Losing weight second trimester - help!

[moirasings]

Just found out I have lost some weight in the last month instead of gaining. I am 23 weeks, working 34 hours a week, two school age children and have just worked out I am not wonder woman! I am going in to work today to ask if I can reduce my hours a little, but does anyone have any other suggestions? I feel really awful about this. Basically I think I have been skipping meals when too tired/stressed to eat and it has caught up with me. Baby is growing fine, or appears to be, but obviously I need to change something soon.

You know there's a problem with your eating habits and you know that the baby is just fine at the moment so for now I just wouldn't stress yourself over it since that's only going to exhaust you more.

If I were you I would use one of my weekly days off to make a couple of meals for the week and put them in the fridge/freezer. I tend to only feed myself since my DP is a veggie and I can't live on a veggie diet. Currently I make food every other day and the second day I reheat the leftovers of the day before (with the exception of chicken that I'm paranoid of reheating and will just cook separately each time). I then have uncle bens micro rice on standby if I'm too tired to wait 10 minutes to cook the boil in a bag stuff. I have toast for breakfast every morning because I know I need to eat. I tend to buy a sandwich for lunch (only works out at £10 a week) and then I come home and put the microwave on. Then after dinner I sleep for 2 hours.

Give it a go, this routine works for me.

Depending on how much you've lost and where you started, this might not be a reason to worry too much. I didn't gain any weight at all overall from 4-6 months, ie some weeks I lost and some weeks I gained, but overall plateau. In my case this was because I gained a stone in the first trimester as eating was the only way to control MS, and in second I returned to a healthier diet and could fit less in at a sitting anyway, so I ws basically turning flab into baby. Now 34 weeks and gaining by the day!

I'd say if your baby is the right size and you're eating healthily there's nothing to worry about - but it sounds like it would be good to find ways to rest more and give jobs to other people! Eg can your partner be in charge of evening meals?

Have gained 12 lbs overall so far, I think, so not a disaster from that point of view. It's more that I've realised I'm not superwoman and that I can't spend another month losing weight. Will try the cooking at the weekend thing, although weekends currently seemed jam packed with laundry, cleaning, shopping etc. DH makes dinner 2 - 3 times a week and has taken to feeding me boiled eggs when I get in from work. He is currently consumed with redoing our kitchen, so reluctant to take on more household stuff. (I think he's nesting.) But I think I can convince him to do the weekly shop.