Cravings, they can be powerful!

I was sitting on the sofa, flipping thru an old baby magazine, looking for an article I remember reading (I never found it) when I saw an article about pregnancy food cravings.  The article was simple, well written and full of sensible advice.  But when I saw the chart for "craving substitutes" I had to laugh out loud. 

Have you ever tried to convince a pregnant woman to eat something else besides what she wants to eat?  If you have, you are very brave! :-)  I will tell you this.  If someone had suggested to me (this was the exact suggestion in the magazine) that instead of eating my double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, that I should try a banana, milk and wheat germ smoothie ... oh man, I would have ripped your tongue out through your nose! 

If I wanted chocolate I ate chocolate, if I wanted veggies I ate veggies, etc.  The thing to try and remember is self control and portion size.  Also, as hard as it is, try to postpone feeding your cravings.  Give it a couple of days and see if you are still craving it 3 days later.  If so, go ahead and have it.  If not, no worries!  With my first pregnancy, I had a strong craving for fried chicken and brownies.  I resisted it as long as I could, but after a week I finally had to admit that this craving was just not going away and I fed that hungry beast! LOL

I experienced some other interesting food cravings and food adversions while I was prego with T man.  I found that I was unable to eat "gummy" foods.  I bought some gummy bunnies right after Easter but no matter how few I ate at a time I got "gummy tummy".  Even if I only ate 5 little gummies, I felt horrible for hours! =( I love gummy candy, so this was very disappointing.  No peach rings, no twizzlers, I couldn't even eat dried apples! *sigh*

For the past 20 (ish) years I have only eaten one kind of pizza.  Pepperoni and black olives.  That's it, nothing else.  I was ordering pizza one day while prego and thought "hmmm .... you know what sounds good?!?"  =) now my favorite pizza is pepperoni, Canadian bacon, normal bacon, pineapple and black olives.  Hey, don't judge me!  Top the whole thing with parmesan cheese and ranch dressing and I am one happy mommy =) 

Something weird I've always eaten but seemed to want more of while prego was cheese sandwiches.  But not just any old cheese sandwich. It had to be cut block cheese, not sliced cheese, made with sandwich spread (remember that stuff?) Sweet pickles, not dill and the most important ingredient?  Fritos corn chips.  Yep!  Crush those chips right on top of the cheese.  That is one helluva good sandwich! LOL 

Although I gained more weight during my pregnancy than I had wanted, (gee I wonder why!) I feel that I did pretty well in controlling most of my cravings, I tried to monitor what I ate and how much I ate.  Surely but surely I am on my way back to my pre pregnancy weight.  I'll let you know when I get there =)