Food aversions, no appetite & feeling full fast. 16 weeks pregnant.

[SummerMother]

Hey ladies,

I am just wondering if anyone else has or has had this experience before?

I am currently 16 weeks with #2 and ever since I found out I'm pregnant I have had little to no appetite. It is not due to morning sickness as I haven't had any at all and have felt great (other than some headaches but I think that's due to hormones). It's just that I don't feel hungry most of the time. I absolutely make sure I eat and snack all day and drink lots of water but it's very.....non rewarding taste bud wise. I have had a couple cravings such as fruit (watermelon & grapes mostly and the occasional ice team sandwich).

Any meals I eat I struggle to finish my plate or just don't finish my plate (I am usually a second serving kind of gal). Even snacking I get the full feeling really fast.

I have also found that i only want to eat something once a day. Example: If I have potatoes like hashbrowns for breakfast I don't want fries, mashed or any kind of potatoe for lunch or supper that same day.

I've also have had food aversions such as my tea with cream and sugar in it, I don't want any dessert based stuff really either (other than ice cream sandwich). Other than that my food aversion are very day to day.

As of my last prenatal check up at 13 weeks I had lost 2lbs. The doc was not worried as I'm considered higher than average bmi (not obese). I think it's due to all of this food aversion and feeling full fast. My belly is growing as I am looking pregnant with no bloat at 16 weeks (2nd pregnancy joys) Actually I'm looking the same size as my friend who is 20 weeks pregnant.

Anyways anyone else in the same boat?

 

[SonnyH]

I was! Mine was sickness related but I literally went off all food until 20 weeks! I had to force myself to eat, nothing was appealing, I had full on aversions to nearly everything and I lost about 8lbs! And similarly to you, I'd think of something I might like to eat but the next day hate it. Those 20 weeks were horrible!

It did get better though. Around 20 weeks, I gradually felt able to add foods back into my diet and the aversions calmed down. All I'm left with now is an aversion to chicken! Not been able to eat it my whole pregnancy! :-/ It did take a while but I did eventually feel like eating again and actually looked forwards to food! Now I can't stop eating, the hunger is terrible!

Don't worry, it will (most likely) get better soon and minor weight loss is not a concern. Baby will take what they need. They are only tiny still in the second tri. It's you that'll start feeling rubbish! Keep an eye on your iron levels if you are struggling to eat much or very well. My poor friend who had HG lost nearly two stone over pregnancy and her boy came out very healthy and 8lbs!

Fingers crossed you feel back to normal soon!

 

[EBAUERHAUS]

I'm 14 weeks and no matter how hungry I am, I can only eat half of what I put on my plate at any given time. I still have moments of nausea, but I don't think that's why... I think I've also lost a couple of pounds, but doubt that will bother my doctor as I am in the overweight category.
I snack often...
I don't actually have any aversions toward foods that I can pin point.

 

[SummerMother]

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one!

SonnyH: my iron levels are good as doc got the blood work back and didn't mention anything. I do manage to eat red meat and spinach quite a bit plus take my prenatals. Your poor friend too I could not imagine having HG.

Ebauerhaus: isn't it weird the whole losing weight while pregnant? Your expecting to gain or at least stay the same (this early in pregnancy)and then you get on the scale and your less than when you weren't pregnant.... I think maybe the early stages of bloat get that scale number up at 1st way in and then your second is a no bloat weight. Who knows.

 

[sherwood]

I'm 16 weeks and I'm a similar position, though not quite to the extent that you have this.

I get full incredibly quickly and am "off" quite a lot of foods (literally anything sweet, from chocolate to carrots, which is bizarre given that I usually have a huge sweet tooth!). I end up forcing myself to snack during the day to make sure I'm eating properly, but like you say, it's very unrewarding. I find it's worst in the evenings: I can barely ever manage more than half of my tea!

I finally gained some weight last week (1.6lb), which still puts me about 6lb below what I weighed before falling pregnant. Like you, my BMI is slightly above the 25 mark but well below 30, so I'm not worried. I have a midwife appointment tomorrow so will see what she thinks.

I'm looking bigger but weighing less, it's so strange!

 

[verily]

As long as your doctor isn't worried, then you ought to be ok. It sounds like you're able to get in some nutrient dense meals even if you're not eating a lot of it.

I've taken to snacking throughout the day to make up for not being able to eat as much at mealtimes. I don't have MS anymore, but I still get nauseous from my stomach being too full. At restaurants, the waiters are always asking me if I liked my meal because most of it remains on the plate. >_<

I'm put off by really sweet tastes at the moment. I was picking frosting off my birthday cupcake a week ago and still don't want to eat the leftovers, which is so unlike me. Thank goodness my husband and step-son have no issues with eating lots of cupcakes.

I've discussed my inability to gain weight with my perinatologist and they were totally unconcerned. I had my anatomy scan yesterday, and they were able to estimate the baby's size; my very average (58%) percentile baby is exactly where she needs to be. If the baby was too small or too big, then we would be discussing my weight more.

