I'm seriously considering changing the Harris' family diet. This coming from the girl who puked twice in the kitchen yesterday just trying to load the dishwasher. But good grief, this morning sickness surely will not last for-e.v.e.r. And I am kinda freaked out about the growing belly. ;o I mean, I guess I knew this was going to happen, but having not gained more than a pound or two in the first trimester, I about burst into tears when I finally got around to doing my "body test" on the Wii the other day. The poor Wii is really freaking out!! It keeps asking me if I know what is causing this weight gain - eating too much, not exercising, etc... There's no option for: I'M A FREAKING TWO PERSONS IN ONE!!!
My blessed cousin Mallorie reminded me that Kate Hudson gained 60 lbs in her pregnancy and she still looked pretty hott. I'm certainly not going to just let everything go to the wind and eat bon bons, though. And this got me to thinking. And remembering...
When I graduated from highschool I seriously would have given anything to become a nutritionist. I had just completed a 17 month fast from sugar. It was AWESOME!! ;) Seriously... it opened my eyes so much to how much of our food contains processed sugar. Scary stuff.
So at the end of that "fast" I bought a book called Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair. I was entranced! Granted, I think this woman is a Christian Scientist, or at least very new age minded, but she has some solid advice on nutrition!!
Once I was finished reading the book (while laying out in the sun catching lots of rays!!), I promised myself that I would not buy my babies processed baby food or feed them junk. Of course this was all before I was married but I filled lots of mental file folders back in those days. ;)
The day I found out I was pregnant I was eating like a rabbit! Salads, fresh fruit, rich veggies, water, water, water!! I was so determined to be a super mom and be very healthy. That all went out the window once morning sickness hit. I didn't want to eat ANYTHING! And when my midwife told me that I should really try to eat more meat I wanted to slap her. :(
Now, at 19 weeks, my morning sickness has let up enough for me to be able to at least think about food. Hubby was digging through some boxes (that still haven't been unpacked... grr. I'm so disorganized!) and found my Feeding the Whole Family book. So yesterday evening, while hubby made dinner (such a sweetheart - except that he didn't realize that chipotle peppers in the casserole would give me really bad indigestion for the next couple of hours ;p), I pulled out my book and started studying.
So this really is something I want to apply to our lives in a real big way. I am not the type to do anything in baby steps. It just won't work for me. So if I'm going to really change our diet to whole foods it's going to have to be every meal - I may be willing to sacrifice weekends and occasional eating out.
I should clarify that I do NOT believe that by eating whole foods and much less meat that we are going to become the healthiest critters in the neighborhood! I really think some people are more prone to sickness than others. Other than my morning sickness, I'm not prone to getting sick very much at all! So my motive in changing our diet is really for baby - I really don't want it growing up on a lot of hormone-induced, chemically-"enhanced" food. Not that I won't ever let it have an oreo but you know? A little more grains and fresh fruit/veggies, a lot less junk.
So stay tuned... If everything goes according to my plan, we may be starting a new adventure very soon. (I still haven't convinced hubby that this is a wonderful idea. But I have a lot of great recipes to try... so we'll see. And if he needs more red meat than I do, I won't make him sacrifice.)
Some quotes from Cynthia Lair's book:
Deep in our cells we know that whole, fresh, natural foods can help feed the desire for wholeness within ourselves
What is a Whole Food? 1) Can I imagine it growing? It is easy to picture a wheatfield or an apple on a tree. Tough to picture a field of marshmallows. 2) How many ingredients does it have? A whole food has only one ingredient - itself. 3) What's been done to the food since it was harvested? The less, the better. Many foods we eat no longer resemble anything found in nature. Stripped, refined, bleached, injected, hydrogenated, chemically treated, irradiated, and gassed; modern foods literally have had the life taken out of them. Read the list of ingredients on the labels; if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it. 4) Is this product "part" of a food or the "whole" entity? Juice is only a part of a fruit. Oil is only part of the olive. When you eat a lot of partial foods, your body in its natural wisdom will crave the parts it didn't get.
