Staples

What’s on your paleo pregnancy food list? I have a few staples that show up almost every day… eggs (this baby will not be short on choline), leafy greens, raspberries, coconut oil, almond milk, coconut water kefir, and… what am I forgetting? Oh, that’s right, the fact that this baby will have eaten almost an ENTIRE HERD OF COWS by the time it’s born. Looking back at my fitday records, I think I’ve used every “beef” option there is at least once. Who are these women who crave ice cream?
And what will they do once I've eaten all the cows?

Pumping Iron

More on that OB appointment… everything’s looking great! The baby is measuring perfectly, down to the day (I know exactly when we conceived. It’s kind of a funny story, and I have a feeling I’ll have to spill it eventually…) and everything is right on target. My blood tests were great, except that I have borderline low iron levels. You should have seen the look on my husband’s face when the doctor suggested I eat more red meat and leafy greens.

“Um, Doctor? If she ate anymore red meat, there’d be a mass extinction. And she eats more kale than a snail factory.” Thanks, darling. And what is a snail factory?

So I’m on an iron supplement now. I hate iron supplements (I just got the poo thing sorted out, damnit!) but allegedly this one is stomach-friendly. I keep hearing Chris Kresser in my head saying low iron levels are normal and not a problem. Any opinions?

Less Than Perfect

This week has been a little rough, diet-wise. Saturday morning I had book club, i.e. the bimonthly cocktail-and-cake festival, which is a challenge at the best of times. Luckily there were some relatively paleo-friendly options (an egg frittata, roasted tomatoes, and fresh berries) available and I was able to pour myself virgin cocktails without anyone noticing! Saturday night we went to the wedding of a couple of dear friends, and after loving every sip of my OB-approved half-glass of champagne (which I then switched with my husband’s empty glass – ha!) my only reasonable “looks like a drink” option was rum and Coke, i.e. Coke. So there’s my HFCS fix for this pregnancy…

This morning we had my 11-week ultrasound, and my husband was thankfully (and incredibly!) able to take the morning off. After the excitement of seeing the baby (I had an ultrasound at 8 weeks that he missed out on, and he was jealous) he wanted to go to iHop. I decided couple time (and a de-stress morning for my husband… he needs it!) was more important than diet purity, so I agreed. Bacon and eggs? Great. Hash browns and french toast? Oh boy.

I follow a pretty simple rule with breaking my diet… there’s nothing more “primal” than belonging to a tribe. I’m not going to turn down a chance to hang with my people just because there’s nothing pure paleo on the menu. At most places I can find something pretty close, but I don’t fret if I can’t… life’s too short. Book club with the girls, a beautiful wedding, a romantic morning with my husband cooing over our ultrasound photos… I’ll take the french toast!

Problem Solving

I’ve had to get a little ingenious to stick to my eating plan these days. First it was the pre-cut vegetables, then the lazy blend-everything-until-it's-hot-and-call-it-soup vegetables, and now, after a week of being completely unable to even comprehend swallowing my fermented cod liver oil, I’m filling up my own empty gelatin capsules and making cod liver pills. Genius!

Oh, and how did I ever live without these? I have a packet in my car, one on my desk, another in the kitchen….

Cravings

I wasn’t trying to be food-fixated with this pregnancy. I don’t spend my life fussing over what I eat… paleo is actually a very easy, carefree way of eating for me. It saves time at the grocery store! (No need to hit those middle aisles.) It makes preparing food a snap! (When your husband routinely comes home past 10pm, nothing beats a grilled steak and steamed veggies for a 15-minute meal.) Paleo actually fits right in with my general laid-back way of living.

Of course, now that I’m pregnant, all that is out the window. I am obsessed with food! What can I eat?  What can I eat RIGHT NOW? (Normally I can go all morning without eating. Now, if I don’t have an omelette going five minutes after I wake up, I’m probably going to hurl.) And then there are cravings. Cravings are intense.

So far, I’ve actually been pretty lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) because I’m only craving Aussie foods. Foods I can’t get! I want that particular German sausage from that little place in the Adelaide Hills. Or the banana bread you can only get at that café in North Sydney. Everything I have ever tasted at Tetsuya. Things I have no chance of actually getting.

