Fat and Pregnant

To continue from the last post, I let myself get fat as soon as I found out I was pregnant.

I had been trying to conceive for over three years. When I found out I was pregnant I thought it was an absolute miracle.

Doctors recommend a 25 to 35 pound weight gain during pregnancy. In a previous generation, they were recommending twenty pounds or less. At that time a lot of women who listened to their doctors didn't gain enough weight for an optimally healthy pregnancy. Who knows if the current recommendation is correct?

The pregnancy books say that you can expect to gain less than five pounds in the first trimester. This certainly wasn't the case for me. As soon as I knew I was pregnant I started to eat for two.

I was so afraid of a possible miscarriage in the first trimester that I put on lots of comfort padding. By the 23rd week of pregnancy, I had gained 35 pounds. By the time I gave birth, I had gained sixty five pounds.

My baby boy was eight pounds and six ounces at birth. (That's the little goo above at about three or four months.)

Some of my friends who had their babies early in life and who are naturally slim and fit also gained mega weight during pregnancy. One of them gained almost 100 pounds in each of her two pregnancies and was able to regain her slim shape relatively easily. I wonder about the current recommendations for weight gain during pregnancy. Personally, I think different people's bodies have different needs and it may not be detrimental to gain more than the recommended amount especially if you are at a slim weight before getting pregnant. But I am in no way qualified to speculate about this.

I've read that being overweight or obese will decrease your fertility. My hunch is that being fat can sometimes be a symptom of your hormones (thyroid gland or pituitary gland) not working properly and that getting the hormones regulated (in a natural way) may actually be more important to fertility than the excess fat involved.

I had been trying to get pregnant for so long that I really thought it wouldn't be possible anymore. But about eight months before I got pregnant I made some very significant lifestyle changes. I was probably only ten pounds over my ideal weight when I started with these changes, but I believe my hormones were significantly out of whack. By the time I got pregnant, I was in great shape. I've written earlier about the diet and fitness program I undertook over those months.

In the next post I hope to cover:

• more on how I lost most of this weight over the first year post-partum

• my plan for losing that last ten pounds (or ideally, fifteen...)

Weight Loss after Pregnancy

Two years ago I weighed 215 at the end of my pregnancy. I had gained about sixty five pounds while pregnant. Once the baby was born, I dropped fifteen pounds (including the cute eight pounder with the big head) very quickly and got down to about 170 without dieting within a few months. I currently weigh 163 pounds at five foot nine inches.

(That's the little goo on the right, at about six months old.)

The plan was to breast-feed for one year, but here we are two years later and I'm still nursing. For this reason, I haven't fretted too much about my weight and have not been dieting in any sense of the word. For this reason too, I think most of the weight came off quite easily. I think the nursing requires me to eat a minimum of an extra 600 calories per day in order to not lose weight. Sometimes it really feels like it must be closer to 1,200 calories as I can get extremely famished just after nursing.

But now that the baby is two I want to wean him as soon as possible. Breast-feeding is an exhausting endeavor. At least it has been for me personally. My overgrown 'baby' is still in the habit of waking up several times a night for a little nursing. Overall though, I'm a great believer in the advantages of breast feeding infants if possible, so I have no regrets.

During this two years I haven't worried about my weight too much. I've been completely preoccupied with the demands of being a mother. My personal appearance (same sweatpant uniform daily) and (complete lack of) grooming have slid completely off the reasonable scale. Other than my husband, there are no grandparents or relatives who live close by and can look after the baby and I haven't left him for more than a couple of hours on any occasion. So it has been a grueling journey at times for someone who's previously lived an independant and spontaneous life and didn't have her first child until the age of 42.

But now here I am, ready to get back into really good shape. I'm no longer overweight as far as BMI goes, but I'd like to weigh 150 again and be really fit. My goal is to do that over the next eight to twelve weeks.

Update December 2007 : Ha ha ho ho ho!


It's not really funny and it's a couple of years later and i'm no closer to my goal. I'm just hovering at the very top end of the normal BMI scale so I'm not complaining too much, but jeez, where is the old me and the perfect physical form I was once in?
Here's a photo of the little goo fascinated with an insect on his finger at about 3 and 1/2 years old.

Update 2009: I finally reached my goal weight of about 150 pounds in the spring of 2009. This was after i'd been walking on a very regular basis for over a year. I don't like to publicize it, but it was probably also due to the fact that my husband and I seperated, and this meant I no longer had to cook his preferred style of meals and i was freer to eat and live a healthier way.

Update 2011: I've kept the weight off!