37 weeks and losing weight - I need your food ideas!

[shouldIbecrossaboutthis]

Long story short, I need to put on weight. I have hypremesis and can't just eat whatever I want, and eating any sort of meal wont give me enough calories as I can't eat enough.

Does anyone have any tips of small portions of high calorie 'good' food. Not cake, ice-cream and McDonals burgers which is all I've eaten for the last 4 days.

I can't eat:

sugary stuff esp frosting on cake
chocolate
most fruit
anything acidic
anything too rich and heavy (like a cream sauce)
anything tomato/pepper based
anything with too much liquid like soup
anything greasy (other than a double cheese burger from McDonalds :$)
cheese
steaks
bread

I can't drink anything with any milk in it or anything fizzy.

So far I have on my list, avocado, boiled eggs, milk and natural peanut butter.

Anything else?

Other nut butters - almond is nice; poached or tinned salmon; milk based desserts such as rice pudding, creme caramel, custard; quiche - ham is quite plain

I feel for you - hope things improve.

will tinned fish be high enough in calories do you think? Rice pudding is a fab idea and I really like it!

Coconut milk, Nuts, advocado, oily fish all high in fat and calories but really healthy.

Re tinned fish - tuna isn't high in calories (and is something to avoid really due to mercury levels), but salmon, mackerel and sardines are all quite energy dense.

Worst case scenario you can supplement with a drink like complan or build up.

Ice cream? When my MS was at its worst, icecream still went down. I think the coldness really helped.

Scrambled eggs - you can add a bit of butter and i always eat a bit more of scrambled egg than individual eggs. or what about quiche. Expensive ones are not too greasy - inthink you can even get crustless ones if the pastry would be inedible.

panicnotanymore - I wish I could supplement with complan. It comes up within minutes of being drunk, even if I sip the stuff!

Oily fish, forgot about that will try and give it a go, thanks midgetm.

FreeButtonBee, tries quiche, it comes back up, I think it might be the onion? I'm going to try making one today and see if it's any better. But scrambled egg is good, I would probably eat more of them than a boiled egg.

I have been eating lots of ice-cream, but I am a bit worried it's not really very healthy and could cause other issues especially with blood sugar?

3 more week. If I got this far I should be able to last 3-5 more weeks, right. I'm still taking my vitamins so I think although it's not ideal the baby should be fine and according to my latest scan he is quite big (but who really knows?!)

Take some comfort from the fact that I had a friend in the same boat as you with both pregnancies -she was really poorly but her babies were huge. I kept everything down, put on the right amount of weight and my baby was tiny. So as long as you have enough energy chances are your baby is doing just fine.

TBH I think it's more important to eat something at this stage. If Icecream is all that you can handle, then ice-cream it is. If it helps you feel better about it, buy the most expensive stuff you can find made with real cream, rather than Walls standard stuff.

I know you said not fruit but what about banana yoghurt and peanut butter smoothie.

Onion in quiche makes me hurl, pregnant or not - the waitrose own brand ham and tomato, and spinach and ricotta ones are onion free. Another thing, often cold food is less sick inducing. Could you stomach cold cocktail sausages for example?

Have you tried the energy bars hikers and athletes eat? I take 9 bars hiking with me - they are a great low bulk healthy food. www.9-bar.co.uk/ You can get various types in places like Holland and Barrett and Waitrose.

Would you consider asking your GP to prescribe you some anti-sickness pill?

Could your GP refer you to a dietitian to help you with some decent meal ideas with the foods you can eat? Long shot but possibly worth a go.

My suggestion would be smoothies made with ice cream but I see you can't eat more fruit :( I really feel for you hun xx

Pasta with a light pesto?
Chicken stir fry with noodles?
Jacket potato with baked beans? Though just realised no tomato based stuff...but maybe just with butter?

How about rolled oats and raisins or a few nuts? Ie a very simple home made muesli? Could have with water or soya milk if you're off milk.

Sorry for late response, we've had internet issues!

Limeleaflizard, all dries fruit is off the menu, as it comes right back up :(

HaggisNeepsTattie, I can eat all those things, but only in really small quantities. In the first 25 weeks or so I just ate normal portion sizes of normal food. But now I can eat only a little bit, I think like most at this stage, there just isn't space. I'm not sure the quantities I'm eating of my normal food are calorific enough? I could eat maybe 1/4 of a jacket for eg. Although I am loving carb based foods!

Sparklekitty, You'd think so wouldn't you! My GP basically says as the baby is fine then I don't need a referral and anyway, the wait is 8 weeks. I'm due in 3! I thought about your smoothie idea and tried a friji milkshake today, very calorific and the strawberry one stayed down! I'm going to try and drink one every other day, bit worried about the sugar though!

Milk - I've tried them all, nothing helps that they have given. The only thing that lets me eat normally for 2-3 days is a drip at the hospital. But they don't give me one till I'm dehydrated. Which I'm not as I wake myself up every hour for a drink.

panicnotanymore, good to know about the quiche, I got some today! I haven't heard of those energy bars, I'll see if I can find some without dried fruit. Thanks

FreeButtonBee I bought the most luxurious ice-cream I could find today. going to have some soon, fingers crossed!

Thanks everyone for the fab suggestions, today has been particularly awful, I've lost 3lb since I started this thread!

Porridge, steamed white fish, have you tried nuti grain bars?
Both tescos and sainsburys quiche lorraine have no onions in. Morrisons and Asdas do I can't eat quiche with onion in normally.

Eggs
Chicken
Fish
Bananas (very high fat and carb content)
Avocados
Rice
Potatoes (again high carb)
Pannacotta is very high cal and very scrummy!
Quite bland too....

Could you try frozen yoghurt rather than ice-cream? Odd that you can eat ice-cream and not milk or other high sugar stuff though. Gives me horrible heartburn but yoghurt seems to be ok.
Big roast dinners ? Roast Chicken & Roasted veg - especially potatoes will be a higher fat way of consuming them, the chicken is lean and not too rich. Roast carrots/parsnips/squash are all yummy and it's a v straightforward meal to make. Plus you can make up lots of small portions out of one big meal, or stick some rolled pastry on top and turn the leftovers into pie.
Can you eat cheese in risotto? There's usually tonnes of parmesan in a restaurant risotto.
Houmous is v high fat as are breadsticks.
Beans on toast.
Salmon is quite high fat.
It might be worth checking out dietary suggestions for recovering anorexics ? Sounds bizarre but you have similar needs insofar as you can only eat small portions and need it to be healthy but high in fat.