Why are you drawn to sweets?
Around the 20th week, many expectant mothers begin to blame themselves for not being able to give up sweets. Moreover, they notice that they eat even more sweets than before their pregnancy.
A recent large-scale study on this subject [1] found that women in the second half of pregnancy actually eat more sugar than before. But future mothers tend to eat more in general because they need extra calories for the baby. And if you count the sweets as a percentage of the daily calorie content, then it turns out to be less than before pregnancy!
Few healthy adults adhere to the World Health Organization’s recommendations [2] to limit sugar content to 10% of their total calorie intake. If you get 2000 calories per day, then the recommendation is to not eat more than 200 calories worth of sugar, which is approximately 50 g, which equates to 10-12 teaspoons of sugar or a can of soda. Therefore, the average adult usually goes beyond the recommended limit, getting almost 16% of their daily calories from sugar.
Pregnant women sometimes can get discouraged about their diet and think that cutting back on sugar isn’t possible, but they can succeed. Many reduce the proportion of sugar in their diet to 14.5% [1].
Here are five main sources of sugar that are hard to give up [1] but are recommended to cut from your diet :
sugar added to tea or coffee;
sweet pastries (cakes, pastries, cookies);
candy;
sweet drinks;
dairy-based foods and desserts (including sweet cottage cheese and yogurt).
But even if you cut out all of these things, you will still consume some sugar in bread, juice, granola and breakfast cereals. Try cutting back on sugar as much as possible, but if you continue to eat something from the list, such as sweet tea or only dairy-based desserts, for example, then keeping within the recommended 10% will not be so difficult, and the restrictions will not seem too strict.
