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    You are here: Home | Pregnancy

    WIAW: Intuitive Eating During Pregnancy

    Sep 27, 2022 by Faith VanderMolen

    Before I got pregnant I had heard many stories, including stories from my family members, of how they couldn't even look at vegetables during their first trimester. But I had also known some friends who did fine with vegetables and overall continued to eat their regular diet throughout their pregnancy.

    While I kept an open mind, it was hard for me to fathom not liking my usual sweet potatoes, roasted veggies, warm oatmeal, salads, etc. And for the first month of my pregnancy all of these foods still sounded and tasted amazing to me! I still loved going to the markets to buy produce and then loved spending time in the kitchen cooking up colorful, veggie-filled meals.

    However, about a month into my pregnancy the food aversions started to kick in. First to go was my usual warm, stovetop oatmeal. Then it was sweet potatoes. Then it was salad. And then it was roasted veggies. At first I keep trying to eat these foods out of guilt and confusion with my body, but soon it got to the point where I just couldn't stomach them. I started to worry about whether I was getting enough nutrients throughout the day. I started wondering how much my food choices would affect my baby. I started texting my mom friend who lives here in China literally asking,

    "All I can eat is oily Chinese food...am I going to kill my baby?! Or pop out a blob of oil???"

    Thankfully, she's a wise woman and reminded me that there are more Chinese than any other ethnicity in the world and that all of their mom's ate Chinese food while they were pregnant.

    My baby would be just fine. 

    That wisdom brought me so much peace. Yes, I definitely can't unlearn what I've learned about nutrition and I still believe that whole, plant foods are more nutrient dense than processed white noodles coated in oil. BUT being healthy during pregnancy encompasses so many more facets than just what we eat. 

    From that point on I started to eat what sounded good and to not worry about the nutritional make-up of the foods I was eating. I had a feeling this would just be a phase and that I'd soon be back to eating my normal "healthy" meals. I figured it would do my baby and I more good to eat food that would actually stay inside my body than to try to force myself to eat vegetables that would just get thrown up a few minutes later. 

    This, and my mom friend's comment, really changed my mindset towards having a healthy pregnancy. There are so so so many mothers in the world, from all different cultures. They all eat a variety of diets (some of which I would deem "unhealthy"), but the majority of them gave birth to beautiful, healthy babies. This mindset allowed me to eat vegetables when someone else made them and they sounded good. But it also helped me to be okay when only white rice or peanut butter and jelly or Chinese food sounded good. 

    I wish I had taken more photos of the foods I ate during the rougher months of my first trimester so I could give you proof of my carb/Chinese food heavy diet, but I honestly wasn't a big fan of food most of the time and therefore didn't care to document what I was eating. 

    Thankfully I'm finally out of that phase and back in love with all my plant foods!

    Today I'm sharing with you a full day of eating during my 15th week of pregnancy. I'm so thankful my plates were full of color and whole grains and even vegetables!

    Breakfast:

    Overnight oats made with oatmeal, ground flaxseed, chia seeds, soy milk and almond butter. In the morning I topped everything off with banana, cacao nibs and a brazil nut.

    overnight oats topped with with banana, cacao nibs and a brazil nut

    Lunch:

    My Red Lentil Pumpkin Soup (which I LOVE) served with brown rice and cilantro.

    Red Lentil Pumpkin Soup served with brown rice and cilantro

    Snack:

    Juicy watermelon!

    watermelon slices

    Dinner:

    Baked fries and lots of caesar salad.

    Baked fries and Caesar Salad

    Thanks so much for reading along! If you too are a mom or currently pregnant, I'd love to know your experience with food aversions during pregnancy!

    Also, thanks Jenn, Laura and Arman for the link-up.

    More Pregnancy

    • An Overdue Pregnancy Announcement! 1st and 2nd Trimester Recap
    • Harper's 15 Month Update
    • a baby held by mother
      6 Months with Harper
    • 6 Weeks Postpartum + Harper Update


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    Comments

    1. Erin Broster says

      August 18, 2017 at 10:50 am

      Congrats cousin! I recently went plant based and was hoping you could share the caesar salad recipe 🙂 Hope all is well! Miss you guys!

      Reply
      • Faith says

        August 18, 2017 at 5:12 pm

        Thanks Erin!! It's still so surreal but we're excited. And definitely! I actually want to post it on my blog this week. But so you don't have to wait until then I'll e-mail it to you!

        Reply
    2. Emily Swanson says

      August 09, 2017 at 7:22 pm

      It's so amazing to me how the woman's body changes during pregnancy. I've never experienced that where I had a significant aversion to certain foods that I normally love. I'm so glad your body is back to this place where you're enjoying those plant foods, but I'm also really loving how much you embraced intuitive eating and you're learning to trust God in the process.

      Reply
      • Faith says

        August 09, 2017 at 10:48 pm

        It's seriously something I've never experienced before (obviously!), but I too am also in awe of how our hormones and bodies change to support life. What an amazing gift! I'm so glad I chilled out a bit during the first trimester and that my suspicious were correct that having food aversions would just be a phase. I'm so glad to be "back" to my usual self:)

        Reply
    3. Alyssa says

      August 09, 2017 at 6:42 pm

      I only ate white foods for a solid 2-3 weeks in the middle of the first trimester... white potatoes, white GF bread, white rice, etc. In fact one day I subsisted entirely on potatoes! But in the 2nd trimester I settled back to most of my usual foods. A few however I still haven't eaten again and my son will be 5 months old soon 😛 Sunflower butter is the biggest!

      Reply
      • Faith says

        August 09, 2017 at 10:46 pm

        That's so common it seems Alyssa! I'm glad you could eat your usual foods not much late. So interesting about the sunflower butter, cause that's one food that doesn't sound great to me either. And I've been loving photos of your little man on instagram. He's such a cutie! Congratulations!

        Reply
    4. Patricia @Sweet and Strong says

      August 09, 2017 at 11:56 am

      I've had several friends say they couldn't stomach veggies during the first trimester, so crazy! But glad you're feeling back to your usual self. How to you make your fries? Those look Amazing!!!

      Reply
      • Faith says

        August 09, 2017 at 10:45 pm

        It was so weird to have food aversions, but yes, I'm so glad I'm back to liking veggies again. The fries are so easy. I just wash and cut potatoes into wedges. Then I place them into a bowl and sprinkle on a bunch of spices. Then I shake the bowl and flip the potatoes around to get them all coated in the spices (I don't use any oil). Then I place the wedges on a metal/wire baking rack (not a baking sheet) so that they aren't touching and place them in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, moving the rack from the top of the oven to the bottom of the oven after the first 20 minutes. You should try it! They're so easy and filling:)

        Reply

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