Meerkat Malt?
I think that I shall never see a LESS appealing movie preview than that for August Rush. Impossibly schlocky story? Check. Annoying, plucky child character? Check. Robin Williams (in a cowboy hat, no less) Check! I shudder every time I see the preview. If I avoid seeing one movie this season, I will avoid seeing August Rush. Does everyone find plucky child characters as irritating as I do, or am I just a heartless, child-hating crone? The amount of distaste I feel for that kid from Jerry Maguire is probably unhealthy.
It has been a somewhat discouraging day. I woke up in the middle of the night last night to find that the milk I drank before bed had crept stealthily up my throat, coming unpleasantly to rest in the high reaches of my esophagus. Truly a disgusting sensation. I eventually propped myself nearly vertical on pillows and slept on the edge of the bed closest to the door to the bathroom, just in case.
Today I was supposed to go to an afternoon party with a group of friends, something I had been looking forward to for a week—I have been a bit starved for social interaction lately, and am trying to get back on the horse, so to speak.
I didn’t make it, instead spending my Sunday alternately sleeping and failing to eat. I took extra Zofran and tried to force down some protein, but in the end my fear of throwing up in public won out over my desire to socialize.
I am becoming slightly concerned about my lack of weight gain. I am supposed to gain at least 20 pounds by 20 weeks according to the multiple pregnancy book I have been reading. Three weeks ago, at 10 weeks, I had gained six pounds. I haven’t gained an ounce since then.
I have a hard time eating in the evenings, and meat is problematic unless ground or somewhat disguised. I am drinking a lot of milk (nearly a gallon a week), and most workdays I manage to eat a small cheeseburger for lunch. But on days I feel particularly sick, like today, I find myself eating very little. I made myself a milkshake this afternoon, and I had an egg and toast for breakfast, but I am starting to get a bit panicky as I try to think of something, anything I can force down for dinner.
I am trying to make weight gain a priority—it seems comforting, in a way, to have something concrete I can do to support this pregnancy, and I have seen the research indicating that early weight gain can help prevent preterm labor and complications from prematurity. But I haven’t come up with many ideas on my own, short of putting small mammals in the blender with a scoop of ice cream.
For those of you who have been pregnant with multiples: any tips on getting enough to eat, especially in combination with the nausea/lack of stomach room in the evening? And for everyone—I would be grateful for any suggestions of high protein, high calorie recipes that are easy to eat when feeling less than well (noodles, eggs, cheese, soup, meat if not readily recognizable). Preferably dishes that are also easy to make, since I continue to suffer from Narcolepsy of Pregnancy, and time I spend cooking is time I cannot, alas, spend napping.
25 Comments
This isn’t a recipe, but relates more to your Colace post. Have you ever had the tortillas that are chock full of fiber? They’re made by La Tortilla Factory. Sprinkle one with cheddar cheese, broil for a few minutes. MMm cowgirl!
We missed you today!
I also had a difficult time gaining weight during my twin pregnancy – I was about where you are with your current weight. This was the general routine I fell into and it seemed to help with the weight gain: egg&cheese croissant sandwich with sausage, and some fruit on the side in the morning; cottage cheese &/or almonds for AM snack; big egg salad w/cheese & veggies sandwich for lunch; more almonds, some fruit & glass of milk for mid-day snack; pasta (the kind with extra protein) and lots of sauce with “ground meat”, broccoli, carrots, etc with a big glass or 2 of milk; big bowl of full fat ice cream for dessert or a HUGE milkshake!!! I had a really hard time getting food down, so I had to stick to comfort foods. I gained 25 pounds by week 20, so I guess it worked.
Do you have a body pillow yet? This will be a requirment soon, if not already to sleep through the night.
Good luck, and hang in there!
I’m right with you on this. I haven’t weighed myself in the last day or two, but I’m at about 7-8 lbs gained in 12 weeks. I keep reading about how the early weight gain is so important with twins, and it’s freaking me out! I’ve been trying to eat as much as I can, but at night it just doesn’t appeal to me, so I focus on breakfast. I’ve been having these huge breakfast burritos from the cafe in our building most days, despite the smarmy co-worker who told me she tries to limit hers to one or two a month. And then around mid-morning I have a giant muffin. I drink milkshakes, too and have a bowl of ice cream every night, but dinner? Not so much.
