Sugar Free

I declared yesterday a sugar-free day for me. Lately I have been consuming so much more sugar than I should be. Between Christmas cookies, chocolate truffles, hot chocolate made nightly by my hubby, and various office goodies, I'm on sugar overload!

I know it's not good for the baby, and probably increases my chances of developing Gestational Diabetes. Also, I have my monthly checkup next week, and I am dreading stepping on the scale. What's strange is that I never used to have a big sweet tooth. Earlier in my pregnancy all I craved were salty/savory foods. But now I feel like I'm eating sugar just because it's in front of me. And because I'm been eating so much of it, my body has started to crave it.

So I decided to completely avoid sugar yesterday. Obviously I still ate sugar in the form of fruit and other natural foods. But I completely eliminated any desserts from my diet. How did I do? Here is exactly what I ate yesterday, as a 23-week pregnant woman. This might not be exciting to any of you, but I love to read about and see what other people eat. If I could, I would love to be a dietician or have some career involving food and nutrition.

7am - 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats, cooked with equal parts water and nonfat milk. I mixed in 1 small banana, some frozen raspberries, cinnamon, and one giant spoonful of natural peanut butter on top. (Don't knock it till you try it...banana, oats and peanut butter are the perfect combination.) I was feeling adventurous, so I added in the raspberries for a kick. I ate my oatmeal with a tall glass of nonfat milk.

8am - 1 cup hot Black Chai Tea. I only included this in order to be completely accurate and honest. No calories or sugar were involved in the making of this tea.

11am - I was really craving something sweet, so I ate an orange. Straight from my parents' orange tree! That makes it extra healthy, right? Oh, and about 10 minutes after I ate the orange, the baby started going crazy! I think he liked the orange. =)

20-minute walk
1 bottle of water consumed throughout the morning

12:30pm - 1 "Amy's Brand" Cheese Pizza Pocket Sandwich. I'd like to note that I adore this brand of food. Amy's soups and frozen meals are really tasty and completely organic and low in fat and calories. They can be pricey, but I found this on clearance for $1.50. Yea, I'm cheap.
With my Pizza Pocket I had a side salad of butter lettuce, red lettuce, black beans (for added protein) and balsamic dressing. I brought the salad from home but forgot dresing, so I went down to our cafeteria at work to get a little dressing from the salad bar. They charged me $1 for about 2 Tbsp of dressing....what a rip-off.

At this point I was still hungry and really wanted a cookie. Instead, I choked down my prenatal vitamin. Blech.
Lunch was consumed with a bottle of Tejava unsweetened iced tea. Best drink ever.

2pm - Started to get a slight headache. Maybe I really am addicted to sugar?

3:15pm - 1 slice sourdough bread with a little bit of light cream cheese. Also had 5 large baby carrots. I'd say they were more like child or pre-teen carrots.

1 bottle of water
20-minute walk with dog after work

6:15pm - 1 large bowl of fettuccine with homemade Bolognese sauce (made by my sister!) with a little ricotta cheese mixed in, and parmesan on top. With it I had a tall glass of nonfat milk.

8:30pm - I started getting hungry about 2 hours after dinner. As in, full on stomach growling. I resisted the urge to eat something sweet, and instead made myself a bowl of whole wheat Chex with nonfat milk. Definitely hit the spot. Ever since I got pregnant, milk has tasted SO good to me. It's like my body is craving the dairy or something.

There you have it.....congratulations if you are still reading this! I would like to point out that I easily ate this much pre-pregnancy. So it doesn't seem like a lot of food to me. What can I say, I love food! I commented to Adam the other day that I'm surprised I'm not really eating more than usual during my pregnancy. He just gave me a LOOK....as in, Stephanie that's a bunch of bologna.

Hmmm now bologna sounds good......