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How to Eat When Pregnant: Take Care of Your Baby, Indulge Yourself, Too!

THOUGHT FOR FOOD: A FEW TIPS

Try to eat a well-balanced diet.
In a perfect pregnancy world, the ideal diet is a healthy, well-rounded one. In reality—due to cravings, aversions, nausea, or the sudden need to devour the nearest edible object lest you start gnawing on your office chair—you may not have the luxury of practicing pristine eating habits all the time. Still, even if you partake in lots of pecan pie it’s a good idea to embellish it with more healthful stuff, specifically organic fruits, vegetables, whole grains, good carbohydrates, meat, fish, and chicken, or vegetarian protein alternatives.

Keep in mind that you are not really eating for two.
Common consensus is that if you’re carrying a single tot you really don’t need more than 300 extra calories per day—and that’s only if you were consuming a moderate 2,200 calories daily beforehand. So when you head to the fridge remind yourself that “servings” does not mean a heaping Fred Flintstone-size helping. One portion equals about as much as you could palm in your hand-—one apple, 1/2 cup of broccoli, one cup of yogurt, two eggs…you get the idea. You could cheat and use Shaquille O’Neal’s palm as a barometer, but the only one you’ll be fooling is yourself. 

Take prenatal vitamins.
If you are healthy and maintain a good diet, your baby is likely to get all of the nutrients he or she needs. But these hefty horse pills are your safeguards. Designed to pick up any nutritional slack, they made me feel like I was taking care of business even on the rare days that I slammed a 10-pack of chicken nuggets and a large fries on my way home from work. Should you be too nauseous to keep these pills down, your doctor can offer advice on navigating the nutrients you need.

Drink water regularly.
Nothing wilts the pregnant flower like a lack of water. Drink at least 8 glasses a day at a minimum, but shoot for 12.

Know which foods are “no-no’s” for pregnant women. You can, and should, devour the Food and Drink No-Nos lists in the book. They include explanations of why a number of everyday foods are not recommended for pregnant women.

Eat smaller meals more often. A great way to keep the stomach satisfied early in the game, and avoid indigestion later on, is to snack on six small meals throughout the day rather than eating three big ones.

Limit your intake of stuff that isn’t good for you. The foods and beverages that weren’t good for you before pregnancy aren’t any better now, and since you’re officially force-feeding your unborn babe, you should think twice about trashing his tummy without his consent. In other words, go light on the usual edible foes: refined sugar, processed foods, hydrogenated fats, artificial colors and flavors, foods with preservatives, artificial sweeteners, sodas made with fructose, caffeine, and alcohol.

If you don’t want to eat junk, don’t keep it around. I tended to eat very well at home. Although I continued my pre-pregnancy nightly bowl of ice cream early on, it was easy to stop indulging the minute I stopped buying it. For me, out of sight really was out of mind. But beyond the house was a different story. I never bought and rarely ate cookies before, during, or after my pregnancy. But while in waiting, a delivery truck pulled up to my dot-com office once a week and offloaded enough snack food to keep a staff of 20 workaholics hopped up on sugar. While I occasionally reached into the cupboard for a breakfast bar or handful of cashews (or 10), I was more regularly wooed by my nutritional nemesis, the sweets drawer. Stuffed with those aforementioned Oreos and bags of mini Chips Ahoys, it serenaded me regularly and I answered its call at least once a week. If you have a similarly sweet work environment and the ability to easily fall from nutritional grace, my recommendation is don’t allow yourself to indulge in the free office bootie even once. The minute you cross over to the dietary dark side, it’s hard to go back.

Bring food with you everywhere you go.
Packing a picnic of healthy, ever-ready snacks and carrying backups in your purse and car works wonders. When sudden starvation hits, it’s the difference between immediate guiltless satisfaction and a carelessly caloric dash for the nearest drive-thru. For a list of easy edibles, see page 54. And don’t forget to tote a couple of bottles of water.

Eat good-mood food.
If you’re feeling extra cranky or exhausted, take a mental inventory of what you’ve been eating and consider redirecting your diet. Perhaps eating smaller, more frequent meals will boost your energy or settle your tummy. Maybe you’re not eating enough—that’ll tire you out, too. Or perchance you’re overindulging in sugar or caffeine, which can make a grown adult crash and burn as dramatically as a child who’s coming down off of a major ice cream high.

Consider a diet that avoids heartburn and indigestion.
The slowing of digestion that happens during pregnancy doesn’t just result in the occasional toot. It also impedes the effectiveness of the valve that connects your stomach with your esophagus, sometimes resulting in food moving backward, or coming back up into your esophagus, after it’s already made a pass-through and been mingling with gastric acids. When this acidic version of lunch makes its way back upward, it results in heartburn.

You may not be able to resolve it completely, but the key is to monitor your body’s reactions to the foods you eat and adjust your diet for optimum comfort.

Prenatal vitamins have your nutritional back, but certain foods help you face good mommy and baby nutrition head on. Scan the cheat sheet of essentials starting on the next page and see why they’re worthy in general and especially essential during certain trimesters, then—rather than obsessing about health—you can confidently munch on foods that deliver the gestational goods.

Mommy and well-known lifestyle writer Erika Lenkert is a frequent contributor to In Style, Everyday with Rachel Ray, and dozens of other national publications.  She has authored several lifestyle books, including The Last Minute Party Girl: Fashionable, Fearless, and Foolishly Simple Entertaining and Raw: The Uncook Book.  Known for combining wit and wisdom, Erika is
committed to helping today’s mommy-to-be shirk the prevailing pregnancy paranoia so that she can
confidently revel in all the weird, wacky, and downright funky stuff that comes with making human
from scratch. Check out her book, The Real Deal Guide to Pregnancy at Amazon.com

Want to win a copy of The Real Deal Guide to Pregnancy? Tell us your tips for eating well AND your favorite ways to indulge wwhile pregnant. We’ll send books to our four favorites!

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