5 lb gain in less than a week?!

[jorona]

Good grief. My mother flew in for a visit last Tuesday and just left yesterday. Our relationship isn't exactly the greatest and hasn't been since I was a teen - as adults it seems like most of the things she says or does rub me the wrong way and she's too selfish and defensive to hear my point of view. I know it's not "just hormones", but those don't make it any easier for me to handle her thankfully infrequent visits.

I didn't realize it at the time but apparently I developed a new coping mechanism this visit - I decided to eat, eat, and eat some more! I got on the scale today and saw I've gained 5 lb. in under one week. Um....wow. I stayed super active the whole time but the extra helpings of cake and pasta stuck around. Now I'm having kind of a down morning and I'm hoping I'll be able to stay on track for the rest of this pregnancy.

[LindsayK]

Hey, at least you found a way to cope, and it was only for a week! You can focus on eating your greens and fruits for a couple of weeks, and I am sure it will even out.

Besides... there could be other factors, too - maybe you were less hydrated last week, and more this week when you weighed, or might be a little constipated and carrying extra "weight" or maybe this was just a week your body needed to gain a little more.

I wouldn't worry about one "off" week - we all have them!

[MissMorgan]

I was going to chime in on the "other factors" as well. I weigh myself once a month and that seems to help factor out the crazy bloat, constipation, water weight, full stomach, etc.
Take a deep breath and find a way to unwind from a crazy week! Its okay that you ate, WE ALL DO!

[somegirl99]

I can gain or lose 5 pounds in a day just from water and food weight. Foods like cake and pasta will make you retain more water for a little while.

[dannic]

All my pregnancy weight gain is in jumps--I'll gain nothing and then ten pounds, then one, then nothing again, lalala...I think that's normal!

[jorona]

Thanks ladies. Big jumps are something I never experienced with my first pregnancy (thought I did steadily gain 47 lb overall) and I wasn't really expecting it right now either. I think it just shocked me more than anything! One of my goals for this pregnancy is to keep my gain in the 30ish range (it was very difficult for me to lose the weight last time) but if baby needs more from me then so be it. I'm just going to get back on track with healthier eating for now!

[amyrobynne]

With both my 1st two pregnancies, I gained most of the weight between weeks 20-30. I was up 5-10 lbs as of week 20, then I'd jump 9 lbs in 4 weeks, 7 lbs in the next 4 weeks, etc. I usually gained 20 lbs in that 10 weeks. I'm sure I gained close to 5 lbs in a week in there somewhere.

I'd try to eat well for the next couple weeks and keep moving around to try to keep it from continuing as an indefinite trend, but throw some stress eating in and it doesn't sound unusual for the mid second trimester to me at all.