I feel the need to follow up on my last post. I hope I didn’t come across too negative about my pregnancy, especially the part about all the questions. I know people only ask because they care and are happy and excited for me. The care and encouragement is appreciated!
However, another question I frequently get that I forgot to mention is “Do you have any cravings?” or “Are you craving any weird foods” For some reason I find this question to be particularly annoying. Maybe just because I feel like I get it the most and it’s usually from males who don’t know what else to ask. Or, maybe it’s that my answer is “No I still crave the same crappy unhealthy food I did before” which I feel guilty about.
If I had a facebook-esque relationship status with food it'd be "it's complicated." I’ve never been a particularly healthy eater. In fact some might find me to be a particularly unhealthy eater. Mike and I don’t like many of the same vegetables. So, as a consequence, I don’t buy them. Additionally, I really don’t enjoy cooking very much so we end up eating a lot of frozen pizzas or “picking up” fast food on our way home from work at least once a week (yes, GASP! this includes McDonalds)
Since living in California, I’ve started to succumb to the peer pressure of eating healthy. And by that I mostly just mean feeling guilty about eating unhealthfully. I recently started putting frozen spinach on my frozen pizzas…. that’s good right? I also started buying Kashi frozen pizzas because they put flax seed in the crust… which I hear is good? I joined a CSA of sorts through the company I work for which was good for a while. But it was just SO MUCH salad mix and vegetables it always went bad before eating it all. Plus, I was getting vegetables that I didn’t even know what they were. I'd ask my vegan co-workers, "Hey what the heck is this?" "Oh, that's kale" So I look up recipes with kale which require 17 other ingrediants I dont already have in my cupboards. So, forget it. These uber healthy organic veggies rotted in my fridge. Needless to say, I quit the program.
I work for a health IT company where the CEO has always been adamant about having healthy food in the office. He’s recently really cracked down on this. On Friday’s we have catered lunches which is frequently just a giant salad bar that is brought in with all kinds of toppings. The last salad bar had the following items removed- bacon bits, croutons and ranch dressing. I’m sorry, but if you’re going to make me eat a pile of raw vegetables for lunch, you best let me pour ranch dressing all up on it.
But I get it. If the company is paying for our food, they should decide what it is. And I appreciate them making healthy choices for me, since I clearly cannot do it for myself. But now that I’m pregnant, I actually have guilt about my bad eating habits because I feel like I’m giving my son a pre-disposition to junk food. I have a friend who feeds her baby the most healthy stuff I’ve ever seen. It’s seriously amazing: pureed purple cabbage, avocado, sweet potato, beets, squash…. She’s literally only had breast milk and fruits and vegetables for her whole first year of life. No dairy, no grains, its impressive. I can’t imagine it’ll take long before I toss my kid a sack of cheerios in the back seat “Hey special buddy stop crying! Here, eat these cheerios! They’re yummy little carbs with a hole in the middle so you can still breathe if you swallow it whole, yay!”
I’ll worry about what to feed him later. But with regards to my own eating habits, I’ve found a common theme among the foods I tend to “crave” the most: they end in O.
Oreos
Cheetos
Burritos
Tacos
Nachos
Cheerios (cereal)
…..no buenos
I’ve been trying to make a somewhat concerted effort to eat “better” by balancing my bad foods with good foods. So, while I’ll still eat the Oreos, I’ll force myself to have some carrot sticks or red pepper slices first….sometimes. Or, I try to limit my soda intake to weekends only…sometimes. I also drink a LOT of water which, in my mind, “cleanses” out all the bad stuff. (Is that some self-fed BS or what?)
I feel like I’m the only one who eats unhealthy food anymore, especially out here in California. And it’s not so much that I like unhealthy food, but that I dislike healthy food. “What? You don’t like beets!? Beets are SO delicious!” NO! NO THEY ARE NOT! Beets fundamentally do not taste better than meat with melted cheese on it. I go out to lunch with my coworkers and everyone gets a strawberry, fig, beet and goat cheese salad and I’m the only one getting the cheeseburger. I’m a lone wolf.... in a pack of lettuce eating turtles*
At my last pregnancy check-up appointment, the doctor said to me, "You haven't gained one ounce that isn't baby." So, I went to In-n-Out burger for dinner. Maybe it will actually take some physcial consequences for me to change my ways. But until then, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing my whole life: eat what I want, sprinkle in some veggies now and then, take my vitamins and expect nothing to change. What could go wrong? My metabolism won't change, right?
