I would like to know, did anyone work on losing weight before getting pregnant specifically to negate some of the weight gain that comes with pregnancy? And/or, is that a bad idea?

My husband and I are going to start trying for babies likely sometime within the next several months. And as I've spent the earlier part of this year working hard to slim down, there's a part of me that is anxious about the necessary weight gain that will come with pregnancy...I feel a bit like this makes me very vain and selfish to be thinking about, but I really find myself motivated to lose the rest of the weight quickly and even try to go below my target goal, so that once I am pregnant, I'll hopefully feel less badly about going right back up in weight again.

Is this a bad way to be thinking? Again, I'm not pregnant nor have ever been, but am just starting to learn about it and wondering!

Especially given that your goal weight would already make you "underweight," my best guess is that you wouldn't even be able to get pregnant if you went under that goal weight (amenorrhea is pretty common in significantly underweight women). The focus of a healthy pregnancy should be about ensuring a safe environment for the fetus, not worrying about gaining weight to the detriment of that environment (i.e. your body). You are already on the low end of healthy, so it seems to me that you already have that "cushion." I don't think it's unusual to be anxious about weight gain during pregnancy, but to be completely honest, yeah, it sounds like your head isn't in the right space for the necessary weight gain that comes with a healthy pregnancy right now. Maybe now is a good time to focus on making healthy food choices, getting fit and building those habits - take care!

I do know about amenorrhea-- I'd always been quite thin, around 100-105 pounds since I stopped growing, but at one point I got rather sick for a period of time and did lose my period after about a 10 pound (unwanted) weight loss, and the doctor advised me that as soon as I gained weight it should come back. Since then, as long as I have stayed at least at 100, I've been fine.

But you're really right, that I guess I need to work on putting weight at not such a high importance that I would care about it so much even at such a time as being pregnant! Thanks for the advice.