Newly pregnant! Question(s) about nutrition, switching from low carb, new macros, etc

T

thegirlwiththeed

New member
Hello all! I have been looking for answers about prenatal nutrition and adjusting macros, and was hoping someone here can answer my specific questions or provide some personal experience. ;)

I am newly pregnant- just a couple of weeks! We conceived through IVF so I've been preparing my body for this day. I was keto for a couple of years until we started our IVF journey, and then switched to just low carb, high fat/ protein. Now that I'm pregnant, I want to start incorporating carbs into my diet (45-50%) for the baby.

- I never really followed "macros" before diligently. I would go through spurts doing keto while using myfitnesspal. But I eventually just learned the foods/ meals that I knew were "around" my calorie goals (which were usually at a deficit). Now that I am pregnant, should I recalculate my calorie goals, take myself off a deficit and be at maintenance calories? Or can I still eat at a deficit during first trimester? I'm really just worried about weight gain too fast by incorporating carbs and upping my calorie intake to maintenance.

- Once 1st trimester is over, do I up calories from maintenance or deficit?

- What is a great site to calculate my macros?

I am 140lbs, 5'2", 40 y/o , exercise 3-4 x a week doing spin or weight lifting/ HIIT. (I have do it in my home gym due to Covid).

I really appreciate any help or advice regarding macros and nutrition during pregnancy!
 
@thegirlwiththeed I have no idea about trying to calculate macros during pregnancy, but I'd highly recommend reading Lily Nichols "Real Food for Pregnancy". She actually recommends staying with whole foods, and it tends to be on the lower carb side anyway. Might be a good transition for you.
 
@thegirlwiththeed You should not purposefully being eating deficit calories during pregnancy. So yes, switch to a maintenance level. Then the approximate increase is another 300 in the second trimester and 300-500 in the third. You could also stop counting calories and focus on eating a variety of foods to satiety.

You will gain weight and there’s no way to know now how that will look for you. You might gain steadily the whole time, gain quickly in the beginning and slowly in the second half, gain slowly in the first half and quickly in the second, or gain in bursts. You might gain in the recommended range and you might gain more because no one’s body decides how to manage pregnancy by reading charts. The weight gain is essential to your health and the health (short and long term) of your baby.
 
@gnre Thank you! I'll start switching to maintenance level. Do you count calories? What tdee calculator to you find most effective so I can figure out what maintenance level is?
 
@thegirlwiththeed I haven’t counted calories for a really long time, so I don’t have a calculator to recommend. I’d probably use a few and then take the average. I did track a couple days a week every couple weeks during my first pregnancy (six years ago!). For me that worked well as a way to check in that I was neither too low (which was important because I was quite sick) nor too high (what most have us have been conditioned to feel worried about).

This pregnancy I am about to start tracking protein. But, that’s because I’m having long lasting sickness again (I’m 26wks) and protein is a really difficult category for me.
 
@thegirlwiththeed My nutritionist told me to not be at a deficit during pregnancy. She said maintenance calories for 1st trimester. And adding calories for 2nd and 3rd. I don't remember how many calories to add when, but I think the recommendation was ~300 a day by the end of the 3rd trimester.
 
@thegirlwiththeed Agree with everything here. I have counted macros for years to improve lifting performance and while I do not do low carb, I do pay attention to glycemic index of high starch items. Since becoming pregnant I have shifted my focus away from macros (intuitive eating only) and just try to find the most nutrient dense option that I can still stomach (there will most likely be days when all you want is bread or carbs and THATS OK). I would not macro count but instead try to select healthy, whole food options. For me personally, carb options look like: Ezekiel bread, chickpea/lentil pasta, high fiber grains/cereal, apples, pears, berries and sweet potatoes. These are all very healthy carbs that will help ease your body back into eating carbs. I also try to make sure I incorporate some protein and fat (peanut butters, greek yogurt, cottage cheese etc) anytime I eat carbs to help prevent huge insulin spikes and to be more satiated.

