Pregnancy Cravings. 'Nuff Said.

“The saying is: Give a pregnant woman what she craves, or else the baby comes out ugly.” –My Mexican aunt

This weekend started a new beginning. I now introduce a new food craving:

Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches!

And the craving was fueled by a gift my good friend Tammy J. gave to me at this past baby shower. Homemade strawberry preserves (that I could eat with a spoon, directly out of the jar). -HEAVEN-

The thing with cravings is this: I was expecting to have hankerings for some strange concoctions during pregnancy. I was thinking I’d want crazy things like pizza and milk, pickles and peanut butter, chips dipped in tartar sauce… you know, nasty stuff. But what I’ve discovered about cravings is this: what I want to eat is normal. How often, and how obsessed I become about a certain food is the abnormal part. Once a craving plants itself in my brain there is not a single dish that could make me want anything else. You could put a $200 plate of food, cooked up by Ina Garten herself, with extra cheese, pasta, and unhealthiness but if I am craving something else then that dish doesn’t stand a chance.

So don’t even try.

This weekend was the weekend of pb&j, and I’ve had to hold myself back from in-taking too much. Nothing is worse in the entirety of existence than not giving yourself what you want the most. It’s almost painful.

(Okay, so there are prolly worse things out there, but I’m just sayin’)

“Crave something healthy! What happened to the fruit craving?” Michael asked me yesterday (after catching me in the kitchen eating another pb&j). The thing is, I will still eat a huge ‘ole bowl of fruit, but I don’t have that strange drive to find the closest fruit tree in Memphis, like I used to. Before ALL I wanted was fruit – nothing else could satiate my hunger for fruit. So now, it’s not that I don’t like fruit and won’t eat it, but I’d MUCH rather have a good ole peanut butter and jelly.

At different points during my pregnancy I craved the following foods:

-ramen

-fruit (and fruit-ish things, like smoothies and yogurt)

-ice cream

-mango chipotle chicken skewers with pineapple and cherries (Michael grilled this out for me one time and I was hooked)

-cereal

-cookies

But alas, *sigh* I need to be health conscious. I need to toss aside the advice given by my Mexican aunts and take up the advice of my doctor.

“Eat more protein” says Dr. Taylor, as Michael gives me an I-told-you-so look.

Gagamaggot.

Besides cravings there’s this whole new world of food aversions! No one told me this! Where was this in the advice given by former pregnant women?? No one told me I would have a sudden distaste for eggs, chicken, pizza, pasta, and on and on.

I’m upset.

And here’s the thing about aversions: It’s not always that I personally don’t like the taste of these foods anymore – it’s more of like these foods make me sick. Almost all types of proteins make me gag. Pizza and pasta (anything with tomato sauce) gives me super bad heartburn. Even oranges are an aversion due to the acidity-inspired heartburn I get after eating one.

But regardless of what I eat – healthy or not – the weight is packing on. I mean, I’m growing a baby here. There’s no avoiding it. Sometimes I have to snap myself back to reality that I’m not gaining wait for nothin’. Whether I want her to or not Bria is growing and I need to make sure she gets all of the nutrients that she needs.

SO, without further ado… I want to introduce you to my future workout plan.

After all of the pb&j’s I’m gonna have some unwanted pounds left on me. I’ve read that running with baby in a jogging stroller isn’t advised until the baby is four months old (that’ll be December, for all of you keeping track), and I doubt I’ll be in any shape to run until the 2^nd month anyway. So I want to take up the following workout plan (paired with eating healthy):

I am printing out/saving pictures on my computer of celebrity bodies that I want to transform myself into post-baby. Packing this weekend also helped (quick update: I accomplished my goal and packed more like 5 boxes by Sunday night! Whoop Whoop!) – Seeing all of my cute clothes, in size small, that I miss and want to wear really keeps my eyes on the goal. I’ve also promised myself that by the new year, if I am back at a size 4 then I will buy myself a cute/sexy/feel-good dress for the 2012. It’ll be a reward to myself for getting it all off (and every six months I’ll reward myself for keeping it off, if I do). I’ve heard that breast feeding is a big helper in weight loss for new mama’s, so that’s on the to-do list too.

In the end, I’ll find out what works and what doesn’t – and will probably complain… I mean post, about it here. Time will tell!