Thanks for posting about this – I’ll definitely be coming back to look for tips. Have you been reading Dr. Luke’s “When You’re Expecting Twins…”? I can’t decide if it’s helping or freaking me out more.
My doctors had me eat protein bars and drink Ensure. One tip – you may think that buying the protein bars with the most protein is a good idea, but I warn you, they taste absolutely horrible. I ended up calling DH in tears one day, because I had been nibbling on the damn thing for over 2 hours and just couldn’t force it down. If you choose to go the protein bar route, pick ones that have a little less protein, but are actually edible!
I don’t know man, I gained 3 pounds before the pee dried on the stick and kept a steady pace of 1 per week no matter what I did, and I only had *one* in there!
My guess is that those babes will be just fine even if you don’t gain it and we’ll all get to hate you for being smaller post- than pre-pregnancy within hours of birth. I know Julia’s been fighting the same battle with her twins and said she’d only gained like 12 pounds by nearly 30 weeks and it doesn’t seem to have affected the babies weight gain. (julia.typepad.com)
That wasn’t bragging about the weight gain, more like despair. Sadly, gaining weight has never been a problem for me. I should probably not have commented.
If pasta is acceptable, the Barilla Plus pastas have a lot of protein in them. I eat it when I’m feeling all peckish from derby, which also often makes me feel panicky over what to eat. Barilla elbows used in mac and cheese is quite nice, and you could make a mild cheese sauce that uses lots of heavy cream for bonus calories. That’s probably would I would be surviving on if I were you. (I don’t have a cheese sauce recipe, but how hard could it really be? I’d just melt cheese and heavy cream together and call it cheese sauce!)
When I was pregnant the first time, I feel like I survived entirely on egg noodles and apple juice. Then I discovered the beauty of a Wendy’s Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe. Bonus is that they are on the $1 menu! I have no idea why it was so appealing to me, especially since I never had one before being pregnant. But they must have helped me gain weight since I had no trouble putting on 38 lbs in 38 weeks with my daughter. I only gained 3 lbs in the first trimester, but swelled up like a giant balloon in the third (of course it was August in Maryland, so that explains a lot). This time, I’m trying to make better choices. I’ve only got 1 in there, so I don’t have the pressure to gain as much weight. Not to mention I was 20 lbs overweight to start. So I’m pretty sure Spidey isn’t suffering…
Anyway, I’m with you 100% on the meat. Blech. It’s NEVER appealing when I’m pregnant. Unless it comes from Wendy’s and is accompanied by bread, cheese, ketchup, mayo, etc. Every now and then I can choke down rotisserie chicken, but only if it’s fresh off the bird and then it’s like candy. Sometimes I chop it up really small and throw it into mac and cheese. It may be a lame effort, but it’s got to be better than nothing.
I’ve also been trying to eat a lot of nuts and peanut butter. Peanut butter on Ritz crackers has been a lifesaver numerous times. I also tell myself that somehow Reeses Peanut Butter Cups have loads of redeeming nutritional value. Twisted, but true. To mix it up a little, I might switch to Reeses Pieces soon. Variety is the spice of life, you know.
Good luck finding something that will please your discerning palate these days. You’re still fresh out of the first trimester, so hopefully getting deeper into the second will help ease some of the nausea and open up your food horizons a bit more.
I’ve not been pregnant with multiples, but have struggled with nausea. I don’t know enough about your eating habits to know if this will just make you feel more green, but I do know for me, grazing throughout the day has been my salvation. Corn bread, when beefed up with cheese, egg yolks, sour cream and bits of ham or sauteed ground turkey is a great way to take in higher calories. You can put in bits of tomato or peppers and get veggies in too. Can you tolerate nuts?
