Healthy Pregnancy Diet

Eating nutrition rich food is vital for each and every person. However, eating healthy when you are pregnant is even more important! A balanced diet that contains all the essential nutrients, is crucial for the health of both you and your unborn baby. The reason why this fact is emphasized and reemphasized on you, is because the eating habits that you follow during pregnancy, automatically become eating habits of the baby. If you are also a pregnant woman, then you must have already heard a lot about healthy pregnancy diet and its effects on a healthy childbirth by now. But creating a pregnancy diet on your own seems almost impossible, especially when you don't know what is healthy and what is unhealthy for the baby. In the following section of the article, we will gather information about creating a diet plan for a healthy pregnancy.

Creating a Healthy Pregnancy Diet

If you have always been following a healthy diet routine, then you don't need to do any special alterations in that diet. But if you have not, then you may need to learn the basics of having a healthy diet during pregnancy. Planning a healthy diet in the first trimester of the pregnancy can be challenging since it is the phase of all the troubling pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness, nausea and food cravings. However, you need to maintain the healthy intake of foods that are essential for your health.

Foods to Include
There are a few healthy foods that must be a part of your daily diet. Diet for a healthy pregnancy should contain plenty of calcium rich foods like milk, yogurt, buttermilk and cheese. Along with calcium, you should also follow a protein rich diet. Vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, folic acid, iron and vitamin C. In order to attain all these nutrients, you need to consume a lot of fruits, vegetables and mercury free fishes. Another essential nutrient that you should include in your healthy pregnancy diet is fiber. You need to follow a high fiber diet to avoid any health related issues like indigestion and constipation that are caused during pregnancy. Fiber rich foods are also crucial for the overall healthy growth of the unborn baby.

To get enough amount of fibers, you can always consume whole grains, whole wheat breads, cereals, rice, green and leafy vegetables, raw fruits and cooked beans. In fact, your daily diet should consist around 5 to 8 fiber servings. Now about the food servings. Rather than the routine 3 straight meals, you should evenly distribute them into 5 to 6 small but healthy and filling meals. A pregnant woman should consume at least 5 to 6 servings of dairy products, 27 mg of high iron foods, 1200 mg of calcium, less than 1000 IU (international units) of vitamin D and 70 mg of vitamin C. All this food should be accompanied by at least 6 to 8 glasses of clean water.

Foods to Avoid
Now that you are aware of the foods to include in a healthy pregnancy diet, it is the time to learn about the foods to avoid during pregnancy. The reasons behind avoiding these foods are quite obvious too! Foods that you should try and avoid during pregnancy include, mercury rich fish (shark, swordfish, tuna, tilefish, king mackerel, etc.), raw meat, raw dairy products and raw eggs, deli meat, unpasteurized milk and products made using it, etc. The biggest reason behind avoiding these foods is the chances of food poisoning during pregnancy. You should also avoid all types of soft cheese, including blue-veined cheeses, Feta, Queso Fresco, Camembert cheeses, Queso Blanco, Panela, etc. Foods like smoked sea food, canned food, fast food and deep fried foods should be completely avoided. You should also refrain from the foods that you are personally allergic to.

Along with the things to do to have a balanced diet, you should also get to know about other things that you should avoid during pregnancy for a healthy baby and a healthy you. These things are basically wrong eating habits that you must have picked like skipping breakfast and/or meals, alcohol abuse, excessive intake of caffeine rich drinks like tea, coffee and various other energy drinks and soft drinks, excessive intake of chocolates, etc. All these things may individually or collectively lead to various pregnancy complications like miscarriage, premature childbirth, birth defects in babies low weight or excessive weight of the baby during childbirth. You should also stop smoking. You need to get determined about the health of your baby and avoid all the things that are not healthy for you and your unborn baby.

Healthy Pregnancy Diet Plan

To make a healthy diet for pregnancy, you need to learn to make some healthy recipes for pregnant women. Your healthy pregnancy diet recipes should revolve around healthy and fresh vegetables salads, wheat bread sandwiches and basically a high fiber, high protein diet should be a part of your regular pregnancy diet. Plus, if you are suffering with a specific medical condition like anemia, diabetes, etc. then you should create the diet plan accordingly. If you are overweight, then you must follow the pregnancy diet for overweight women. The best thing that you can do is to consult your ob-gyn and dietitian to plan the best diet that emphasizes on healthy recipes for pregnant women. Here is a sample pregnancy diet plan for you.

