Hi, I’m Lisa Fligor. I’m a Registered Dietitian with Tahoe Forest Health System. I’m here today to talk about nutrition for a healthy pregnancy.
So, unfortunately, during pregnancy, we don’t actually have to eat for two. We don’t have to double the amount of food that we eat. I was a little bit disappointed to find this out because I love to eat. Our needs do obviously go up though. Our calorie needs go up by about 200 calories starting in your second trimester. This is like just adding an extra snack to what you’re already eating. So, like an apple and a tablespoon of peanut butter.
Then your calorie needs go up again in the third trimester by about 100 to 200 calories, depending on the individual.
I don’t necessarily want you to count calories. What I want you to do is pay attention to your appetite and honor your hunger. Sometimes our hunger during pregnancy isn’t consistent. We’re more hungry on some days than others, and that’s okay. So, when you’re feeling true hunger, I want you to fill up on real foods that are going to give you nutrients to build, repair, protect, and grow during your pregnancy.
I want you to eat what I call real food. Real food is food that we can picture growing, like nothing’s been added to it or taken away from it. So, an example of a real food, super simple example, would be an apple. Most of us have seen an apple tree, and we can imagine going up to an apple tree and picking an apple and just eating it. Again, nothing’s really been changed.
In contrast, I’ve never seen a marshmallow field. So, obviously making kind of an extreme joke. And you can eat a marshmallow, but a marshmallow is kind of a more fake food that’s been made in a factory.
So instead of reaching for convenience foods or overcomplicating nutrition during pregnancy, I want you to simplify it and try to fill your plate with a variety, the biggest variety that you can, of real foods.
A cool thing to know is that during pregnancy, our digestion slows down. It’s kind of a side effect of some hormone shifts that happen to get us ready for delivery. Because of the slower digestion, our body can actually absorb more nutrients from the same amount of food that we would eat when we’re not pregnant.
Another thing that’s kind of nice to know is that our bodies will prioritize the baby’s nutrient needs before ours. So, especially during the first trimester, maybe when you’re not feeling great, you’re having a hard time eating, you’re maybe having some morning sickness, you can rest assured this baby is being taken care of.
That said, I don’t want you to get to the end of your pregnancy and feel depleted or have any deficiencies. So, we want to figure out how we can get these real foods in our diet. Most women have a general idea of what healthy eating is and are probably eating a lot of healthy foods. So, during pregnancy, because we don’t need to increase the quantity as much, I really encourage you to layer up or upgrade what you’re already doing with more nutrient-dense foods.
So, an example for this would be let’s take breakfast. Instead of skipping breakfast or maybe grabbing a bar on your way out the door, we’re going to spend a little bit more time and eat a bowl of oatmeal. Still super quick and easy to make and prepare. Oatmeal is going to provide protein. It’s going to provide fiber and carbohydrates that are really important for energy and for growing. But we could take that bowl of oatmeal and we could upgrade it even further.
We could cook it in milk. Milk’s going to add more protein. It’s going to add calcium that’s important for building bones. And then we could upgrade and layer even more. We could add almonds or chia seeds. These are going to add healthy fats and more fiber. We could add some fruit. That’s also going to add more carbohydrates for energy. It’s going to make our meal taste good and also increase that fiber.
So, super simple example, but I want you to think about how can we layer in and upgrade the nutrition that we’re already doing. I’ve put together a handout of key nutrients that are important during pregnancy, listing them all out, what the function is, why we need them, and a list of foods that are high in these nutrients.
I encourage you to check that out and look through those foods and think to yourself, am I eating any of these, or are any of these foods that I can again layer into what I’m already doing?
I’ve also made a couple of other handouts. One on just managing pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness, and another one that will help you navigate all the food safety guidelines to keep you and your baby healthy during pregnancy. Those handouts are available on the Tahoe Forest Women’s Center website.
And then we also offer nutritional counseling to individuals with our registered dietitians. We do this through our wellness center. I really encourage you to reach out if you have questions or concerns or just want support individualizing the nutrition recommendations for you and your lifestyle during pregnancy. Our contact info is on the website as well. It’s tfhd.com/wellness. You can also ask your provider for our information and they’ll be happy to provide that for you.
And that’s kind of all we have for you today. We just want you to know that we’re here to support you and reach out if you have any questions.
