Big news and big changes

Well, it’s finally happened. I’m pregnant! It’s very exciting even though I’m trying to be only cautiously optimistic. It is still early (week 5 or 6) and who knows what will happen — I’m going to stay cautious until I get into the second trimester. Normally I wouldn’t announce it here, except of course there are some big changes in my life that I want to record.

First, I have started eating according to the pregnancy Daily Dozen recommended in the occasionally annoying and paranoid but super helpful What To Expect When You’re Expecting book. Since I am already overweight, I am ignoring the first of these dozen, which is to eat 300-350 extra calories per day. This simply doesn’t apply as strictly if you’re overweight, and my highest goal is to lose some weight as I progress, as I eat healthier and exercise and my body sheds what it doesn’t need. But don’t worry, I am still eating a lot! And I am eating super healthy foods. And (get this), so far I’m losing weight. Crazy, right? I’m sure it won’t be this easy the whole time, but at least I’m getting a healthy jump on things.

My sister gave me the What To Expect Pregnancy Journal & Organizer to go with my book, and though at first I thought it would be overkill, it’s turning out to be really helpful. There is a food tracker where you tick off which foods you’ve eaten. The Daily Dozen is not necessarily intuitive, as many foods count in multiple categories, so I actually sat down and made myself a little spreadsheet showing all the foods and serving sizes. It’s now on my fridge, for easy reference while I’m cooking or packing lunches, and I keep the journal on the counter so I can tick things off as I go. (I’m happy to send the spreadsheet to anyone if you want it, I just can’t figure out a way to upload it and make it legible.) The categories I’m supposed to eat daily are: protein (3), calcium foods (4), vitamin C foods (3), green leafy/yellows (3-4), other fruits & veggies (1-2), whole grains & legumes (6+), iron rich foods (some daily), fat (4), salt, fluids (8+), and of course the prenatal vitamin.

Since I’m still not eating sugar (and not missing it, dudes!), this is what a typical day’s food looks like for me:

Breakfast:

2-3 eggbeaters in an omelette with spinach, tomatoes and cheese, with one piece of rye toast with margarine. Some apple left over from making my lunch, and a mug of milk.

Lunch:

This is my wonderful Laptop Lunchbox filled with quinoa, carrots, yogurt dip, tomatoes, almonds and some cheese.

Snacks: Typically some fruit, lately clementines or apples, or a cheese stick.

Dinner: Some kind of light protein with whole grains and green leafy vegetables. As I recently announced to my husband, “We’re going to need to get used to have Kale and Spinach in the house at all times.”

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The journal is also configured to track exercise, but it’s in a separate section from the food, which I find counterintuitive. The exercise section does have a nice table so you can say what you did and how you felt afterward, but I don’t think I’m interested in that. So I’ve been penciling in an Exercise line beneath each week’s tracking table so I can write in the minutes. It works for me! But tracking exercise is only fun because I have finally solved my hate-to-go-out-in-the-cold exercise aversion! My wonderful brother has loaned me this contraption that turns my bike into a stationary bicycle! This thing is pretty cool. It pushes resistance on the back wheel to give you something to push against, and it’s a compact enough set-up that we are leaving it in the living room. Yesterday I hopped on for the first time and biked for 20 minutes. I forgot that it takes me a while to get used to how the bicycle seat feels, so I’ll have to build stamina for longer workouts. My goal is to get 30 minutes each day, and as it gets warmer outside this spring I can also take walks in the evenings.

So that’s where I’m at. Oh! One more picture for you. I recently checked out my Physics Diet stats to get a historical feel for where I am as I start pregnancy, and here it is:

Weight since May 2008

While I’m not at a historic low, I sure am close! I took a long hiatus from tracking on PhysicsDiet, but I’m committed to checking in about once a week to keep track of how my pregnancy progresses. Mostly I’m just happy to see here that in less than a year I’ve managed to lose around 10 pounds, even if many of them have been gained-then-lost-again along the way.