Paleo pregnancy

Or How I almost fell off the wagon

Tired, lightly nauseated, out of breath as a result of movement, a near-constant bad taste in my mouth.  This has been me for the past month. Only I can't really blame the pregnancy too much. Sure at nine weeks I am feeling less than perfect, but I could do a lot better.

Anyway, this was what I decided upon waking up this morning. It's been a ridiculous rollercoaster: I make yummy beefy meatballs and I feel great. The next two meals I find myself simply too lazy to cook and by the end of the day, all I can do is park the kids in front of the TV and lie down. Stupid, right? OK, I won't beat myself up over it too much, but I would like to share my experience and some of the new resolutions.

No, I did not go back to eating pizza. I seriously considered it. About once a week I thought, it's simply too hard to cook meat three meals a day. Our culture is optimized toward quick high-carb grain-based snacks that get us through the day. And when beef jerky lost its appeal a few weeks ago, I am dead in the water.

One factor prevented me from giving up: I feel healthy! Everyone in my house has been deathly sick with a nasty cold the kids brought from school. It's been going for nearly a month. I felt the beginnings of a few symptoms - but I never got all the way to sick. Paleo is supposed to strengthen your immune system by preventing gut flora from penetrating the barriers and entering the blood stream (Mark's Daily Apple has nice light-weight readable article on the subject and googling for leaky gut syndrome will yield much more.) Bottom line, eating *proper* paleo has made me feel ten years younger by giving me energy. I lost that through sloth, but at least I don't go all the way from lazy to sick by going back to grains.

Here is an interesting observation: cravings.  I love fruit. I can live on fruit.  (Well, as it turns out, I can't - it simply does not contain calories and nutrients I need - but in the past I've tried!) And now, with bad taste in my mouth, I crave it. I eat it. It tasted wonderful. Then, it leaves me tasting the remaining bitterness in my mouth and begging for more.  It's a lot like an itch: you know it's there, you can't get away from it - and you know that once you start scratching, it'll get worse. But you do it anyway!

Today, we (you know, the rational me and the pregnant me) have reached a compromise: I can eat fruit as long as it is supplemented with something containing a good dose of fat, to satisfy hunger: cream, (oh boy, peaches and cream!), eggs, avocado. There is a carton full boiled eggs in the fridge and I am ready for the challenge!  It was amazing how much more satisfying a bowl of raspberries with cream was than just straight raspberries, even more so than having them with yogurt!

Second decision: I seriously need to stockpile food and have a wide variety available to choose from. That's how I got started, but then lost track.  Tonight, I am making the family all-time-favorite pork crockpot!  Pork is defrosting as we speak.

I need to figure out how to do better for breakfast.  I cannot start my day with a cup of yogurt. I simply can't last long enough to have the energy to prepare lunch. Some ideas involve looking up breakfast casseroles that can be prepared in advace and heated up with some fresh ingredients. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.  (OK, yes, I am pregnant!)

And finally, make fat an all-important meal ingredient.  Today's lunch: shrimp (kids' favorite), artichoke with melted butter and - bacon. I don't want to cook a big meal - but bacon will get me through to dinner!

Wish me luck.  I think I need some support in the days to come. :-)  One thing that keeps me going: I know that after 2-3 days of three good meals a day, I'll have so much energy, this will all become easy!