When an American-flavored craving does hit, I’m usually saved by my own laziness. Yes, I kind of want Round Table Pizza, but they don’t deliver, and the first trimester makes me sleepy. The only “bad” food I’ve indulged in is the occasional ½ cup of Rice Krispies, which I don’t feel too guilty about since I distinctly remember that my mum desperately craved Rice Bubbles (the Aussie version) with cream while pregnant with me!

I’m just sticking to my battle hymn: the war is won at the grocery store. If I don’t want to eat crap, I don’t bring it home. Lazy beats cravings every time.

Of course, there’s talk about going home in October for my grandfather’s 90^th birthday. If that happens… well, let’s just say I might not update this blog for a while.

Convenience

A pregnancy confession: I’m lazy. I’m so lazy! I can’t believe how tired I feel in this first trimester. A few weeks ago I was kicking butt in my krav maga classes, sweating through an hour of high-intensity cardio. Now I’m going to bed with an oily face because washing it seems so, so exhausting. I’m useless.

I’ve realized that my energy is highest in the morning and completely gone by about 7pm, so I’ve been taking steps to make it easier to stick to my eating plan. After years of laughing at people who buy pre-cut vegetables (just how hard is it to snip off a broccoli floret, exactly?) I’m buying organic broccoli florets in little plastic bags from the grocery store. I’ve started prepping dinner at lunchtime, so by nightfall, all I have to do is assemble. I’m pre-portioning and freezing my bone broth and meat (did I mention I just had 16lbs of grass-fed beef back ribs delivered from US Wellness? Manna from heaven.) And I’ve given up on elaborate recipes… half my food these days is roasted, i.e. chucked in an oven and left alone. Why do so many people think roasts are fancy? It’s pretty much the laziest cooking method around.

Luckily, I have a dog who forces me to walk every evening, otherwise I doubt I’d ever get out the door. It’s amazing what some big, pleading eyes and well-timed whimpering will do to me… oh god, and I’m having a baby. Why did I do this again?

No Poo

Yes, that’s right, I finally have a couple of readers and I go and write a post about poo. Forgive me.

If you’ve spent any time on MDA, you know that going no ‘poo is something of a badge of honor. (For the record, my husband has been no ‘poo his whole life, out of sheer laziness more than anything else, and has gorgeous hair to show for it. I tried it for a month and gave up.) Going no poo, however, is not quite so rewarding.

Pregnancy changes the way you look at poo. I’m told babies do the same thing. Pregnancy with Zofran? Let’s just say I now truly understand the sentiment “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” When you’re not-quite-ten-weeks pregnant and find yourself thinking “I’m sick of carrying around this belly,” you know it’s time for action.

My plan: Triple my fiber. Up the water. Get moving. Pray.

Readers, it worked!

After my typical Sunday breakfast (eggs and bacon, don’t mess with perfection) operation “go poo” was in full swing. I ate an apple (hooray, fiber!), then roasted two cups of broccoli and one cup of baby carrots in olive oil for lunch. Afternoon snack? A smoothie made from full-fat fage yoghurt, unsweetened almond milk, 1 cup of raspberries, 1 tbsp coconut oil, and 3 tbsp of ground chia seeds. It tasted, ahem, healthy. (I know that chia is controversial in the paleo world - Loren Cordain is dead against it - but I’ve never experienced any ill-effects, and I decided the situation was dire enough to put it back into rotation. All 6g of carbs in that 3tbsp are fiber. And if you’ve ever seen chia gel in liquid, you know it creates some lovely slimy action in your body… just what I was looking for.) I also drank loads of water and three cups of green tea during the day – not enough caffeine to be dangerous, but hopefully just enough to get things happening.

And things happened! Glory, glory, hallelujah!

I can button my pants again. (Who am I kidding, it’s a Sunday, I never changed out of my pajamas. Lord, this post is just a confession a minute, isn't it?) And I feel light enough that I’m making a wonderfully filling beef and veggie stew for dinner... from a Loren Cordain recipe. Forgive me, Cordain, for I ate chia!  An added bonus? I met my calcium goals, and I’m pretty sure I’ll top 2000 calories! It’s a good day to be me.

Sorry about you, though. You really didn’t deserve this post. Can we still be friends? Here, how about I illustrate this post with a cute picture of a puppy? Oh wait, the puppy's... um... ooh. 

Sorry.