How healthy is your diet during pregnancy?

[tacosplease]

I found out I’m five weeks pregnant over the weekend. My diet has never been particularly healthy - my BMI is fine but I don’t eat anywhere near enough greens, I drink too much (I’ve obviously cut that out completely now!) and eat a lot of red meat and fatty foods.

How important is it to make big changes to your diet during pregnancy? Today I swapped my usual croissant for Weetabix, and had a huge salad for lunch instead of the usual sausage/bacon sandwich.

I am having a cheese and tomato pizza for dinner though!

I've always eaten reasonably healthily with decent portions (think healthy food but lots of it) so haven't changed what I'm meeting much beyond morning sickness triggers and it's been fine.

You'll want to find a pregancy multivitamin to take each day. Ideally, you don't want to have too much salt or fat in your diet.

Things like frozen spinach balls are good to add into stews, pasta, risotto to get extra greens in without really as they cook right down.

People have successful pregancies on all sorts of diets but all advice I've heard is that it's worth eating many small meals and making healthy choices.

And congratulations!!

You might find as you get further into pregnancy that your diet feels a lot less like a choice than it used to. As well as cravings, it's pretty normal to suddenly dislike foods that used to be your favourites.

Are you taking a pregnancy vitamin?

Lots of people will tell you that you only need folic acid and vitamin D. It's worth remembering that when you're pregnant the baby gets dibs on the nutritional benefits of what you eat, so if you have a poor diet it is you that will feel rubbish. A diet rich in fibre will reduce the (high) likelihood that you will suffer constipation.

You might find that fatty foods make heartburn worse.

All that said, there may be days where you subsist on Haribo, and everything will still be OK.

In the first few weeks before the sickness started I tried to eat reasonably well but that's gone out of the window now.

I'm 10 weeks tomorrow and it's basically whatever I can stomach which is just beige plain food. I find I eat the same things that I can handle. Haven't eat a vegetable in weeks.

I've heard it's more important to eat better in the second trimester and hopefully will be more up to it then so I'm holding onto that!

I’m taking a combined pregnancy tablet which contains folic acid, vitamin D, iron and ginger (helps aid digestion apparently!)

Would you suggest anything else in addition in the first trimester?

Following the post. I just found out this weekend that I am 4 weeks pregnant. Feel like I have the same problem towards my diet. Don't like a lot of greens but going to have to make a conscious effort to eat them!

Also love a cup of tea but going to have to cut that out or down too!

Over 4+ years of Ttc my diet has become healthier and healthier. Now I'm 7 weeks pregnant I'm living off crisps, rich tea biscuits, plain jacket potatoes and lemonade as it's all I can keep down! Apparently it doesn't matter too much at this stage but it's pretty boring!

I had planned to eat healthy bit morning sickness put a stop to that in T1.

Then in T2, I got greedy & started making up for lost time! Think junk food! And meals out. Also, birthday, holidays etc.

I still tried to alternate with healthy ish things tho. Salads, fish, homemade stuff. Tried to get my five a day in here and there!

I'm still in T2 but nearing the end. approaching T3 now. I'm making a huge conscious decision to eat better. I'm a vegetarian & have just bought Jamie Oliver's new veggie book. It's brill. Also love his five ingredients book and 15 min meal book. Basically trying to live off these + cereal/porridge in a morning and homemade soup for lunch. Trying to get over 5-a-day. I've also started taking omega 3.

My downfall is unhealthy snacks and puddings though 😭

In my first trimester I couldn’t stomach any fruit and veg which worried me a lot. I think I could have eaten much better throughout my pregnancy and I feel guilty now (despite having a big healthy baby).

I’d say it doesn’t matter so much about the junk food you eat just so long as you get your 5 a day and meet your daily requirements.

Some tips: Fruit, veg, brown pasta/rice, brown seeded bread, oily fish to replace meat, nuts & seeds, sprinkling of chia seeds on breakfast cereal for omega3 (very good for baby’s brain development and they’re so small you don’t notice them in your food), 3 vegan days per week, limit heavily processed foods like super noodles and bacon, reduce caffeine intake. Pregnacare is a good vitamin, they give out many free samples in th Emma’sDiary bags. Don’t sweat if you eat too much chocolate (dark can be good for you).

Congratulations on your pregnancy! I wish you and baby the best 😊

Life that’s a great tip about chia seeds, thanks!

janey15
I was the same up until around 16/17 weeks. I think baby was going to be born beige from my food choices
Im back to something resembling normal now

Congratulations to the 2 mums to be on here so far!

I was really good and always had 5 a day but also ate desserts, chocolates etc and still had Mc d'd/ pizza/ take Away's!
I think everything is ok in moderation ( obviously not the NO foods like pâté etc).
In fact thinking about it I was a bit of a pig lol as I thought it's one time I'm allowed to get fat 😂 and I lost it all bf anyway!

My tips are;
Milkshakes for calcium/ protein
Carton of orange = 1 of 5 a day
Baked beans = 1 of 5 a day

Enjoy pregnancy x

I was so unhealthy in the first trimester - didn't want any vegetables or salad or much meat really, basically just carbs. Now I'm in the second trimester I've got loads healthier, partly because I don't feel sick thinking about salad and also because if I eat fatty food I get heartburn and if I eat chocolate or sweets I feel sick.

I still want to eat chocolates and sweets but I just don't buy them because I know they make me feel awful. Instead I make sure the fridge is full of snacks that are tasty but also not too unhealthy - fruit, milk, peanut butter, cheese, nuts, etc. I was surprised how quickly my habits changed tbh and now if I go to the shops hungry I automatically go stock up on fruits rather than biscuits.

