Home / Health Insurance / Articles / Pregnancy / Nutrition / Is Dieting Safe When You're Trying to Conceive?

Is Dieting Safe When You're Trying to Conceive?

Team AckoFeb 8, 2024

The first and foremost thing is to find out whether you are enjoying a healthy weight. Check your BMI (Body Mass Index). This is the number based on your height and weight. The healthy BMI range is between 18.5 and 24.9. Adults with a BMI between 25 and 29 are considered overweight and BMI over 30 defines obesity.

Contents

Why is weight reduction important before conceiving?

Having a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, which may disable you to get pregnant. However, the ideal weight for getting pregnant differs.

When you have an intake of a nutrient-rich and healthy diet, it is absolutely fine to lose weight while attempting to conceive. The only thing is you have to ensure that you don’t become underweight. Having a low BMI may cause your periods to become irregular or sometimes even stop. This can be an indicator that you are not ovulating (releasing an egg from your ovary each month), which is very essential for conceiving. Further, it can cause health problems during pregnancy.

If you are overweight, opting for a weight-reduction plan would be wise and losing a few kilos may help you to conceive and may gear up for a healthier pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Suppose your weight is ideal for conceiving and still you want to improve your eating habits, you can go for a nutritious and wide range of foods and enable your conception to a good beginning.

Why is weight reduction important before conceiving?

Having a healthy weight before you conceive will reduce your risk of serious pregnancy complications such as miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and premature labour and many more difficulties during delivery. Therefore, practising a healthy diet before you conceive can boost your fertility and lower the risk of birth defects, such as Spina bifida and anencephaly.

As a mom-to-be make sure that every meal you eat, is packed with nourishing nutrients with:

• Folic acid/folate, which is rich in leafy green vegetables, fortified cereals, oranges, strawberries, beans and nuts

• Calcium in the form of whole milk and milk products like yogurt, ice cream

• Fatty acids that are plenty in nuts, seeds and seafood

• Fibre in the form of whole grains, high fibre cereals, fruits and vegetables

• Iodine which is present in dairy products and iodised salt

• Iron is rich in spinach, dates and lean meats

• Protein is found in fish, lean meat and black beans

So, there are many good reasons to aim for a healthy weight that’s low in fat and high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, starchy foods (carbohydrates).

The guiding principles for weight reduction while attempting to conceive are similar to those for maintaining healthy weight. You can achieve healthy weight by easily following these 4 simple steps.

Step 1

Allocate 30 minutes every day to exercise. The researchers found that the women who exercised for at least half an hour in a day faced the lowest occurrence of ovulation related fertility problems and you can succeed your weight loss goals too.

Step 2

Choose more of plant protein diet while aiming for weight loss. According to the researchers at the Harvard school of Public Health, infertility exists in nearly 39 percent of women who have a higher intake of animal protein. On the other hand, women who have lot of plant protein are comparatively less likely to have trouble in conceiving.

Step 3

Avoid Trans fats. Many studies have revealed that that even 4 gm intake of trans fats per day increases the risk of infertility. So, it is recommended to go for monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, which results in improved fertility.

Step 4

Go for slow carbs. A study states that the consumption of fast or simple carbs like white bread, sugary soft drinks, and potatoes amplifies ovulation-related infertility. The researchers report that slow digesting of complex carbohydrates that are high in fibre seem to improve fertility.

Explore More Articles on Health & Lifestyle