I would also say that if you can, try to ditch the hysteria of not following the “guidelines,” each pregnancy is different. My bet is that you’ll come through this in a couple of weeks and have a mush easier 2nd and 3rd trimester.
Lastly, I cannot even read the word “iron” while pregnant, for fear of becoming even more bound up, bran bullets…bran muffins with extra, bordering on obscene amounts of bran added.
Here you go; these are rough measurements – basically if you follow the soup base and fix it to your liking, it won’t fail:
1 onion
a couple of cloves of garlic
Sliced mushrooms
Other veggies as you like
Some sort of cooked meat, as you like
(basically, you can add whatever you want to this – if you’re using stuff like broccoli or spinach, just don’t overcook it)
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
Milk
Grated Parmesan cheese (fresh grated works best, but the dehydrated stuff on the shelf at costco works too)
Grated Cheddar Cheese (a couple of cups)
Spices (I’m not sure what I usually put in – garlic powder, certainly, possibly some basil or oregano). I usually use dried, because I am lazy, but fresh will work well.
1 package pasta (spaghetti, linguine, rotini, whatever)
Boil some water and throw the pasta in to cook.
In a large bowl, mix the soup with an equal part of milk; add some spices.
Saute the onion and garlic in some oil or butter until transparent, in a large, deep pan or saucepan; add the mushrooms and other veggies until desired doneness. If using meat, put that in the pan to warm up.
While that’s going, add some spices to the soup mix. Whatever you like, really (this is fairly flavour neutral).
Pour the soup in the pan with the veggies and let it heat up; if it bubbles a bit, that’s fine – you want it fairly hot.
Mix in the parmesan and then the cheddar – this thickens it up well. Keep adding until its the consistency you like.
Mix with pasta and eat away (drain the pasta first)
High calorie, high fat – and a few nutrients. :) Its comfort food for me.
You might also find that adding a bit of cheese to your breakfast will help – cheese is horrendously fatty (and one of my favourite foods) so the calories add up pretty quick.
Full fat yogurt smoothie: yogurt of choice (vanilla, plain, berry, etc), a scoop of protein powder, full fat milk, a banana (if you like those things), some sort of frozen berries, ice if you want it thicker. Put in blender and blend.
Also: peanut butter (if you can stomach the smell) and ritz crackers.
Hmmm. I am probably not the one to ask about this–my multiple pregnancy involved an astonishing amount of vomiting, and I lost 20 lbs in the first trimester, prompting co-workers to ask me what diet I was on because I “looked terrific!” (I didn’t inform them it was the “knocked up with twins” diet.)
However, once I hit 16 weeks or so, I began to eat again. Eat everything in sight, as a matter of fact. I gained about 50 lbs (30 over my previous, non-vomiting weight) and carried twins to 37 weeks. I think the weight gain thing can vary quite a bit, from mother to mother, so if you aren’t gaining weight at the rate the books recommend, I wouldn’t worry too much. Once the nausea fades, you catch up. Rapidly. Especially if donuts are involved.
If you like beans at all, I highly recommend them for protein – my favorite “recipes” are:
1) Pork’ n Beans over brown rice (bonus points, as I think brown rice has a bit of protein in it…)
and 2) black beans, salsa (I like using peach salsa) and corn over rice. I usually add lime juice and or/tortilla chips over the top of everything.
Hope this is of use! :) Take care of yourself!
I lurk, and have been thrilled for you and this pregnancy. I am another that did not have multiples, but had horrible hyperemesis through out the long 10 months until our daughter was born. My mom was put in charge of helping me get nutrition when at 6 months, I’d lost 15 pounds. She discovered that Hagendaaz (sp?) ice cream had the highest calories, and would add a packet of Carnation instant breakfast, and whole milk. Went down pretty well. Also, although it was just carbs, big southern fluffy biscuits (from the frozen food section) with butter and honey stayed down alright. Mashed potatoes, with butter, cream cheese, whole milk…could add cheese. And one of my all time, albeit weird favs, the gravy made from frying chicken, over rice. She would fry (I couldn’t, maybe The Actually would for you?) a couple of chicken breasts and legs, keep the drippings, add the flour, milk, salt, pepper, and voila’, southern fatty goodness. Over plain old white rice. Not healthy, not good for the arteries, but it stayed down, and helped me gain 35 pounds from the 6th to 9th month. Baby weighed 9 pounds, 3 oz. I suppose that what really counts is that you find the things you can tolerate, and just keep trying. And do try to relax as you can about their health at this stage with such little weight gain already. And oh, in case you can’t tell from the menu suggestions, I’m from Georgia. I’m going to have to remember that cornbread idea from your comments!