My workplace is having a healthy eating/exercise challenge using LoseIt this month. Tracking my calories on LoseIt has helped me with determining if I'm eating enough (I am). LoseIt technically discourages pregnant women from participating, but since they have a weight maintenance option, I'm running with that (and warned my challenge team that I'm aiming to gain about 1/2 pound a week).

 

[EBAUERHAUS]

Ebauerhaus: isn't it weird the whole losing weight while pregnant? Your expecting to gain or at least stay the same (this early in pregnancy)and then you get on the scale and your less than when you weren't pregnant.... I think maybe the early stages of bloat get that scale number up at 1st way in and then your second is a no bloat weight. Who knows.

I keep thinking that a lot of the weight I had put on over the first couple of months was more bloating than anything - but then by the time I reached about 9 weeks I started losing it all back down to where I started! I'm possibly a pound or so under, even.
It's pretty crazy.
I lost 20 lbs over the few months before I got pregnant, so I'm hoping those 20 lbs might end up being all the weight I gain during pregnancy. That'd be great.

My workplace is having a healthy eating/exercise challenge using LoseIt this month. Tracking my calories on LoseIt has helped me with determining if I'm eating enough (I am). LoseIt technically discourages pregnant women from participating, but since they have a weight maintenance option, I'm running with that (and warned my challenge team that I'm aiming to gain about 1/2 pound a week).

I'm going to start tracking my calories this trimester.
How did you determine how many you need? I know that my resting calorie burn (or whatever they call it) is about 1700 calories according to my weight and activity level, but I don't know if that's the correct way to determine the calories I need during pregnancy... I know I'm supposed to add an extra 100 during 2nd tri and 200 or 300 during 3rd.

Anyway, I'll ask my doctor at my appointment tomorrow. But, I'll definitely take any advice from you as well.

 

[SonnyH]

My midwife said roughly you need an extra 300 calories from a sensible base line. I use 1800 as my non pregnant calories per day, so I went up 300 cals from that. I don't count but generally I eat normally and use my now needed bedtime snack as the 300 extra - absoloutely love toast & jam (jelly)! Or a big bowl of cereal & a banana. If I don't eat before I go to bed, I wake up in the middle of the night absoloutely starving!

In terms of trimesters, the advice differs. My midwife says there are some experts who say you only need the extra in the 3rd. Some argue you need the extra in the 2nd & 3rd.. she said to me to just be sensible in the 2nd tri. If I was really hungry and needed an extra snack, then eat one. It's not the time to be going really hungry. Just try keep it healthy. But if I wasn't hungry for extra food, then not to just eat it because I felt I had too as I'm pregnant!

 

[LeeLouClare]

Hello
I had the same thing up till last week, I wasn't eating much and even skipping meals as the thought of eating made me ill. Then last week around 20 +2 I woke up starving and ate like six meals and since then been eating normally. It will pass.

 

[SummerMother]

Thanks ladies. It's reassuring to know I'm not alone.

 

[verily]

Ebauerhaus: I used an online calorie calculator to figure out my TDEE (the calories I burn based on an average day) and then added 300. I suspect my metabolism is much higher though than what the calculators estimate, so adding 300 is still just putting me in weight maintenance mode right now. I plan to talk to a dietician if I can't manage to put on any weight by the third trimester.

 

[EBAUERHAUS]

Ebauerhaus: I used an online calorie calculator to figure out my TDEE (the calories I burn based on an average day) and then added 300. I suspect my metabolism is much higher though than what the calculators estimate, so adding 300 is still just putting me in weight maintenance mode right now. I plan to talk to a dietician if I can't manage to put on any weight by the third trimester.

I did the same just today, calculated all the basal metabolic stuff and then went from there.

My doctor says I don't need to eat any more calories than usual. I'm not sure if that's specifically because I'm overweight, though... I know she was surprised by my 4 pound weight loss since I last saw her, so I'm going to try out this calorie count as a minimum for a week or two and see what my weight does.

I'm not sure I need to gain much - guessing at the most 15 to 20 lbs.

I'm still unable to eat more than half my food at any given meal, but I snack throughout the day and that may be part of it.

 

[noranoler]

Wow, I've never had that before

 

[bbbonbon]

And I didn't have either. And it's so wonderful because most of the time of my pregnancy, my husband and I traveled (especially after reading Marriott International reviews and resting in this hotel for the first time). It was really so cool, we ate a lot of different exotic fruits and saw very beautiful places. Now we will continue to travel, but already with our baby

 

[Madcat99]

I'm 11 weeks now and having less to no appetite as well. I had been admitted for about 10 days due to high pressure in stomach(5weeks+5). And still put on bed rest after discharged from hospital. I can't walk or sit for a long time. Was feeling bad after a friend's gathering for two hours.

Basically I'm just eating for one portion of meal a day, and split to several times in a day because I'm still bloated and can't eat a lot at a time. Easily feeling full. I do eat some fruits along the day. I'll have NT scan next week. The last scan was at 7 weeks. Today I feel less bloated , less acid reflux, I'm worry if baby is doing well. Pregnancy is driving me crazy, this is my first pregnancy and it's a IVF baby. Being a first time pregnancy, I don't know how my body works and don't know how to handle. Feeling frustrated sometimes. And worrying if baby is doing ok because of my less appetite..