First trimester wins and woes
Prior to even becoming pregnant, I had this master plan for when that day came to eat nothing but the highest quality foods and feed my growing baby all these extra nutritious vitamins and supplements. I would be in-utero Supermom before becoming actual Supermom. I thought that if I fed baby well in the womb, he or she would flourish and grow into one healthy, glowing babe, with a love for all foods green and glorious. I was wrong about the first part, but I am still holding out for the second half!
Now that am almost into my third trimester, I have had a lot of time to reflect back on the past six months of growing a human. I learned two things during those first 14 weeks, the infamous first trimester:
No. 1
Boy was I wrong about eating and feeding Little Bear all the things. From week five to about week 14, I experienced incredible nausea 24/7, so finding foods I could simply tolerate each day was a huge win. I developed an awful aversion to fish and chicken, especially chicken; even just the word would give me gag reflexes. Additionally, my Crohn’s flared up severely in the first trimester. This combination of Crohn’s plus a constant state of nausea left my body in such a deficit, as I actually lost eight pounds. I didn’t have even one pound to sacrifice, so an eight-pound decrease in weight left me in an anxious tizzy every day, fearing that I would lose our baby due to my poor nutrition. Again, I was wrong here! God protected our little one, and somehow by defying the laws of physics, Little Bear grew magnificently even though his mama was shrinking magnificently. If you don’t call that a miracle, then I don’t know what is!
So what did I actually eat during the first trimester? Lots of sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, plain oatmeal and oat cereal, pea milk, almond milk, salted peanut butter, broccoli, kale….that’s pretty much all I could stomach. Even the smell of rice made me nauseous, so I couldn’t even eat that. As you can imagine, eating out was a no-go for me, since the smell and sight of most foods made me sick to my stomach. Of course, the early on-set of all this nausea was during our summer vacation, right after we found out we were pregnant, which made eating at all my favorite restaurants such a bummer. So now am really looking forward to this year’s vacation!
Despite feeling so sick and struggling to eat daily, I still kept a daily fitness routine. I love being active; it re-energizes me and gives me mental, emotional, and physical strength to get through each day, so I was not about to give that up. I certainly needed that! I modified our CrossFit workouts in our home basement gym and took my time through WODs, being sure to slow down if I felt fatigued or out of breath. In fact, this is still how I approach my workouts today! I still workout five to six times per week and modify CrossFit movements as needed.
No. 2
My aspirations of “improving” my nutrition were absolutely absurd! Thankfully, I already had a solid nutritional foundation, so there was not much of anything I needed to improve upon. The joke was on me for thinking that I needed to do more! Due to my dietary needs, my choice of lifestyle, and my health priorities, I already eat very clean, whole foods. But what I realized though is how blessed I am to have these healthy routines and preferences already established. I can’t imagine how incredibly difficult would it have been to try to start eating veggies or fruit or unprocessed foods for the first time without a basic foundation of proper whole-foods nutrition. I would be like driving a car blindfolded. I am so thankful my husband and I prioritize our health and make sacrifices to purchase quality food that fuels us well.
I do not share this by any means to brag about my lifestyle choices, only simply to emphasize the importance of basic good nutrition. It is never too late to establish these healthy foundational routines, because they make transitions in life, like becoming pregnant or being diagnosed with an illness, that much easier. And eating well does not have to be expensive. My husband and I operate on a tight weekly grocery budget; however, we are savvy about the purchases we make and do our best to buy things only when on sale.