If you’re looking for tips on how to gain minimal weight while pregnant, this is not the post for you. If you’re looking for a hilarious step-by-step tutorial on gaining too much weight during pregnancy– a solid 50 pounds at least, then you’ve come to the right place!
*This should go without saying but: This is not medical advice. It’s satire (obviously). Don’t sue me (I’m a stay at home mom with three kids–soon to be four–so I don’t have $ for you to take anyway).*
To be clear — this is just what’s worked for me. This tried and true pregnancy diet plan has led me to a roughly 50-pound weight gain for three pregnancies in a row (Okay fine, the first time I only gained 42, but I was an amateur.).
I’m still near the beginning of the second trimester with Baby 4 and siting pretty on Step 5 of the system (correction: nothing is pretty right now, thank you nausea and hormonal acne).
Now let’s get started!
Gaining Too Much Weight During Pregnancy: A Handy DIY Guide
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists recommends 25-35 pounds of weight gain for a healthy woman in an average singleton pregnancy. If you’re here, it’s because you’re an over-achiever and you know you can crush those recommendations with several months still to spare in your pregnancy.
Stickers and gold stars for you!
Step 1: Get pregnant (obviously!)
Bonus points if it’s unplanned or you haven’t yet lost all the weight from your previous pregnancy.
This will help make gaining too much weight this time around that much easier.
Step 2: Get violently ill.
Not just a little nausea either — I mean, throwing up all day for weeks on end. Lose at least five pounds.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s actually very important.
If you’re one of those lucky women who doesn’t get sick when you’re pregnant, first, I need to say that I hate you a little bit. Second, you can still be successful on your massive weight gain endeavor. You’ll just skip right to Step 6.
Step 3: Lay on the couch as much as physically possible for 3-4 months (not weeks).
You are too ill to function in meaningful ways. The combination of this and Step 2 should effectively kill your metabolism. Cha-ching!
Step 4: Exhaust all home remedies and low-grade prescriptions to bring your pregnancy nausea and vomiting under control.
At this point, the doctor will decide you need to move to Zofran. This is where the plan really starts to kick into action.
Step 5: Zofran mostly stops the endless vomiting
–but you’ll still feel like vomiting for most of the day and night.
Eating carbs will help with this nausea a very, very, microscopic little bit. So what do you do? Eat all the carbs on Planet Earth, nonstop.
Bread, pizza, leftover Elmo birthday cake—nothing starchy is outside of your domain.
Now you’re cooking with gas!
Courtesy of your dead metabolism, those pounds will come rolling in. First, the five you lost, and soon, fifty more of their friends.
Slurpees have been one of my few appealing “foods” lately, so in addition to gaining pounds, I’m also probably gaining diabetes. The joys of pregnancy just keep on giving, don’t they?!
Step 6: Eventually, the nausea will go away.
For me, this is always around weeks 18-20, but every pregnancy is different.
You haven’t enjoyed a food item in four+ months. Now you’re legitimately hungry and you actually *want* to eat food.
And eat food you do. All of it.
Pride in your appearance, as well as any shame, went out the window weeks (months?) ago, when you went about your daily life looking like someone experiencing the worst hangover of all time.
(Fortunately, your spouse’s standards will have slipped during this time as well. If you manage to shower and brush your teeth and hair, he will come home from work and say, “You look really nice today.” Mission accomplished!)
Step 7: Give up any pretenses about not gaining too much weight during this pregnancy.
Around month 7, when you’ve gained all the allotted weight for your entire pregnancy, give up.
You still have two months left and your baby alone still has 6+ more pounds to gain. There’s no way you’re coming in even close to the recommended 25-35 pounds. Gaining too much weight during this pregnancy is now virtually a guarantee. Congratulations!
Make your peace with it and hope that breastfeeding and pumping can help you undo some of this damage two months from now.
(Spoiler alert: it can’t. Nursing might help, but you worked on this 50-pack for nine full months. It’s going to take a while to recover.)
The good news: you may be huge and uncomfortable as heck, full-on waddling to all your destinations, but at least you get a cute new baby at the end!
Do you have any “tips” of your own to add for the mom looking to gain too much weight during pregnancy?
Drop them in the comments section!
Pregnant right now? Be sure to check out these 25 Funny Pregnancy Quotes to give you a few more chuckles (plus a few memes to save).
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What a fantastic read!!. I’m one of those people you are going to hate……..I had 2 sets of twins and not a single day of morning sickness!!. I did put on loads of weight though & ate like there was no tomorrow!!
Two sets of twins without morning sickness?! I find that incredibly impressive (and I am also incredibly jealous). We’re at 14 weeks and counting and I am still on Unisom and Zofran so I can do something besides lying on the bathroom floor.
As for the eating and weight gain, that’s not your fault. You were eating for three — twice! I think that’s more than justified!
