Gaining Too Much Weight During Pregnancy

Is your bathroom scale on the fast track these days? Here's why you should apply the brakes, and how to do it safely.

You already know that being pregnant isn't your all-you-can-eat meal ticket — those cravings may be powerful, but left unchecked they can be a one-way trip to Bountiful (hips and butt, that is).  But that's just one reason to avoid gaining too much weight when you're expecting (and not even the most compelling one). At 22 weeks pregnant, here are some others that might motivate you to keep your eye on the scale — and your hands out of the cookie jar (unless, of course, you've wisely stocked the cookie jar with soy chips).

Discomfort from head to toe: Let's face it, pregnancy isn't all that comfortable to begin with (unless you're really comfortable curled up with a backache and a bad case of indigestion). And those discomforts tend to multiply with the pounds. Excess weight gain can result in or aggravate everything from backaches to leg pains to overall exhaustion, not to mention varicose veins, calf cramps, heartburn, hemorrhoids, and achy joints. And if too many extra pounds follow you to labor, they can also make that already-tough experience a lot tougher.

Complications: Excess weight gain increases your risk for developing hypertension and diabetes — both of which make your pregnancy much harder to manage, while creating risks for your baby. The heavier you are, the more likely your baby is to be larger, increasing the odds that a vaginal delivery will require the use of forceps or vacuum. That's if you can deliver vaginally at all, since being overweight increases your chances of delivering by C-section — which makes for a more difficult recovery after your baby is born.

Obesity and ongoing health issues: Gain too much weight and you're likely to retain twice as much after your baby is born than you would have if you gained within the guidelines. And if you think all you need is time and willpower to lose the extra fat, research has weighed in with a different idea: Women who gain excessively and don't lose the extra weight within six months after the birth are at a much higher risk of being obese ten years later. Obesity often leads to significant health issues, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.

How much weight is too much? That all depends. Chances are your practitioner advised you on your target weight gain at your first prenatal appointment — and that it was calculated based on a number of factors (for starters, how close to ideal your prepregnancy weight was). Your practitioner probably also talks to you (ever so gently, or not so) at every visit about where you are on that upward curve — and where you should aim to be. If you've been instructed to gain the standard 25-to-35-pound total in your pregnancy, by this week you're likely to have gained anywhere from ten to 16 of those pounds. If you raced past that number weeks ago, or are gaining faster than your practitioner recommended, you'll want to slow down.

What You Can Do

1. Cut useless calories. The emphasis is on "useless" (aka empty) — you still want to eat enough of the right kinds of calories to keep your baby fed and growing. After all, the idea isn't to lose weight (losing weight is always a bad idea when you're pregnant), but to slow the rate at which you're gaining. Easy, nutritious, calorie-reducing strategies (substituting skim milk for whole or two percent; fresh fruit for dried; baked potatoes or yams for french fries; grilled white-meat chicken with no skin for fried dark-meat with skin) can make a big difference. Other calories that can go? The ones you'll find in sugar (and the ones you'll find plenty of in sugary treats).
2. Follow WTE's pregnancy diet. Keep up with your pregnancy diet by eating the right quantities of the right, nutrient-packed foods. Watch portion sizes — a "serving" of any given food may be much smaller than you think, and a whole lot smaller than restaurants have led you to believe. For instance, did you know that a serving of meat or poultry should be about the size of a computer mouse (not a whole computer), and that a serving of cheese should be no bigger than a nine-volt battery?
3. Focus on efficiency.  Choose foods that are big on bulk (so they fill you up and keep you filled) but low on calories:  fresh vegetables (especially those green leafies) and fruits (especially ones with a high water content, like melon);  lean poultry, meat, and fish; and oatmeal (a better choice than granola, which tends to pack a whole lot of fat in a tiny serving). And fill up on water, not soda or juice.
4. Trim that fat. Some fat is necessary (especially good fats, and especially when you're expecting), but too much just makes you, well, fat. Eat your bread unbuttered, skip the gravy, order salad dressing and sauces on the side (spoon instead of ladle), and run when something fried comes your way.
5. Get active. With your practitioner's okay, make regular exercise a part of your pregnancy. Join a prenatal yoga or exercise class, and add small amounts of activity to your everyday routines (park a few blocks from your destination, then walk the rest of the way, take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk to the deli to pick up your sandwich instead of ordering in).