inspire me with your healthy pregnancy diet

[daisydalrymple]

My diet is pretty crap at the moment. I'm 17wks now and although the nausea has mostly gone, the only food i truly look forward to is cereal and toast. (And meals such as jkt pot/pasta etc...you get the carb loaded jist). I know i'm not getting my 5 a day, and probably not enough protein either. (The fact that i'm cooking for dh and ds & dd means i don't live on carbs, but just about!)

Would love to hear from healthy eaters what a typical days menu is as i'm so uninspired with food. TIA.

[cheshirem2b]

Well today has been a mixed bag...
Breakfast was a bacon butty (oops)
Lunch was fruit salad of water melon, nectarine and grapes
Dinner... Out for dinner for our wedding anniversary... Prob not v healthy!
I'm only 10weeks pg

[ohthegoats]

Well... it depends a bit, I've definitely had phases of eating 'crap', but I try and indulge those for a bit and then move on quickly.

First 11 weeks I ate whatever I could manage without feeling sick. Lots of jacket potatoes, potato waffles, and weirdly, apples and pineapple.

After that I did this for quite a long time - until about 20 weeks:

Breakfast: a really fibre filled cereal (all bran) with milk, then a banana and some dried apricots or apple. Yes, I was constipated, this was the only thing that worked.

Mid morning: an apple or two, or some pineapple with a couple of babybel cheeses.

Lunch: chicken salad with lots of different crunchy salad stuff (I wanted crunchy food), always mayonnaise, sometimes some egg or cheese in it too, always sweetcorn and red peppers for the sweetness. Followed by a yoghurt and some more fruit - usually berries.

Mid afternoon: hummous and carrots, crackers and hummous. Again with the crunchy.

Dinner: whatever vegetarian meal the boyfriend cooked (he's the cook in the house, and a veggie), but nearly always something with loads of salad, or loads of broccoli or loads of mange tout or peas. Then some dark chocolate for pudding.

I couldn't get enough of fruit and veg, which was amazing as when I'm not pregnant, I don't really like the texture of most fruits. I also had very little interest in things like cake, biscuits and chocolate - I did lent without anyone knowing I was pregnant, but with no issue at all because I didn't fancy those things! Cheating.

At around 20 weeks, the icecream craving kicked in - I wonder if I'd not been eating enough dairy or something, or maybe I just wanted the sugar. Whatever, I was eating three mini magnums a day, one after every meal! This went on with the above meal combo for about 3 weeks.

Then last week, the carb stuff kicked in big time. Pastry, bread, pasta, jacket potatoes, sandwiches, cake, cookies... along with full fat cappuchinos. Weird, because I never eat pastry normally, I find it gross and flabby. Beans on toast has been one of the best things ever... beans on jacket potato, anything on jacket potato.

I'm trying now to not eat loads of sugary things with this, and instead just go with the low GI carbs like brown pasta, whole jacket potatoes, granary bread etc. I'm assuming that this phase too will pass!

[mssleepyhead]

Watching with interest as I'm looking out for ideas myself!

Breakfast - a bowl of granola with a tub of low fat plain yoghurt, then two kiwis.

Mid-morning snack - an apple

Lunch - usually a portion of Spanish tortilla in a bread roll with a handful of cherry tomatoes or, on a weekend, a fish finger sandwich! Followed by fruit roll things that usually go into kids' lunch boxes.

Afternoon snack - another apple.

Dinner - various, but usually some pasta with veggies and either chicken or sausage. Sometimes followed by ice cream.

Before bed - hot chocolate.

Working hard at the moment at getting calcium, vitamin C and a bit of omega 3 into my diet, but all I really want is carbs and sugar.

[littlegreengloworm]

I'm 14 and its utterly dreadful. Normally I am someone who eats avocados, salmon, stir fries.

I have lived off oven chips, dry crackers, toast. I will have to another week or so of this and now have an upset stomach on top of cramps and sickness :(

Anyway

If I were to do it right I would have wholemeal bread and fruit in the morning

Banana, yoghurt and salad for lunch

Stir fry of salmon and potatoes for dinner and glass of milk before bedtime.

[ohthegoats]

If it's any consolation, once I got back in to eating properly after those first 11 weeks, all the healthy stuff just tasted SO amazing. I was actually making mmmmmmmm sounds while eating broccoli or tomatoes. I've tried not to get stressed out about diet stuff, and instead tried to find my preferences 'interesting' and just gone along with them.

[mssleepyhead]

Ah yes, it is worth adding that I'm in my third trimester now and for about the first 16 weeks I either felt too sick to eat or lived off chips and vinegar or pop tarts. I once screamed at my husband for eating my "medicine" (he ate two of my chocolate and marshmallow pop tarts...)

[daisydalrymple]

Thanks for all the replies! I think i'm going to loosely plan all my meals for a week and see if i can get into better habits (after baking DH a cheesecake for his birthday tomorrow...full of calcium and good for me right?)

[littlegreengloworm]

Mssleepy , you made me laugh. Dh tried eating a few of my crackers this morning and he was dealing eith the wrong woman .. Lol.

[freakedmum]

I'm 35 weeks, and my 5 a day intake has been relatively rubbish throughout. I average 3ish portions a day, sometimes less. I eat a lot of carbs (lots of bread! potatoes/ some cereal), and love cheese and yogurt. I went mad on sugary cakes and chocolate early on, but now just have a piece of cake per day. Baby appears to be perfectly healthy, however! xxx

[oohdaddypig]

I'm on my pregnancy and suffer awful nausea and food aversions for at least the first half.

