pregnanthealth.com is one of the great sites that you need to visit if you need any information on pregnancy, the information you find here is just a tip of the iceberg on the kind of information in the website.
When one is pregnant, the last word that she wants to hear is diet. There are in fact some women who think they need to eat for two people when they are pregnant therefore they end up eating all kinds of food.
The fact is that women who are pregnant need to eat 300 additional calories so that they can maintain a healthy weight in the course of their pregnancy. It can be difficult to maintain a healthy diet and on the other side, it is important for the pregnant women to maintain good personal health.
To create a healthy pregnancy diet, the following are needed
1. Decide to eat a bit of each food group daily. The pregnancy diet should at least have six servings of the bread group, four servings of fruit, five vegetable servings and three protein servings (foods like fish, meat and beans). In your daily diet you need to include three dairy servings. This might look like lots of food, but you need to remember that one serving is usually half a cup.
2. Make an advance plan on how you are going to satisfy your cravings without messing up your diet. The best way that you can deal with cravings is occasionally allowing yourself to have a small amount of your craving. Snack on fruit, nuts, popcorn or crackers instead. These can help you take care of those cravings that come late in the night in a healthy way.
3. Remove dangerous foods and junk foods from your plan.
Whether or not you are not used to healthy eating, your pregnancy will most likely need diet adjustment and elimination of some foods. A number of foods exist which should be avoided in pregnancy.
This includes unpasteurized cheeses and fish with high mercury levels. Also avoid sweets and greasy food in pregnancy. There is no nutritional value in junk foods but instead they’ll just increase your empty calories and make you gain even more weight in pregnancy.
4. Include foods that have iron, folic acid and calcium in your diet. Spinach and broccoli are good sources of folic acid that is needed in the early pregnancy stages so that the baby’s tissue and cell development. Additional calcium and iron-rich foods such as yogurt or eggs are needed all through the pregnancy for the promotion of the health of the bones and cells of the baby.
Citrus fruits such as oranges are excellent sources of vitamin C helping your body to absorb the iron in foods better. You are better of pasting a list with these foods on your refrigerator and use them as reference in preparation of meals.
5. Plan out small snacks and meals all through the day so that they can help you in minimizing heartburn and nausea. If you are suffering from morning sickness, try drinking lemonade, eating crackers or pretzels so that nausea can be alleviated.
6. Make sure your refrigerator is stocked with healthy meals and snacks which you have prepared in advance. Put together your menu plan every week and plan ahead so that you can ensure you have enough time for buying and preparation of food.
7. Drink six to eight glasses of water every day. This will help you stay hydrated all through your pregnancy. Take at least two with every meal and two glasses in between meals. To improve the taste of water, you can add a lemon or lime slice.