Criteria	Proteins	Grains	Vegetables	Fruits	Milk
Servings	Around 6 oz a day	6 to 11 servings a day	3 to 5 servings a day	2 to 4 servings a day	3 or more servings a day
Foods	Cooked beans, nuts, peanut butter, red meats, fish and skinless poultry	Oatmeal, high fiber cereal, whole grain breads and pasta, brown rice, whole wheat crackers	Broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots, green peas, all the green and leafy vegetables	Apple, banana, grapefruit, mango, melon, orange, strawberries, tangerine	Low fat yogurt, milk, hard cheese, etc.
Size	½ cup cooked beans, 1 ½ Tablespoon peanut butter, 1 egg, or 1 oz meat	1 oz of cereal, 1 slice of bread, 2 oz cooked pasta, ½ bagel, ½ cup of cooked grains, 5-6 whole wheat crackers	½ cup of all the vegetables and 1 cup of the leafy vegetables	1 medium apple, 1 medium banana, 1 medium orange, ½ diced fruits or ¾ cup of sugarless fruit juice	1 cup milk, 1 cup yogurt, 1 ½ oz cheese

Along with a balanced and healthy pregnancy diet plan, what you need is peace of mind and some good, stress free sleep. You can try meditation and indulge in the activities that can bring you peace of mind and cheer up your mood! Always remember that the unborn baby is your first priority while you are pregnant and you should do all the possible things required to make her journey to the world, pleasant and untroubled! Take care!

Fiber Supplements

Side Effects of Fiber Supplements:

They say the key to healthy living is moderation. If a dietitian were to ask you to never touch chocolates again in your entire life, you would never go back to that dietitian. However, if you were meet a dietitian, who chalked out a meal plan for you full of healthy foods and drinks, while allowing you the occasional treat of a chocolate bar, you'll gladly follow (or at least make an attempt to follow) that diet plan. Similarly, when people hear about the health benefits of a certain type of herbal tea or a vitamin supplement, they go gung-ho over it and end up, in their enthusiasm, overdoing it. Same is the case with fiber supplements. When people got to know that this wonder supplement aids in weight loss, they go out and practically replace their meal with it! However, you need to understand that there are quite a few fiber supplement side effects. There is no doubt that the digestive can greatly be improved with the help of fiber supplements. Side effects of these are mild but they do exist, irrespective of what many positive fiber supplements reviews say. These side effects are given below.

Fiber Supplements: Side Effects

Abdominal Discomfort
One of the main side effects of fiber supplements is the fact that, at least initially, it may lead to a lot of abdominal discomfort and bloating. Initially, the person may have gas, cramping and even a mild form of diarrhea. Although the person won't feel any outright pain in the abdomen, the feeling of discomfort may be constantly felt.

Loss of Nutrients
Even if you happen to be taking the best fiber supplement there is in the market, you may still land up with one major fallout of using these fiber supplements. Side effects that have a chain reaction of other side effects include the excess of loss of nutrients from the body when using fiber supplements. This includes loss of mineral and vitamins, which is especially seen in cases where people opt for fiber supplements for weight loss and at the same time, severely restrict their diet. Most of the vitamins lost are the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. These are required by the body to carry out many of its functions and deficiency of any or all of these could have dire effects on the body.

Constipation
This may come as a big shock for people that have been taking fiber supplements on a regular basis. You may end up with constipation due to the heavy intake of fiber supplements because many of these supplements, like psyllium husk, are hydrophilic in nature, that is, they absorb water and swell up in the intestine. Thus, unless you drink extra water while taking fiber supplements, side effects due to this could include constipation. This is applicable for both insoluble and soluble fiber supplements.

Other Side Effects
If you happen to be on any kind of medication, then you need to be careful when taking in too much fiber or fiber supplements. Side effects of these supplements include variation in the absorption and effectiveness of medicines. In some rare cases, a person may develop an allergic reaction to the intake of fiber supplements.

This was all about the various side effects of fiber supplements. Side effects of these supplements are mostly seen in people that jump into its use head on. You need to gradually start using these supplements and also have to ensure that the type of fiber supplement you have opted for is suiting you. If you do not wish to go in for fiber supplements, then you can always instead opt for a high fiber diet, which will ensure that you get your required dietary fiber, directly from the food you eat.