I think your diet is very good. I would concentrate on varying your diet to meet nutritional profiles to make sure both you and the babies have enough of the essential vitamins and nutrients. Iron, vitamin b12, calcium etc to stop any postpartum deficiencies on your part if you are considering breastfeeding 2 babies.
And make sure you are getting enough fibre. There is lots of info online about what you need to increase and your midwife will be able to help.
I don’t think anyone needs cake or puddings but you do need to find a sustainable way to add the right nutrients to grow 2 babies and keep yourself from being overly depleted post birth otherwise it makes it very difficult postpartum to build those vitamin levels back up.

Blubber? Really?

Goodness I'm surprised you have any friends. I'd much rather be friends with someone a few stone overweight than a massive judgemental bitch. Takes all sorts I suppose!

I think I’ve missed the bit where you said you are pregnant with twins, but seems from all the messages like you are?

The meal plan you describe in your OP sounds healthy for a non-pregnant woman who doesn’t exercise that much.

Considering it sounds like you exercise a lot, and you are also pregnant with twins, plus your husband’s concerns, it doesn’t sound like you are eating enough.

My advice would be to stop counting calories altogether and make your portion sizes bigger. So where you were having 2 eggs, up it to 3. Where you were having 3 new potatoes, have 5. Where you were having a piece of fruit once a day, have it twice a day. You will still be healthy, but you will have more energy to spare for your babies.

What do you think an eating disorder looks like OP? Or disordered eating? Because kindly, the level of preoccupation and mental energy you have to put into maintaining your calorie intake, size, micros, macros, cake modelling etc to keep you in a pre-pregnancy body is in that ballpark.
The level of distress that getting fat seems to spark in you seems to override the fear that the babies are experiencing, or at risk of experiencing a sub-optimal diet.
I can’t say if you are or not eating a good enough diet for a twin pregnancy, but if I was expecting twins and concerns were being raised about my diet I’d probably have a good chat with my midwife about it.

Remember with twins you will have double placenta, amniotuc fluid etc. You can be expect to put on a lot more weight than the weight of 2 babies. I put on 30kg by the end (including babies, blood, water etc)! I also lost it (and more) within a year without monitoring what I ate (too busy to care). My babies were quite big (6lb 5 and 5lb 13). I was exhausted and quite ill by the end of the pregnancy but they were healthy and now doing their GCSEs 😱.

I ate a lot of eggs, rice and pineapple when pregnant (rice seemed to help my blood sugar stay more stable). You don't need to max out on calories, but it is a higher risk pregnancy so you do need to look after yourself a bit more than a normal pregnancy.

Only on MN is eating 1800 to 2000 calories a day an eating disorder. It shows people who have never seen an ED up close.

I maintain at 2000 with a five day a week Hyrox training gym cycle. You don’t need extra calories in pregnancy until much further along than ten weeks and there is nothing at all wrong with being aware of the foods that you eat and how being overweight is terrible for your health, especially when pregnant.

As I have already said there are women out there who struggle to eat at all due to morning sickness at this stage, your diet is perfectly healthy but most people have no idea what healthy is these days.

OP if I were you I would eat what I like and speak to your midwife for reassurance.

It’s not the number of calories that she’s eating it’s the mindset that people are picking up on.

ok but surely asking for a diet plan would be within their remit or the remit of a dietician that you could also get.
Someone who could set out a good diet plan for your pregnancy to ensure that your twins got what they needed whilst maintaining your body as much as possible.

because that I think would be helpful for you

I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want that if as you say you don’t need extra support or an eating disorder

Have not read whole thread. 2000 calories a day is good.
Soy sauce is very bad - extremely high in salt
And you're not getting enough calcium. If you don't like dairy you can find it in beans / legumes and some brown bread.

I have seen an eating disorder up close, unfortunately. And what you eat is irrelevant to a woman who is borderline underweight and pregnant with twins.

the amount of food whilst can be a strong indicator of an eating disorder (particularly if restricting food/binge eating etc) it is not a requirement.

Esting disorders are much more about the mindset towards food/exercise/weight as they are anything else and the monitoring of calories and exercise and worries around food and weight gain are just as strong indicators. The preoccupation with weight and food rather than what you actually eat

Really? Worse than any of this?

"Being underweight during a twin pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth, particularly before 32 weeks, and potentially leads to higher rates of neonatal death and serious neonatal morbidity. It can also increase the risk of other complications like small-for-gestational-age (SGA) babies and low birth weight."

You don't have to get fat and stay fat, you do need to eat appropriately for a twin pregnancy.