Disclaimer: This list of recipes is not endorsed by Dr. Brewer Pregnancy Diet. I am not affiliated with the diet or its creators. I am not a professional of any kind. I'm just a momma who used and benefited tremendously from the diet, and wanted to give other momma's a jumping off point for food ideas!
The Brewer Pregnancy Diet Recipes
So I've blogged about my two drastically different eating styles during my two pregnancies before.
During my first pregnancy I indulged in way too much sugar, way too many carbs, and did not attempt to have any real healthfulness what so ever.
By the end I was feeling terribly sluggish, had gained 41 pounds, and gave birth to a {beautiful!} 9 pound baby girl.
Losing the weight came with extreme effort and determination. (And I actually went on to lose 15 additional pounds to reach a healthy BMI. Which was a lot of work!)
So for my second pregnancy I wanted to follow a much healthier diet.
After a lot of research I learned that the main way to control not only the mother's weight gain during pregnancy, but also the baby's is by watching your carb intake. And of course since sugar is the most worthless carb there is, you really want to limit your sugar intake.
I went on to follow the Brewer Pregnancy Diet.
This is a diet that focuses on protein, vegetables and fruit. And allows at limited amount of whole grains.
You can see my post on it here for more details on what it entails.
I didn't follow it to the letter.
(*And that's what I'd recommend to you. That you just pay attention to your body and its needs.)
Its actually a LOT of food prescribed per day, and I literally could not eat it all. (And I'm someone who likes to eat.) I just ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full. I used the brewer diet as a general guideline for what types of food to aim for. I was very careful to not go over my daily grain intake. And I was VERY careful with refined sugars, having almost none for 9 months.
So by doing that, as well as staying active (regularly swimming laps or walking), I was able to gain only 32 pounds during my second pregnancy. I felt great -- not sluggish at all. And I gave birth to a {beautiful} 8 pound 4 ounce baby girl.
*Both pregnancies lasted 42 weeks. My oven likes to really bake those baby-buns.
That's nine pounds less of expecting momma standing on the scale, and nearly a pound less of baby when she came out, this time.
Nine pounds feels like a lot, I can tell ya.
And the postpartum weight came off with much less effort!
Me, First time with lots of sugar. Me, second time with lots of health.
For those of you worried about the first trimester, I want you to know that I did not follow this diet during my first trimester. Basically the only food I could stomach was plain Cheerios in milk. So that's what I ate. But I made sure to only eat what I needed.
During my first pregnancy I was so overwhelmed by the nauseous feeling (I never threw up, during either pregnancy, I just felt constantly queazy) that I basically ate nonstop trying to quell the discomfort. I also at anything I thought sounded ok (which was mostly chocolate covered granola bars.) So I was eating chocolate covered granola bars on the hour. This was a bad idea because it did not fix the nausea for me (I just kept hoping it would) and I ended up gaining something like 8 to 10 pounds during my first trimester.
I didn't want to repeat that the second time around, so I did eat only what I could stomach, but I went for the healthiest version I could find of it. (Plain cheerios have much less sugar than honey-nut cheerios.) And I tried to eat only when I was actually hungry, and only as much as I needed. And so doing that I kept my first trimester weight gain to about 4 or 5 pounds. That made a big difference in the total pounds I put on!
Anyway....
That's just backstory, so you know where I'm coming from.
Recently I've started to want to incorporate this style of eating back into my normal routine.
(I think its a good idea while breastfeeding (which I currently am) to eat these types of healthy foods. And we are talking about having more kids, so I may as well get back in the habit now, so its easier next time.)
(Actually this style of eating, which is focused on nutritious non processed foods, is great to do any time of life! You can just alter the amounts to suit your needs. If you are not pregnant yet, but plan to be at some point, getting on board this train now would be an excellent idea. It takes some time to adjust your tastes and cooking style.)
During my second pregnancy, I had a hard time figuring out how to get all these foods into my menu.
So to help me out going back into this again, I've started to track down recipes centered around the foods on the list.
I've created some Pinterest boards where I'm saving up healthy recipes that work with the Brewer Diet.
I figured other women might like to see these boards too.
I've made a couple different ones.
There is one main one, where I am mostly putting recipes that are like a main meal which have quite a few of the different food types involved.
And then I created a few other boards that are more focused on one of the food types, and those recipes are often more suited for a snack or tiny extra meal, which can help you get all your vitamin groups in.
So without further ado here are the boards:
Brewer Pregnancy Diet Recipes
Brewer Pregnancy Diet: Recipes for Vitamin-C Foods
Brewer Pregnancy Diet: Recipes for Vitamin-A Foods
Brewer Pregnancy Diet: Recipes for Fresh, Dark Green Vegetables
I hope you let these pinned recipes inspire you, so that you feel free to alter them to suit your tastes and lifestyle, or even create something new that comes to mind after seeing these. There really are a lot of healthy possibilities!!
**Feel free to follow these boards. But just so you know they are a work in progress, so as I fill them up, your Pinterest feed may get inundated. :) But maybe thats a good thing, if you are needing some inspiration. :)
Or you can always just pin this post and come back to look stuff up on occasion.
*** Let me know in the comments below if you have a Brewer Diet Pinterest Board going yourself! Or let me (us) in on any awesome recipes of your own!
All the best to you and your growing family!!
Sincerely,
Lydia
*Click here for more of my healthy Pregnancy Tips.
(C-section and VBAC included)
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