Nutrition
Eating Well in Pregnancy
Eating a balanced diet throughout pregnancy is one of the most important things you can do to ensure the both you and the baby are as healthy as possible. There’s no time like now to make a commitment to eating as clean and healthy as you possibly can.
This page will give you some nutritional targets and ideas.
We have two excellent resources for you if you need guidance on nutrition:
1) We recommend the book “Real Food for Pregnancy”.
2) Sarah Thompson has reasonably priced e-books on her site. Check out “Protein Packed Pregnancy” ($10.95) and “A Directory of Vitamin & Mineral Sources (Free). Her website is HERE.
Nutrition Log
The best way to know how your body and baby are responding to your diet is to track everything that you eat and drink. Please take the time to write out what you eat every day for 1 week in each trimester. You may want to keep this link handy because if your gestational diabetes screening comes back with higher blood sugar, you’ll need to do this worksheet regularly.
You can download a printable worksheet here.
What are my nutritional goals?
In order of importance, you need to make sure to eat enough
1) protein (growth, immunity)
2) healthy fats (brain health, eye health), and
3) vegetables each day (micronutrients).
Fruits, and grains can be eaten occasionally, but should not be a major percentage of your daily diet. Here’s a list of foods you can add to your diet in each of these categories:
Protein (80-100 grams per day)
hard boiled egg
meat sticks / beef sticks
snack cheese
cottage cheese
greek yogurt (plain) (add berries or honey for breakfast)
fruit with nut butter
Lentils (these go well in soup) 1 cup = 18 g of protein
Split peas (1 cup = 16 g protein)
Spinach - 1 cup cooked = 6 g protein. Saute’ with garlic and olive oil.
Edamame 1 cup = 18 g of protein
Fats:
fish - tuna salad, lemon pepper grilled, salmon with butter & lemon
olives - green olives in cream cheese
avocado
eggs
full fat dairy / milk
Micronutrients - Minerals
rainbow of fruit and veggies every day
Treats and Quick Grab & Go
Rx Bar - Chocolate Sea Salt Protein Bar (9 g fat; 12 g protein)
Fairlife Protein Shake (2.5 g fat, 30 g protein)
Collagen - add to smoothie, oatmeal
Nuts - raw, salted, roasted - snacks
Protein balls - see recipe page