It's also important to mentally accept that you will gain weight and not to compare yourself to others (I think this is hard for anyone fitness oriented). I personally struggled with this early on due to an immediate change in my muscle definition (water weight and bloat happened almost immediately for me) and gaining 5 lbs by the end of 8 weeks (I was relatively lean to start so this was necessary). All bodies are different and as other commenters have said, you may gain differently than others and that is ok!

Hope this helps a little :)
 
@zzdexzz It totally helps! And I feel like I am (or was) in a similar situation as yours. I've counted calories/ macros for quite awhile and have focused on eating low carb items, plus exercise. So this is a whole new change for me! And I know people say don't count macros, but I guess I'm just so used to it that I thought, "ok, I'm pregnant. So what are my macros now so that I don't get off track". I'm used to the idea that even if you are clean eating, you can still over-eat clean foods.

Thank you for the food suggestions! I have my grocery list ready to incorporate more grains, sweet potaoto, fruit that I used to barely eat (apples!), and I found the lentil/ chickpea pasta! Thank you! And I didn't know about eating fat with carbs to prevent an insulin spike. Good to know!
 
@zzdexzz I can resonate with you. I mentally accepted that I will gain weight. What I can do is to eat healthy diet and exercise daily. I also record calories daily to make sure I don’t over consume. I think that’s all I can do. Other things are out of my control.
 
@thegirlwiththeed I echo what others said about not eating in a deficit, and the recommendation to check out Lily Nichols' book. She advocates for a higher fat, more moderate carb diet which has made a lot of sense to me as I've continued to research pregnancy nutrition. Traditional advice seems to be to eat at maintenance the first trimester, then increase calories by a couple hundred a day in the second and third trimesters as baby starts to get bigger.

I do pay somewhat of attention to my macros (I don't track my intake everyday, but probably 3-4 days a week on average) and try to stick around 40% carbs, 40% fat, and 20% protein because that is what I feel best on and what works for me. With that split I aim for 100-120g of protein a day, which can be a challenge since I try to get it all from whole foods and am not a big meat eater, but from there the rest of my macros tend to fall into place pretty easily once I've thought about my protein sources. You could definitely meet with a nutritionist if you wanted to get dietary advice tailored to you, and I've picked up some good tips following prenatal nutritionists on instagram.

It's also super important to keep in mind that everyone gains weight in pregnancy differently and it's not usually linear. I ate around maintenance my first trimester (for total calories, definitely not around my macros some days when I wasn't feeling well) and ended up still loosing 2lbs even though my exercise was also pretty reduced. I've gained pretty steadily since I hit 16 weeks (I'm 24 this week) of 1-2lbs a week, but know that a lot of that is fluid weight too.
 
@thegirlwiththeed Congratulations!! I was IF for almost 2 years and keto. First pregnancy on IVF as well and I read all the holistic food books (eating real food for pregnancy etc) and was committed to eating fish 2x a week for DHA, at least 120g protein, etc. Once 1st tri hit, I was SO sick everything went out the window. I tried to eat fish and straight away got sick. I didn't actually gain that much weight since I was always sick and I was trying not to beat myself up, but I ate so many gf crackers because that was the only thing that would stay down. I'm at 20 weeks now and sickness is finally starting to pass and I'm trying to still eat more protein but anything more than 10 grams a meal makes me nauseaus. I say have a plan, but definitely play it by ear.
 
@thegirlwiththeed I use Chronometer. I don’t pay attention to calories or the fat/carb/protein split, but it does show those. I use it to track specific nutrient targets such as calcium, iron, folate, etc. Makes me feel good to try and hit those goals with food (as opposed to my prenatal vitamin)
 
@thegirlwiththeed I would switch to maintenance calories and adjust your caloric intake based on if you're gaining too much or too little weight.

In your first trimester it's perfectly healthy not to gain any weight and you actually don't need any extra calories. You probably will gain weight though, just note that it's recommended to keep weight gain under 5 lbs in the first trimester.

Use this calculator to see if you're gaining enough weight or too much weight and adjust your diet accordingly: https://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy-weight-gain-estimator
 
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