LOVE/HATE

Only in pregnancy can a person have a true love/hate relationship with food. Those of you who have carried a baby in your tummy know exactly what I’m talking about. For those of you who have yet to enter into motherhood, or who are male, let me elaborate a bit for you.

When you are pregnant, you are in the process of creating a new human being on the earth. This new mass/matter does not come without other new mass entering into the woman’s body (i.e. food). It’s the first law of thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So, basically in order for a baby to grow, you need to create tissues. In order to create tissue, you have to EAT mountains worth of food. Well, not really mountains, but sometimes it sure feels like it.

So what does the body do? It makes you eat. It makes you eat, by making it extremely painful for you not to eat. Do you know why? Well, because if our bodies didn’t have some sort of mechanism by which to make us (or in other words remind us) to eat, then we’d just go about our busy little days and never nourish ourselves. How many of you, in your rush to get the morning started have ever skipped breakfast? Exactly. But the thing is, when you’re pregnant, this type of behavior goes out the window. If you do not eat, you will experience horrible, horrible consequences.

So that’s the Love part, believe it or not. You live for food. You live to find the next morsel of something you can tolerate so that you can pop it into your mouth and savor it. Food begins to sum up your existence on this earth.

But what about when you’re hungry (and sick as a result of the hunger) but can’t find anything, absolutely NOTHING, within reach that you can eat? Or better yet, what if you simply CAN’T eat?

Again, let me clarify. Sometimes when you’re pregnant, you get that familiar tug in your tummy that reminds you that you’d better get some food (and quick!) or else. But, because we are those busy little bees, we don’t always do what we’re told. Sometimes, we push it back a tad longer. And then what happens? Well for me, it’s morning sickness (as if I didn’t have enough already!). Scientifically, when you are pregnant, certain hormones (namely progesterone) are present in abundance so that the uterus can remain strong and the lining of it can remain thick enough to keep the baby safe. As a result of this, it also creates an excess of stomach acid which in turn causes more morning sickness (a very queasy, nauseous feeling for me). (There is also another theory regarding HcG, but we’ll save that for another day, shall we?). So when you feel morning sickness, sometimes it makes it impossible to eat at all. And other times, because of your body’s needs, you might be craving the one thing on the earth that you can’t find or just can’t have.
For me, it’s tuna. I looooove tuna when I’m pregnant. But, with tuna being a rather large fish, it also has an abundance of mercury (Hg) in it so it is not recommended to eat more than 8 or so ounces a week. I could down that in one sitting right now.

So that’s the hate part. You live to eat, but sometimes you just can’t. Which means that food further runs your life and now you’re a slave.

Okay….done with that lecture. Now on to cravings…..(I could so write a book).