All I can ever cope with is beans, chips, pork pies, coke and eggs. In my last two pregnancies I had no health problems, no diabetes, low blood pressure etc and was frankly amazed. and hoping for a similar outcome this time

I say this to make you feel better and just trust your body to tell you what to eat. I normally eat extremely healthily so cannot fathom why my body tells me to eat salt and fat when it's making babies

Last pregnancy, when the nausea finally went I craved thai curries with tonnes of veg.

I would just eat what you feel like!

[LittlePink]

Im craving a lot of cheese and milk so body must be lacking in calcium. I really struggle with dinner at the moment and as soon as its ready I cant face it and end up just picking at it. I do generally try to force the broccoli down me and eat as much salad as I can (as we usually have a spinach and tomato salad with every meal) but im not coping well with the main part of the meal like the meat or fish. It just puts me right off as soon as I see it. I think my nausea is tiredness related so its worse in the evenings so dinner is a bit of a no go at the moment. So I end up having toast before bed because I am truly hungry by the time ive messed around with not eating dinner and being fussy.

[Noappointmentnecessary]

Chips with salt and vinegar. I'm 7 weeks and feel yuk, this is helping me to get by x

[ImBrian]

I've been really good up till this week and I've ruined myself with cream cakes and takeaways!

I was having fat free tougher with fruit for breakfast.
Fruit or something out my graze box for snacks.
Lunch was with riveta with low fat Philly or beans with nimble toast and tea salad with chicken and a jacket spud or some kind of wrap.

Managed to get to 15 weeks with no weight gain but think I might have ruined that this week! I'm definitely better for less weight gain though. No sciatica yet!

[eastmidswarwicknightnanny]

I am 15+ in still suffering with nausea n eat what I can am better around 5/6 so try to eat a small proper dinner. I do drink about a litre a day of pure fruit juice thank goodness for aldi fresh juice at 99p otherwise would be broke :)

I find grapes easy to eat and also doughnut peaches are in season very sweet n lovely - I had them first time last year n my toddler loves them get around 10 in pk for £1 much smaller than normal peaches.

Bananas both in last pregnancy n this one were a staple. Last pregnancy I lived on mash potato. Cheddar biscuits n bananas for 13wks

[MJM79]

So grateful for this thread....
I'm normally a super healthy eater - loads of greens, low-fat everything etc etc. but at 10 weeks pregnant all I seem to want to eat is Special K cereal (weird) and marmite on toast! Yesterday I went out and bought chips, which I never normally eat, but just went with the craving.

I'm really hoping that this stops soon, as I'm feeling awful on all these junky carbs - but just can't stomach much else.

[amy83firsttimer]

Special k is fortified and marmite high in b vitamins. That could be why.

[MJM79]

Aha! that didn't even occur to me...thanks for the tip :) there's method to the madness...

[strawberryjam]

Today has not been good I had
Weetabix and milk for breakfast
Cheese scone for lunch
Chicken, spinach and apricot tagine with couscous this evening

Snacks wise I have had loads
A Pkt hoopla hoops
Some apricots
A pear and a bounty

[LondonJen]

I too was only interested in beige food carbs to stave off the horrid nausea for weeks.

I have gone right off my usual Shreddies (bitter) but like the sweetness of Clusters so having those for breakfast.

Then from about 16 weeks I could manage a less carby snack so switched bagels for a few breadsticks, some gouda and a handful of almonds/walnuts/brazil nuts/pecans.

Enjoy an apple or can of peaches for afternoon snack but sometimes just have crisps! Also like Krackerwheat crackers no idea if they healthy?

Even now I start to feel a bit sick if I don't have enough carbs though so try not to beat yourself up.

Also I've gone right off veg, which usually I love, but have found if it's in a pasta sauce or a veg chow mein from the chinese it's fine I just don't like it plain as a side dish anymore. Might be worth a try?

I also try to have a lot of salad in my sandwich for lunch.

I don't know that I eat massively healthy but it's better than it was early on! Hope that helps.

[Snowmonkey77]

I am craving leafy green veg (kale, spinach and chard) with brown rice.I could happily eat that most days. Salmon and steak also feature heavily on my wish list, but I have a history of anaemia and suspect that is why. I'm also mad for bean and lentil salads right now - with tomatoes, avocado, olives, lemon juice, walnuts, chopped parsley and coriander. All washed down with a Fybogel. The only time I have nausea is related to sweet and creamy stuff which I have no trouble in avoiding. My diet is pretty unchanged from before - but missing sushi right now though!

[ralv]

I'm coming up to 10 weeks and my food aversions are slowly disappearing!
Up to now I've wanted chips, toast...anything carby! (Was low carb prior to falling pregnant!)
But gradually wanting more proper food again.. which I'm very happy about.
My tip would be to "vegify" your meals... Like this lasagne recipe meatandtenveg.com/2014/04/30/paleo-lasagne-ten-veg-style/ which adds in loads of veggies so you are getting heaps of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients - all the important things! - but it still tastes like lasagne (I promise... it's my recipe!)

And if you are making something like a shepherds pie... add in carrots, mushrooms, courgettes, celery... anything you have to hand! And then do the topping with sweet potato and parsnip...

That way you will be getting your 5 a day in one meal so if you do have cravings for some sneaky junk food throughout the day you will still be giving your baby the nourishment he needs.