I was lucky that this baby completely put an end on my sweet tooth! Usually I’d say life if not worth living if you don’t have something sweet every day, but that totally reversed since I got pregnant. I’m craving salty and sharp food instead. First trimester I lived off AAAAALLLL the berries and salt pickles. One thing I do feel sad about is that I’ve been craving and hence eating lots more meat, which I know it’s not great but.. I’ve kind of managed to give in to all my cravings but make sure they are part of a healthy plate (half a plate is vegetables, quarter is protein and quarter carbs). Even if I don’t want something, it helps when you think that everything that you’re eating now the baby will be able to taste, and hopefully will be more likely to enjoy those foods when growing up.

I’ve not had any cravings yet, although I am only 6 weeks in.

In my first trimester and well into my second, I had terrible sickness and could barely keep any food down. I lost around a stone and a half and had a few trips to the early pregnancy unit to test for dehydration etc...

I think my diet consisted of: mini cheddars and orange lucozade !!! As that was all I could keep down...

Now I'm 22 weeks pregnant, and my diet is a bit better but I still just eat when I fancy.

My menu for dinners this week consist of:

Homemade Chilli con Carne and rice with cheese
Jacket potato, beans and cheese with garlic bread and salad
Homemade chicken curry with rice
grilled fish with steamed veggies
Pie and Mash
Gammon, roast potatos, leeks and cauliflower cheese
Homemade beef burgers and homemade chips.

my breakfasts are the same: wholemeal toast with peanut butter, banana and honey OR i'll have wheetabix and a handful of blueberries.

At work I snack on fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries, oranges, banana)

and I also batch cook potato and leek soup at home to take to work for my lunch.

I stopped taking any sort of vitamins in my first tri as i was so ill.

x

Don’t eat ANY vegetables?! Potato is a vegetable and very healthy, esp if steamed/microwaved.

I have the complete decaff tea and coffee, non-alcoholic beer/cider/wine/gin!

I like the tips from earlier. I have a "seed shaker", which is just a pot with mixed seeds in it that I like and I can sprinkle over food (this has not changed sicne before pregnancy). Another tip is, when I make pizza or cheese on toast, it gets loads of veg on top too, inc things like sweetcorn from the freezer. On the kitchen counter, I have a pot filled with almonds that I toasted and salted (I use lo salt, another healthy one is celery salt), which means I snack on these before going for the cheese.

Since pregnancy I've gone a bit fruit crazy, so have been snacking on dates and raisins esp as they improve bowel movements. Most of my cravings have been for high fibre foods – so I get these cereals in, and just those.

@anonnancy I love the meal planning

This week my dinners are
Jacket potato filled with roasted tomato-squash mix + mozzarella
Fresh stuffed pasta with same squash mix + toasted pine nuts
Pea, sprout and broccoli soup
Corn on the cob + roasted aubergine + tofu with homemade tomato sauce
Cheese salad baguette (working over dinner time)

A potato is a vegetable but it doesn't count as your '5 a day'.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant and my diet has consisted of whatever doesn't make me instantly vomit, or the least painful foods to throw up!

@Dr273 thanks! It's the only way I can get through a weekly food shop without spending stupid amount and wasting a load of food! Lol!

Your meals sounds yummy - are you vegetarian? I'd love to throw in a couple of veggie nights a week but OH is a big time carnivore so wouldn't work for us!

X

I had terrible nausea from 4 weeks so the 1st Trimester was basically anything I could stomach. Lots of carbs and salty foods. Now I'm 18 weeks and pretty much back to my pre pregnancy diet - whole foods, low sugar, lots of green veg, protein and fibre. But I've added in a lot more wholegrain carbs than I would usually eat. I'm taking a prenatal vitamin and exercising every day. If I snack every 2 hours then I feel fine- things like cheese on crackers, boiled eggs, a green smoothie.

@anonnancy - yes, I'm vegetarian. DH isn't, but as I do the cooking he's eaten less and less over the years. Pretty much now the only meat stocks we have in is tinned tuna, so he mostly has it when we eat out.

One way of compromising is to have something he can throw over the top, like a meaty gravy or bacon bites, and do something veggie (you can also ask him to prep these himself!).

@Pinkflipflop85 potatoes are incredibly healthy as a food; cooked fruit/veg with sugar also don't "count". The categories are deeply unhelpful and as a rule I try to get as many veg in as possible and just make my plate look colourful!

Oh lord. Reading this at 20 weeks on my lunch break... Lunch having been a Greggs sausage roll and a chocolate twist from Starbucks. Generally I'm pretty good - homemade soups and so on - but I cave more often than I'd like to whatever I fancy.

I would add that my diet took a real nosedive between weeks 9 and 15 as I was nauseous and could only stomach certain things. It's been hard to get back into healthy eating.

I ate a pain au chocolat for breakfast this morning and immediately felt really nauseous and thought I was going to be sick! Luckily I wasn’t, but I think I’ll avoid anything buttery/sweet for the time being!

38 weeks here and only after eating a bag of sour millions

My diet has been awful - I just can't make myself eat healthily. All I seem to eat is sugary crap and fatty foods. Rarely eat veg but been trying to have a bit of fruit more often.
I never had morning sickness (I'm now 15wks) and no cravings so haven't been put off my usual terrible diet at all.
Doesn't help that DP (who is 9 stone compared to my 13.5 😑) keeps plying me with fudge.
My biggest worry is that I don't have calcium due to an allergy plus not really liking anything it's in. I've been missing meals too which isn't great.