Charissa
Ha, classic overachiever here 🙋🏽 (I even have twins to prove the point). During both my pregnancies, first a singleton then twins, I managed to gain a beautiful 60lbs with so little effort! It didn’t require binge eating, laying on the couch or extreme cravings, as apparently I am able to convert the air that I breathe into calories 😉 Not a bounce back mom either, first round took almost 2 years of hard work to shed the weight, only to discover that I was pregnant. With the twins I left over half the weight at the hospital, but tandem nursing brought it all back!! This time it’s taken four years to get back to my normal weight, guess if I’m planning on round three to ever happen 😅
Twins? That’s very impressive! I feel like anyone incubating two humans at once gets a 100% pass on any pregnancy weight gain (correction: 100% pass on anything, period, for the entire duration of your pregnancy, plus another six months–at least!). Converting air into calories — I love it! My Couch-Captaining and carb-eating definitely contributes to the pregnancy weight gain for me in the first 20 weeks. After that, I tend to eat pretty normally, but I develop that same calories-into-air talent!
I lost the weight very easily the first time, but it took more work the second. After the third, well… I was still carrying a few of those “bonus” pounds when I found out Round 4 was on the way. It may take me a decade to get back to normal after this (scared face emoji…)
Charissa
These are hilarious! Love it!! I didn’t purposely try to gain any certain amount with either pregnancy (I was over weight so I should have been focused on not gaining a lot) but I sure did enjoy the frequent indulging and blaming the baby for always wanting ice cream and tacos! Not together lol.
Hi Samantha,
I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Haha at first, when I read that, I thought, “Hmmm, ice cream and tacos? That may be the most pregnant-craving I’ve ever heard of!” I find that I only crave ice cream when I’m pregnant took, if it makes you feel better. Maybe it’s our body’s way of asking for calcium (anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!).
Charissa
What a fun read.
Thank you — I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
DYING!!! This was so funny, I’m literally laughing out loud. I gained a full 60 during pregnancy so I am obviously far superior! I think the key to my success was craving and eating Mexican food (ok Taco Bell) every day for the first 4 months… and then every other day for the last 5…
Great post, totally love the sarcasm!
Hi Brittany,
Thank you so much — I’m so glad this could give you a laugh! I love that you refer to Taco Bell as “Mexican food” because it really does make it sound better, doesn’t it? I have quite the sweet tooth when I’m pregnant, so I think that definitely has something to do with it, combined with the fact that for almost 20 weeks, if I’m not eating, I feel nauseous. That does my figure no favors haha.
Thanks for reading!
Charissa
😂😂😂 Oh my gosh, this is hilarious.
This is basically my story except that even with the Zofran I was sick until the end of the pregnancy, and I lost so much weight in the beginning that I only gained an additional 19lbs during the pregnancy. I was too sick to eat! In my third trimester my doctor congratulated me on “taking care of myself.” As if I was trying not to gain weight! 😂
Don’t worry, though. I packed on ALL the pounds while breastfeeding!
Oh my goodness, you have allllll my sympathy. Morning sickness that never ends is my nightmare. The first half of my pregnancies is hellacious, but at least I know it ends by 18-20 weeks. You poor thing!
And oh my gosh, the doctor. You had to be like “ummm, yeah, no…. there are no congratulations here. I am sick as a dog. Thanks for asking.”
Glad you made it through!
Charissa
I love this so much. There is so much pressure on NOT gaining “too much” weight during pregnancy. I hate it, because when I was pregnant, delicious food was one of the only things that brought me true pleasure. Thank you for this hilarious take on weight gain during pregnancy.
http://www.outmommingabout.com
Hi Shauna,
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! You are so right. When I was pregnant with my first, the pounds just kept rolling in (even though my diet was pretty average), and it would really hurt my feelings every time the doctor would bring it up. Then I bounced back and lost it all pretty quickly, fortunately (it wasn’t nearly as easy to lose the next two times). By the time I was pregnant with my second and third, I’d just accepted that this is what my body does and stressing out about it or feeling guilty doesn’t help matters.
Charissa
Bahaha too funny. I am also an overachiever in this area, and I love your sense of humor!
Hi Stephanie,
Thank you so much — I’m so glad you can relate and that this could give you a chuckle. The pregnancy struggle is real, that’s for sure!
Charissa
You are 2 funny! I only gain about 25lbs while pregnant but the pounds pack on way to easily postpartum for me lol.
Hi Tiffany,
Haha, what can I say? I like to consider myself an overachiever 😉 I lose a good chunk of the pregnancy weight pretty easily, but the last ten pounds seems to hang on forevvvvvvvver!
(Although the worst surprise for me was the water retention — I hold back *so* much water after delivery. The first time, I was horrified because I had an 8+ pound baby, but left the hospital down less than 8 lbs lol. It came off quickly a few days later, and the next few times I knew to expect it, but the first time it was super depressing haha).
Thanks for reading!
Charissa