Actually I found that an easy, stress-free (in terms of preparation) way to consume more protein is to buy good quality ham (not uncooked eg. Parma ham), the pale pink variety and have it sliced. You can then wrap it around cheese, or eat it in rolls with mustard.
Miso soup is also full of protein and quick to prepare. You simply pour a table spoon of sesame oil in a wok, throw in ginger, garlic, vegetables in chunks (only needs to be one or two, eg. Aubergine, broccoli or mushrooms or onion pieces), when it has cooked for 3 minutes or so you pour in stock, or water and bring it to a quiet boil… You then get miso paste and dissolve it bit by bit in the ladle introducing the liquid to it little by little. It is light and digestible.
Another soup is a simple chicken broth and then you whisk eggs with grated parmesan in a bowl to make a thick paste that would drop off a spoon quite easily and pour it into the boiling broth till it curdles in to little stringy whey-like dumplings. It does not look appetising but in Italy we eat it as children to grow big and strong and it is a big favourite with adults too.
In terms of fibre, I always have this problem and before and during this pregnancy I take this fibre in powder form every morning whisked into a combination of juice and water. The one I like best is Yerba Prima Colon Care Formula which contains Psyllium Husks and a few other ingredients (as it is less gloopy when mixed up), but Psyllium husks, plain and simple do the trick too, but are less palatable as they solidify if you take ages to drink the mix. These are also available in capsule form but you need to take many more of them to take effect which is a drag. They are good for travelling however.
Hope this helps!
I have not been pregnant with multiples, but am currently pregnant (25 weeks) with a singleton and have only recently begun to gain weight at all – I actually lost nearer the beginning. I would clarify with your doctor your concerns regarding your weight gain if you are having trouble, since mine told me that many women do what I’m doing – no weight at all in the beginning and then put it all on in the end. I know rles are different for 2, but try not to obsess over it too much.
I loved cheese-related soups even in July/August in FL in the earlier days of my pregnancy. My favorite was/is broccoli cheese soup (my baby loves broccoli for some reason and as I mention this I’m starting to crave it) and that is chock full of protein and – if one HAS to throw up something – cheese is the easiest thing on your poor throat. I figured my morning sickness should be good for something, so i did research on the things that came up. Cheese is the easiest. Soup, nacho cheese, whatever.
Good luck!
I’m sorry if my post makes you nauseated. I’m not pregnant with twins but I am a vegetarian going through IVF #4. protein has always been “an issue” for me. I suggest whey protein shakes made with organic fruit and yogurt. they are delicious and packed with protein. can you stomach scrambled eggs? cottage cheese? beans and brown rice with some shredded cheese is also very healthy. how about snacking on some almonds or cashews. they have good protein and are high in fat. I basically just went through what I currently have in my fridge. if it makes you feel better, I have also gained quite a few pounds with these foods. ugly pounds.
Cottage cheese is the fastest, easiest protein you can eat (as long as the texture doesn’t bother you)
Delurking to add my $0.02… Someone asked earlier for cheese sauce:
2 T butter (or oil)
2 T flour
1 c Milk (or half & half, if you want more calories
whatever shredded cheese you want, to taste. (I use approx. 1 heaped handful)
Melt butter in a sauce pan. Add flour, cooking until it just begins to brown. Add milk, and whisk like crazy. Cook until it’s as thick as you’d like. Thin with more milk if it gets too thick. Add the cheese. Stir ’til melted. Salt and pepper as you’d like.
