Women commonly try different diets to balance their weight after birth and maintain their baby’s health.
They try to consume different kinds of foods, drinks, and other options. A correct dose of nutrients and other elements lowers the risks that threaten your baby in the future.
So, your body needs to change because you are not only eating and drinking for yourselves, ladies; you have to take care of the child inside you.
One of the main factors you must be careful about is the macros amount you have in your body and your daily macros during pregnancy.
Many questions go around your head, like what are macros? Why do we have to be careful about macros?
And many other questions, but don’t worry about anything. Besides our article, there are other articles on our site where you can find the answers to everything about pregnancy: Hipregnancy.
Now let’s find out everything about macros during pregnancy, starting from macros itself.
Also Read: pregnancy dinner ideas
What is a macro?
Macro is the short form of “macronutrients.” Macronutrients are the three most important categories of foods that everyone should consume, especially pregnant ladies: protein, carbohydrate, and fats.
These are the primary resources of human energy. So, when counting the macros consumed during the day, you measure the number of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.
Keeping track of your macro’s pregnancy can help you greatly because it will cause you to know what to eat during your day.
Well, it has many similarities to counting calories you burned or gained during your day. Pregnant ladies need 200-600 calories more than at any time in their whole life. Now let’s make the discussion more professional.
Also Read: breakfast for pregnant women
Macros during pregnancy
Pregnant ladies should gain more calories during their pregnancy because they use to double their own needs. In other words, this means that pregnant ladies should make some changes to their macro pregnancy.
Pregnant ladies should consume at least 200-600 calories per day. Still, we should consider that these preferences change from person to person and depend on which trimester the woman is in body fat of the woman and other factors.
So, it may be some questions for you ladies: what should we do? Where do we get all of these calories altogether?
Well, this is where macros come into the field. As we said before, macros define fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.
Well, managing these factors will match your needs. So, you need to calculate the macros amount in your body to see if you need more of these resources or not.
The main question appearing from nowhere is: “How can we calculate our macros during pregnancy?”
Let’s find out.
Also Read: lunch ideas for pregnant women
Can I count macros while pregnant?
Well, it’s pretty easy to calculate your macros during pregnancy, so you don’t have to worry about it. Let’s see what to do for counting macros while pregnant.
1. Find your body’s maintenance calories.
You require some number of calories if you want to survive. This part is going to discuss the calories that we need. Experts named it “BMR,” or introductory metabolic rate.
To calculate your introductory metabolic rate, you have to do some equations. First, you should consider your gender because the numbers that we are going to use are entirely different from each other.
Because our main deal is macros during pregnancy, we will focus on the woman’s BMR.
Women: BMR = 655+ (9.6 x weight in kilos) +( 1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in years)
2. Determine your day-to-day activity
It would be best if you had your daily caloric intake in mind; this changes from person to person again.
Let us explain it to you:
- Sedentary (little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2
- Lightly active (easy exercise/sports 1-3 days/week): BMR x 1.375
- Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week): BMR x 1.55
- Very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week): BMR x 1.725
- Extremely active (tough exercise/sports and physical job): BMR x 1.9
3. Choose what you want to gain
This part is essential for this article if you want to ask our opinion.
The goals that you make for yourself are going to declare your macros during pregnancy:
- If you want to lose fat, you have to lower the number of carbs, fats, and proteins in your body
- If you’re going to make a balance between your weight and your figure, you have to maintain the carbs that you are using
- If you wish to bulk yourself up, you have to eat as many carbs as you can
4. Time for calculation
First of all, let me explain something to you guys:
- 1g Protein = 4 Calories
- 1g Carbohydrate = 4 Calories
- 1g Fat = 9 Calories
We got it until now, right? So, listen carefully if you want to know your macro’s pregnancy. What my macros should be while pregnant?
You have to calculate every factor that affects the macros when pregnant, and we will start with proteins.
Proteins
Let me explain to you how to calculate proteins. Ladies, your body needs 1 gram of protein for each pound you weigh. For example, a lady who is 116 lbs needs 116 grams of protein.
After that, you have to multiply it by four and get your protein macros.
Fat
Fat is one of the most critical factors in your body; you should not have completely deleted it from your diet.
Lowering the fat amount you use daily more than usual can cause severe hormonal damage to your baby. So be careful about it. Read more about this on the article healthy fats during pregnancy.
Research says that total usage of fat never drops below 15%, so before wanting to lower your fat intake, it’s better to have a little conversation with your doctor.
For females, the best number for fat percentage is 30%.
And never forget the daily calorie intake because you will use it a lot in this calculation.
Carbohydrates
After that, we found the daily need for fats and proteins per day. The only thing we have to do is minus both from daily calorie intake during pregnancy, and then we are done.
The only thing you have to do is divide the result by 4. The result is going to show your daily carbs intake.
Macros for breastfeeding
You may also wonder, “What should my macros be for breastfeeding?” Here is what you need to know. Let’s find out.
- Carbs: 37.7% of 400 = (. 377 x 400) / 4 = +37.7 grams.
- Protein: 32.3% of 400 = (. 323 x 400) /4 = +32.4 grams.
- Fat: 30% of 400 = (. 30 x 400) / 9 = +13 grams.
Last but not the least
All this process that we have done is only to make you comfortable with learning how to manage your macros during pregnancy.
We hope you can control your macros so that you can have a healthy pregnancy. If you have any questions about pregnancy, the Hipregnancy website is ready to answer your questions.
Thanks for reading our article about macros when pregnant.
If any points about tracking macros while pregnant are missed, please share them with us via comment.
FAQs
1· Is there any Pregnancy macros calculator?
Of course, there is you can find macro calculators all over the internet if you don’t want to do it yourself.
2· What is the measurement for macros for pregnancy gestational diabetes?
219 g of carbohydrates (40% of total calories), 123 g of protein (23% of calories), and 91 g of fat (37% of calories).
3· What should your macros be while pregnant?
45-65 percent from carbohydrates, 20-35 percent from fats, and 10-35 percent from protein.
