To those who were overweight before pregnancy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the key is to not binge and use the pregnancy excuse. Just try to keep a healthy diet and keep up with exercise. The problem for a lot of people is that they binge on junk food and stop exercising because they are pregnant so they think they are "allowed".

I would second this. I was ~ 20 lbs. overweight when I conceived our son, and gained 45 pounds because I did exactly this---just ate whenever I felt like it, e.g., if I wanted a milkshake I had one, though I'd never done that pre-pregnancy. Our son is 19 months now, and I'm 5 lbs over the pre-pregnancy weight. It really came off fairly easily, though slowly (and didn't "melt off," contrary to what I'd heard about breastfeeding). Still would like to lose some weight, but haven't been trying very hard.

We are TTC #2, and I've vowed that with this one I will stick to a healthy diet and continue to exercise. Also, everything you read tells you that if you're overweight to begin with, you should gain ~20 lbs or less, but there's not much advice on how to do that. I finally found some information that said if you are overweight, you should add only ~100 calories a day to your diet, unlike healthy-weight moms-to-be, who should add ~300.

Btw, I never got any grief from my OB about my weight. When I first got pregnant, I said, "given that i'm overweight, how much weight should I gain?" He shrugged and said "20 lbs?" like he really didn't care one way or the other. I gained steadily but slowly, and he never mentioned it at all. One of the OBs in the practice said at one visit, "your blood pressure's good, your weight's good ...," and that was literally the only time anyone said anything about my weight. One random tip--I stopped looking at the scale when they weighed me, figuring they would let me know if there was a problem (and it depressed me), but at delivery, they asked me a couple of times what my weight was. I just guessed, based on the last weight I knew for sure. So you probably do want to keep track, if only for that reason. (I suppose it matters only if you're having a medicated birth.)

[Anonymous]

I was 40+ lbs overweight when I got pregnant. I was careful to keep the weight gain guidelines in mind (I think I gained 20-25 lbs by the end). I tried to eat more protein and produce, rather than the sugars and carbs I wanted to eat all the time I also tried to walk a lot and get some aerobic exercise in, because labor is tiring! But I didn't do too much special.

I lost ALL my pregnancy weight within a month of birth, because (1) I breastfed around the freakin' clock -- that's like a calorie superhighway leading out of your body! and (2) I had no time to eat!

Epilogue: When my kiddo cut back on nursing, I put on 10 more pounds, and got annoyed, and starting having foot problems and fatigue, so I joined Weight Watchers (first at meetings and then online) and lost 50 pounds over the course of a year. Have kept it off for 6 months now. I feel SO much better, just in terms of energy level. I had been overweight for years and years, but running around after a toddler was killing me -- it was great incentive to get the weight off! I loved Weight Watchers, and there were several new moms there. Keep it in mind as an option for later.

I didn't have any major problems with my first (overweight) pregnancy -- aches and pains, especially in my hips; some ankle swelling; insomnia; that sort of thing. I'll be curious to see if things feel really different for pregnancy #2 now that I'm 50 lbs lighter.

Congrats on your pregnancy and good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here--thank you all SO much for your advice and support. I really appreciate it because I was starting to get very down and angry with myself for not taking more weight off prior to becoming pregnant. I realize now that the focus just need to be making every calorie count as something healthy and not eating for eating sake (which has been hard during this time of the year)!

Again, thank you so much.