How are you feeling?

I know how to do sick pregnancies agonizingly well. This time around, I've learned more about my body and how it handles food and I feel much better than I did during Emma's and Mandy's pregnancies. I can rate how I feel on a scholastic scale of "A+" being skipping around in a field of daisies and sliding down rainbows and an "F" would find me with my head in the perpetually dirty toilet bowl. Lately, I've been at about a "C+," not failing, but not skipping through daisies either.

I would never presume to say that my pregnancy diet would work for all women. On the contrary, I believe a woman's body tells her exactly what she need during pregnancy and she should listen to it. I felt like punching well-meaning nurses who tried to tell me to suck on hard candies and eat ginger in bulk when I felt nauseous. Severe nausea really doesn't make a lady very pleasant. 

I don't eat sugar. No desserts. No dried fruit. No juice. No Pepsi. No sugar in my tea. (*Insert tears*). I try to eat less than 5g of sugar per day. To put that in perspective, a slice of wheat bread has 2g of sugar.  I limit white carbs and only indulge in things that have lots of whole grains. I haven't had any large quantity of sugar in about a month, except for the other night when I honestly couldn't resist my favorite pear cobbler. I paid for it dearly the entire next day with nausea and vomiting. 

Another thing that throws me completely out of whack are high fat foods. As good as they taste going down, my blood sugars can't handle the extra fat and calories (most likely because they turn into sugars in the body). On Wednesday I had a Chicken Cordon Blue sandwich from Arby's. It has 473 calories, 6g saturated fat, and 7g of sugar which I found out just now when I looked it up online. Plus I ate curly fries. Delicious. It was so yummy, but I spent Thursday very, very ill.

I've made a diagram to show you what I mean. I am a nerd. There is no avoiding the truth any longer....

When my blood sugars are off, I feel very nauseous, which leads to vomiting which depletes my nutritional balance even more making me feel gross and perpetuating the cycle. With careful eating and rest, I can pull myself out of the vortex, but it takes about 24 hours. It makes dessert and high fat foods seem really unappealing. 

So, to feel at a good "C+" grade, I eat plenty of protein, grains, and greens. Green bean casserole made with hamburger is my favorite. I wanted to eat that for breakfast this morning, but for the sake of my family and their nausea, I ate eggs instead.

To maintain balance, I also take this homeopathic herb supplement from Alternative Health and Herbs (www.healthherbs.com). It includes Alfalfa Leaf, Catnip, Peppermint Leaf, Cinnamon Bark, Ginger Root, and Lobelia. I take it 3 times a day. It doesn't cure severe nausea at all, but it does seem to help with the mild yucky feeling I get before meals.

You may be sorry you asked how I was feeling, but maybe something that helps me could help you. You never know. Thanks for asking. Today I am very thankful to be feeling pretty good.