No one wants to start a pregnancy carrying extra pounds. But if you’re looking to drop a few before you conceive, make sure you do it wisely.
Although any doctor will tell you it’s not smart to diet while trying to conceive, some women are anxious to drop a few pounds before facing the weight gain of pregnancy. It can be tempting to opt for the quick fix: fad diets with enticing claims like “lose 30 pounds in 30 days” or “eat as much as you want and still lose weight.” Most of these diets are unbalanced, unhealthy, and sometimes downright unsafe. Any weight loss you
do see as a result of one of these plans may well be at the expense
of your ability to conceive naturally or respond to fertility treatments and achieve a healthy pregnancy.
The food you eat nourishes you, and once you’re pregnant it provides food for your developing baby, too. If you’re starving yourself of calories or certain nutrients, “Your body’s last priority is going to be making an egg or preparing the lining of the uterus or allowing an early gestation to flourish,” says Richard Legro, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “The primary goal [if you’re not getting proper nutrition] is going to be to maintain the body by shunting energy and resources away from anything that isn’t vital at that time, including reproduction.”
When conception does occur in a woman who is crash-dieting, the fetus will put an added strain on already depleted stores of nutrients—obviously not a prescription for a healthy pregnancy, says Celia Esther Dominguez, M.D., medical director of the Hawaii Reproductive Center in Honolulu.
For any woman, but especially one who is hoping to be pregnant soon, it’s wise to steer clear of any diet that excludes entire food or nutrient groups, such as carbs or protein, or emphasizes one particular food (think Cabbage Soup Diet or Grapefruit Diet).
It’s also smart to avoid diets that promise rapid, easy weight loss. You may indeed lose weight at first, but it’s basically water and some muscle mass. “True fat loss doesn’t occur until about the end of the third week of even a balanced weight-loss diet,” says Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., R.D., a physician and registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “Beware of a diet that promises anything,” she adds. “You can expect to lose 1 or 2 pounds a week with a sensible diet, but some weeks are
going to be flat.”
- 1
- 2
