Daily Eats: Eating Intuitively in Early Pregnancy

Whether you are pregnant or not, this post has great and yummy food ideas and teaches you about intuitive eating. I hope you enjoy!

If you’re pregnant and are early on in your first trimester, this post is just unfair. I started documenting what I ate this week to show you just how different my eats looked, and on that day, I started craving vegetables. WHAT.

Early early on – when you’re still feeling the nausea – you might not even be reading this post because the thought of food makes you nauseous. Seriously. I was like please don’t talk to me about food.

I knew it was bad when the words “Trader Joe’s” made me want to vomit. (They still do – don’t talk to me about “T.J.”)

That said, early pregnancy taught me a lot about just how important and helpful (relaxing, calming, relieving – all the things!) eating intuitively was.

My food choices looked different most days. I mostly wanted to order food out, because cooking was hard. I could rarely eat the same thing twice. Meaning, I’d crave a burrito, have it once and never want it again.

I must have covered every takeout place that I love over a period of 4 weeks. Ha!

ALL said… it was 100% okay to just listen. I didn’t have to try and get in anything specific. There were a few times where a smoothie or salad sounded good (actually, smoothies and fruit have stayed appealing) and when they did, I ate them. Otherwise it was whatever sounded good.

Now, at 12 weeks, I’ve started feeling like myself again (thank you Lord!). It’s hard to not feel like yourself for months! If you’re feeling this way, I get it!

Before we dive in… I want to preface this post by saying that this post is NOT for comparison – to compare your eats to mine. Rather, these posts have always been and will always be about inspiration.

Inspiration surrounding: new ideas around food; freedom with food; and trusting that YOU can listen to YOUR body and what feels good for you, as I listen to mine and do what feels right for me.

If these posts are triggering for you in any way, please dive into these posts instead.

Wednesday

I cannot remember what I had for breakfast Wednesday morning for the life of me. Probably a bowl of cereal (see brand below – love it!) or an egg on a piece of toast, sandwich style. That’s been my jam lately.

But what I do remember (thank you photos!) is that after breakfast I went for a walk with my friend Jess and her sweet little babe, Magnolia. We’ve been walking together most days through the week. Our new neighborhood (oh yea, we found a house while I was on my social media break too – renting, will share more!) has loads of hills and it’s felt so good to walk each morning, get fresh air, and find a way to gently maintain muscle.

When I got home, I was hungry. This is always the case after our several mile walk (by the way, I’ve now switched to mostly walking and less running – I’ll do little spurts of running when it feels good, but that’s it).

For an early lunch I made a sandwich on a french roll with rotisserie chicken (yum, and so nice to not have to cook it!), mayo, mustard, cucumber, tomato, shredded lettuce, avocado, and pickle (plus salt, pepper, and oregano). Sooo good and totally hit the spot.

(Current thought: ooo, I hope we have another french roll left, I want this today!)

After an early lunch I shot up to my office and worked for a couple of hours. It has been so nice to feel creative and productive again. To want to consume things – I had a repulsive feeling early on toward any consumption. Reading, listening, digesting. It was like… nooo. Nothing in! (Weird, huh?!)

A couple hours into working I was hungry for a snack. So I went downstairs, cut up some carrots and cucumber and paired them with hummus and ranch (both flavors sounded so good).

I brought this plate back up to my office and slowly savored it while I continued my work. (Mostly writing, brainstorming, and setting up new clients – if you saw, September is the last time I’m accepting six-month clients for 2020! Book now if you’d like a space, I’d love to meet you! Don’t wait until spaces are full!)

Mid-afternoon I knew I was going to take a work break and make soup. I was excited for this. I’ve been craving a veggie soup lately. I used the advice for cooking of mise en place. (I have no idea if I said that sentence correctly!) But basically, I got out all ingredients, chopped, measured, etc… before I even got the pot out. It made cooking so nice and enjoyable. Seamless! I will continue to cook this way. More dishes, yes, but you’re able to do them as things are cooking and it’s much easier than trying to play catch up with chopping/measuring while something is cooking (that feels chaotic).

While I was cooking the soup, I got hungry. So I pulled out some leftover chicken enchiladas I’d made this week and ate that small half piece. Generally, if a client of mine is struggling with eating while cooking, what is happening is they’re so hungry as they’re cooking that they snack on everything they’re cooking with until they because full and spoil their dinner appetite. So, when eating while cooking, I eat with the awareness of “I’m just having a few bites to take the edge off, calmly. Then I’ll put this away and enjoy the meal when it’s ready.” This helps me feel calm, honor my hunger, and still enjoy supper. (If you need, you can always put the food in a dish to set yourself up for success.)

If you’re looking for a good soup recipe (veggie soup) this one from Hummusapien is so good. She calls it her “Yummiest Vegetable Soup.” I talked with Alexis and she said this is her #1 recipe.

I had the soup with avocado on top (love avocado with soup!) and sourdough on the side. I toasted the sourdough in the toaster oven with a little bit of olive oil, garlic powder, sea salt, and a dash of oregano. Yum!

Thursday

Thursday morning I woke up and had a bowl of cereal first thing. So first thing in fact that I forgot to take a photo. This is my current favorite! This with whole milk, or “Heritage Flakes” with honey added to it (same company). SO yum first thing in the morning.

After breakfast I worked for an hour and then went for my daily walk with Abby and our friend Jess and her daughter (been LOVING these walks to start the day!). When I got home, I was so hungry. Three plus miles will kick up an appetite! I made caesar salad and heated up leftover enchiladas (so good). If anyone wants this enchilada recipe, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it. Because YUM.

After lunch, I showered and got to work. Thursday and Friday are FULL client days this week (which I love!). In between clients I had this soup (same “Yummiest Vegetable Soup” that I linked to in Wednesdays eats) with a slice of toast and butter. Mmm-mmm good!

Before my last client of the day I was again, hunnnnngry! I had literally 90 seconds to eat and I laughed because I just had a client say to me this week “I want to know how to eat intuitively in moments where I only have 90 seconds to eat.” Ha! This is how you do it. Open fridge, “What looks good?” “That looks good!” Grab, have a couple of bites, go on your way knowing that soon, you can have a full meal. That was just a get me through and take the edge off snack. Did it’s job.

For dinner, I had one of these ramen bowls that Marco picked up at Costco and OH MY did it hit the spot! So good!

I enjoyed this bowl while working on my financial coaching services page (getting that up this month – can’t wait!) and holy moly was it good. Since I was working while eating I made sure to eat slowly and to look at my food when I took a bite. I fully savored each bite that I did take and loved this meal. I loved it so much that at my last bite I was fully convinced that I should make another bowl. I stood up and thought “Eh, you might be more full than you think. Give it 15 minutes and if you still feel like another, you can have it.” As it often goes, 15 minutes later I was full and carried on about my evening.

Around 9:30 I was laying in bed, wide awake, stomach growling. I thought to myself “If I want to sleep I need to go put a little something in my stomach.” So, a bowl of cereal it was, and then I dosed off like a baby.

I hope you all enjoyed this daily eats post. I’m so excited to be sharing eats with you again. So excited in fact that I think the decision is made: I’ll do another post next week, because this was fun!

Have a great week, and remember… if you’re interested in getting coaching around becoming an intuitive eater (you’ll thank yourself forever!) now is the time to book your free call with me to see if coaching is something you’d like to do 🙂 It’s the last time I’m accepting six-month clients until likely June 2021.