Why Melinda French Gates called for a ‘truce’ with her doctor after gaining 79 pounds during pregnancy

Melinda French Gates has opened up about her experience with weight gain during her first pregnancy.

The 60-year-old philanthropist — who shares three children with ex-husband Bill Gates — had a conversation about body image during an appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, which aired on Monday.

Host Jamie Kern Lima mentioned that in French Gates’s new book, The Next Day, the businesswoman writes about gaining 79 pounds when she was pregnant with her first child, Jennifer. She also writes about the freedom she discovered when she was pregnant after the pressure she felt to be a certain weight when she was younger.

“I had to have a truce with my doctor, because every time I would go in, they always, they put you on the scale, right? And he really was concerned,” she recalled. “And I finally said to him, ‘Okay, are you concerned because this is a problem for my health or my baby’s health?’ And he said, ‘No.’”

She explained that every time she went to the doctor during her pregnancy, he’d talk to her about her weight being “over the number it should be.” So, she ultimately asked him what the problem was.

“And he said, ‘I’m afraid you’re gonna be mad at me because when this is over, it’ll take you a while to get the pregnancy weight off,” she added. “And I said, ‘Tell you what, let’s have a truce. You never bring up my weight unless it’s a health problem for me and the baby, and I promise to not be mad at you when this is over.’”

French Gates noted that when she got pregnant with Jennifer, she knew she was going to “get large,” but that didn’t matter to her because she was excited to “grow a baby.”

“It was like finally, I didn’t have to worry about, you know, looking good, trying to be thin, what I put in my mouth, other than things that I knew and wanted to eat healthy,” she explained.

She said that while she was “enormous” during her pregnancy, being pregnant was “freeing” for her since she didn’t have to think about the “expectations” she’d put on herself to look a certain way.

“And then much later in my life I realized, ‘Hmm what are the expectations I have of myself, who’s putting that on me? Maybe society, but maybe myself,’ So you have to really, you know, eventually look at that too, right?” she added.

French Gates also shared that she had a boyfriend in college who made comments about her weight, which stayed with her as she got older.

“Eventually, I got out of that relationship, but it took me too long,” she said. “Too many of those messages carried through with me into my twenties and even my thirties, and it probably wasn’t until I got to forty that I got more OK, with who I was.”

She added that while she “wants to be fit and healthy,” she’s not focused on being a specific weight.

Last week, French Gates opened up about her divorce from the Microsoft co-founder, which he previously said was the biggest regret of his life. She addressed those comments from Gates, arguing that the split was “something that was necessary.”

“If you can’t live your values out inside your most intimate relationship, it was necessary,” she told The Times. “I don’t even quite know what to make of that statement, so I’m not going to comment on what he says. He’s got his own life. I have my life now. I am very happy.”