3-16-11 - Week 17 and "healthy" weight gain

Weeks 16 and 17 have been all about weight gain.  I have not changed my eating habits but I am gaining weight steadily and can also notice a huge difference in my clothing.  To date, I have gained 8 pounds.  Are you tired of hearing about my weight gain?  Don't worry - I'm not whining about it anymore, just amazed by it and I want to make sure that I stay on track with what is considered to be healthy. 

According to AmericanPregnancy.Org, below are the guidelines for weight gain.

• Healthy weight before pregnancy:
  • 3-5 pounds during the first trimester
  • Approximately 1-2 pounds per week in the second trimester
  • Approximately 1-2 pounds per week in the third trimester

I'm considering the first trimester to have ended at week 14.  That means that (since I am in week 17 now) I can have gained about 1 to 2 pounds per week for weeks 14, 15, and 16.  I stopped weighing myself in the last few weeks of the first trimester because I realized I was obsessing about it way too much.  So I have no real reference point for what I weighed at the end of week 13.  But assuming that I gained 5 pounds, then gaining one pound each subsequent week is actually right on track.  I started at 150.4 and was 158.2 today. 


I also cannot eat large meals anymore.  This is sad for me, as I really enjoy dinner which is usually my biggest meal of the day.  I am in so much pain after dinner my abdomen feels like it's going to explode.  Even when I think that I had really reasonable portions, that I'm realizing I need to cut back even more.  I think I need to break my dinner into two distinct sections, eating 1/2 at actual dinner time and then saving the rest for later. That will be hard, but it necessary!  It hurts so much that I end up just laying around moaning most evenings and it totally ruins my evening workouts because I can't bend over to put my shoes on without crushing pain.