Without the cheese, this is just your basic white sauce. Add anything you want to flavor it up (husband adds nutmeg and pepper and eats it on spaetzle… weirdo… Mom adds parsley and serves it over carrots).
But the cheese sauce can be used for anything, from macaroni to cauliflower. Actually, you can add broccoli and thin it with a little chicken broth and it’ll work as broccoli cheese soup, in case chewing makes you nauseated (like it sometimes does for me).
Hi Alexa! Congratulations on your twins! I had boy/girl twins last December. I too have a place in my heart for the pharmaceutical industry and zofran. Don’t fret, though, after gaining only 10 pounds the first two trimesters, I managed to gain 15 after the nausea subsided during my last trimester and I was finally able to eat. My twins were born at 38 weeks and weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and 5 lbs 5 oz, respectively. Good luck!!
I am pregnant with a singleton, not twins, but nausea has definitely been an issue for me and I strongly second the previously-mentioned suggestion of Ensure. I comes in a high-protein variety and I find that the vanilla flavor is not to hard to get down. Sometimes I have to drink half the bottle in the morning and half at lunch, but at least I know I am getting some protein.
I’m pregnant now with twins and, at 17 weeks, have only gained maybe 10 pounds – and I’m pretty sure some of that was IVF weight. I’m picky and a vegetarian anyway, but the food aversions have been awful. I can’t go near pasta, just the thought makes me gag. Or scrambled eggs. I can eat nuts, though, and peanut butter, and cheese and yogurt. So mostly I’m eating dairy. Mashed potatoes, with butter and full on heavy cream, are also making me very happy. And I’m planning to try the protien shakes, I just need to go buy some protien powder. Most days, I really have trouble with dinner, too. I’m not that hungry, but I’m exhausted. Laying on the couch is much more appaling than eating. So not much advice, but lots of commiseration.
Meat is gross for me too. I think it’s a pregnant thing that’s probably just worse when you have twins. But, I found a way to sneak in meat that all my non preggers friends find repulsive but so far 3 pregant ladies have liked. Odd, isn’t it.
Anyway, because you can cook I’ll just give you the basics.
Ground chicken, turkey or pork…whatever you fancy.
Brown it. Drain it.
Saute onions, optional…in lot’s of butter…
Add Flour, make a beige roux. Add Milk, add a can of corn and the browned meat.
Salt and pepper to tast.
Eat it plain or over pasta. I usually just eat it plain. The corn, which I love now, disguises the meat! Either that or I’m a crazy pregnant lady who will gag at the thought of that meal after I give birth.
And no one need go spend money on watching “August Rush” because they give away the ENTIRE MOVIE in the trailer. I mean, really? Who doesn’t know how it ends?
Late to this thread, but had to share a couple of “recipes” with cottage cheese that helped me in the early days of my pregnancy. Cottage cheese is a comfort food for me, so your mileage may vary… I love cottage cheese with pasta: lightly buttered warm noodles mixed with lots of cottage cheese. Surprisingly tasty. Also try an omelette with cottage cheese filling. Yum! Hope you are feeling well.
Not to belabor my cottage cheese point, but I just did a little internet search to see if pasta and cottage cheese was a common pairing. Not sure about that, but did find this recipe from the SF Gate:
Pasta with Cottage Cheese
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS:
12 ounces to 1 pound pasta (choose flat or twisty noodles, hollow penne or ditalini, elbow macaroni or shell shapes)
2 to 3 tablespoons butter or extra virgin olive oil
3 to 4 green onions and/or 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
Coarse grains of salt
Coarsely ground pepper
1 pound cottage cheese
INSTRUCTIONS:
Instructions: Cook pasta in lots of rapidly boiling salted water until al dente. Drain and toss with the butter or olive oil until well coated.
Toss with the green onion and/or garlic, then add your seasonings. Serve the hot pasta with dollops of cool fresh cottage cheese.
Per serving: 430 calories, 25 g protein, 60 g carbohydrate, 9 g fat (5 g saturated), 25 mg cholesterol, 465 mg sodium, 3 g fiber.