What I've Been Eating

Today I'm going to talk about my eating habits since getting pregnant.

Now, you might think that since I've expressed so much worry about gaining baby weight, that I must be eating super healthy, remaining conscientious of every single thing I put into my mouth.  Noooooooooooo.

It's not that I couldn't continue to follow Weight Watchers.  In fact, my midwive encouraged it - saying I would just need to add a few extra Points to my day.  However, this really has never been a possibility at all.

Since the very beginning of this pregnancy, I have had more food aversions than food cravings.  At first, I lost a few pounds simply because I had the hardest time eating.  Absolutely nothing appealed to me, and every. single. day. sucked.  Trying to abide by Weight Watchers Points+ was my last concern.  I knew I had to be eating something each day, and so I just ate whatever I could tolerate.  Most of the time, they were not healthy choices I was typically accustomed to.  Oatmeal? Forget it!  Eggs?  No thank you! Yogurt? Gag. Me. Now!  Still, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for veering so drastically off my WW course.  WW is practically all I've known for the last several years.  To not be worrying about what food I ate next and how many Points+ it was felt foreign to me.  I finally had to accept that the pregnancy was only going to be for 9 months, and not forever, and then I'd resume as normal.

I'm going to make a very obvious statement, but I believe sometimes people don't truly realize what they're saying.  Every pregnant lady's journey is different, just like that of weight loss.  So even if you and I both experienced the DREADFUL "morning sickness" throughout our entire pregnancies, what worked for you might not necessarily work for me and vice versa.  When others have told me to simply "Just eat healthy and you'll be fine" I want to scream.  It's not that simple for me.  It's not that I don't want to eat healthy.  I actually want to eat healthy now more than I did when trying to lose weight.  I want to provide my child with the most optimal of nutrition.  However, I am at the mercy of whatever my body can not puke up at this point, and that my friends, does not leave me with many options!  So with that said, I'll continue...

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I detested food in general those first 3 months.  I just did not want to eat but I knew I had to, not only for the benefit of the baby, but because not eating made the sickness even worse.  I think those were the hardest moments of my life thus far.  As I said before, there was so much change, overnight, that trying to adapt to those changes was really getting the best of me.  I did a lot of crying because I felt so physically awful, and I just wanted it all to go away.  I felt like a helpless child.  In terms of food, I could hardly stand to pour myself a bowl of cereal without gagging, much less trying to cook any type of meal.  Joel was unbelievably supportive, as was my workplace and friends and family.  I am tearing up now just reflecting on those first few months.  It was truly horrible for me.      

Now, 5.5 months into this pregnancy, not much has really changed in terms of eating habits.  While the intensity of my sickness has died down considerably, there are still many foods that gag me at the mere sight of them, much less smelling them cooking. Overall, the most consistent food group I've enjoyed while pregnant has been pasta.  The pasta and red sauce just really seemed to soak up the sickness in my belly.   My eating patterns have transitioned from force-feeding myself to finding one food that I currently enjoy, and thus eating it over and over and over again.  Daily.  I've done this with pasta, pizza, sauerkraut, and currently, Boston Market.  

Having said all of that, I still struggle daily with every meal.  For example, Joel made these delicious lasagna wraps last week that I devoured for dinner one night.  He packed them for my lunch the next day.  Then, everyday thereafter I toted that same container of lasagna wraps back and forth to the office.  I had no desire for them at all after that.  On Joel's days off, he will text me in the morning asking what I'd like for dinner.  Even if I can manage to come up with something, by the time I get home and he's prepared it, I don't want it.  It truly makes me feel terrible when this happens, and it's happened more times than not.  He's just spent his precious time preparing a meal, and I just don't want it at all.  The bottom line is, I've wasted so much food since being pregnant and I feel awful about it.  I've wasted a ton of Joel's time, him spent preparing a meal that I ultimately cannot tolerate eating.  

The bottom line is that food is more of a struggle for me than ever before.  Yes, even pre-pregnancy.  I know that God is going to continue to reveal all the reasons why me being a parent is part of His plan.  I truly believe going through the pregnancy process is going to have many lessons learned in regard to my future weight loss journey.  I thought my battle with food before was difficult.  That was nothing by comparison!  

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Posted by: Tukiyooo What I've Been Eating Updated at : 10:37 AM

Thursday, February 21, 2013