I get asked a lot about my pregnancy cravings–I am sure it is only natural to wonder what a wellness coach craves during her pregnancy. Before conceiving, I was always curious about what I would crave too. I had my fingers crossed it would be greens but I wasn’t that lucky. 🙂
I experienced most of my cravings during my first trimester. I definitely craved protein over carbohydrates. I thought this was interesting considering I was eating mostly a plant-based diet at the time. I wanted things like eggs, sausage, and red meat. Breakfast was a lot of omelettes with organic breakfast sausage or sprouted grain toast topped with avocado and egg. For dinner, I longed for meat loaf and hamburgers. It’s safe to say Cody has become an expert at perfectly cooking a well-done burger on the grill.
I also craved dairy mainly in the form of yogurt, cheese, and cream cheese. There were a few weeks where I had cream cheese and Back to Nature Multi-Seed Rice Thins almost everyday as part of my lunch. I also had a short stint of Siggi’s vanilla yogurt with berries in the afternoon. I am generally not someone who eats granola because of the sugar content, but I couldn’t help but add Purely Elizabeth’s Ancient Grains Blueberry Hemp Granola to my afternoon yogurt.
One of the oddest cravings I had was for chili dogs. I blame my mom for this because she reminded me early on in my pregnancy how she craved chili dogs while she was pregnant. After we talked about them, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I knew if I was going to have chili dogs I was going to make the healthiest damn chili dogs I could. I used Angelic Bakehouse Sprouted 7-Grain Buns, Amy’s Low-Sodium Organic Chili, Applegate Farms Organic Hot Dogs, and organic cheddar cheese. You guys, it was like heaven on a bun. I think I had it three times in one week. (Insert monkey covering eyes emoji.)
Pre-pregnancy, I was in the habit of eating Endangered Species 88% Dark Chocolate in the evening. It satisfied my sweet tooth while keeping sugar in check. As soon as pregnancy hit, I could no longer stomach it. One evening, early on in my pregnancy, I came home from Whole Foods with cookies and two different types of ice cream. Cody looked at me like I was from another planet! Like any pregnant woman, I wanted to make sure I had some options. 🙂 I settled on having a 1/2 cup of Talenti Mediterranean Mint Gelato most evenings in the first trimester. After awhile, I got my taste for dark chocolate back and I am now back to enjoying my healthy standby.
The first trimester, vegetables sounded horrible. I couldn’t stomach the thought of them, especially broccoli and cauliflower. I started to get my vegetable groove back with salads and Whole Food’s 365 Organic Buttermilk Ranch Dressing–adding ranch was the only way I could get the salads to sound good.
Luckily, I am 100% back to all of my normal foods sounding good. Depending on the day, breakfast for me may be oatmeal with superfoods added in or sprouted grain toast with peanut butter and banana. Both of these give me great energy to power through my morning workout. Lunch, which I usually eat pretty early, may be a variety of things pieced together like an omelette, hard-boiled eggs, Applegate Farms Organic Chicken Sausage, raw vegetables and hummus, avocado, crackers, and fruit. Afternoon snacks may be a mix or a combination of things like RxBars, yogurt and fruit, brown rice cakes with nut butter, apples, or almonds. Dinner is all across the map–Cody and I both love to cook so we are always trying something new. Staple items have been grass-fed burgers, grilled or roasted vegetables, Easy Chicken Parmesan, grilled salmon, Fiesta Bowls, Greekza Pizza, and salads. When I am short on time I usually go to an Amy’s meal with an organic chicken sausage and vegetables on the side. I keep Talenti’s Sea Salt and Caramel Ice Cream Bars in my freezer for when something more than dark chocolate sounds good. Cody likes these too–when there is one left I hide it deep in the freezer so only I know where it’s at. 🙂 Shhh…
 
Now that things are back to normal, I don’t feel like the foods above are out of the ordinary for me. Those are all things I ate and loved before pregnancy too. I generally live by the 90/10 rule and don’t exclude any specific foods from my diet. If ice cream sounds good to me, I have it. I am always mindful, pregnant or not, to enjoy these types of treats in moderation. The 90/10 philosophy has allowed me to enjoy a variety of foods without feeling deprived. I love it.
I believe it is important to listen to your body and feed it what it is craving. Your body is smart and it will signal to you when it is need of something specific. With my first trimester cravings being heavy on dairy and meat, I think that I may have needed a boost of protein, calcium and possibly iron. Just because I wasn’t frequently eating those foods prior to pregnancy, doesn’t mean that I tried to withhold them. It’s important to give yourself grace, recognize what your body is signaling to you through cravings and hunger, and feed yourself in a nourishing way. I recently wrote a blog post on this topic, click here to read it.
Lastly, pregnancy is not a free for all to have everything and anything you can get your hands on. Pregnancy is even more of a reason to give your body whole, real foods. What you put in is what you get out. Eating a balanced and nutritious diet will give you energy, help your baby grow, and keep you healthy in the process. You have to remember that what you eat, your baby eats. You are actually helping to mold his/her tastebuds throughout your pregnancy. What a beautiful gift to give to your baby before they make their way into the world.
