Breaded Shrimp Bowls & Sour Gummy Worms
At first I did not think that pregnancy cravings would be a topic of a solo blog post, but then I started to really think about my experience with food this past year and figured it was worth it to share. I have always thought you get pregnant and immediately crave pickles. Every pregnant person in every movie from the beginning of time craved pickles. I already love them, but they never really jumped out to me the way carbs did. Whenever anyone would ask what I was craving I would say nothing in particular, but in reality I was eating more refined carbohydrates than I ever ate in my entire life.
To back it up, pre pregnancy I was prettttyyyyy good at being paleo. I say “prettttyyyyy good” because if I went out to a restaurant or ate at a friends house or even had people over, I wouldn’t restrict myself. You know what goes great with all of the red wine I drink, cheese. I thought that during pregnancy and after their birth I would be a health queen. Filling my bod with only the most organic and clean foods to nourish their tiny little glitter speck souls and and they would come out with immune systems of the gods and baby six packs. Kidding, but in all seriousness, I saw how the paleo life really helped heal my gut and I thought this was the best thing for them. My body had other things in mind.
I was tiny when I got pregnant so I would assume my body was like umm hello we need to grow two humans so please give us more fuel. every. single. day. I ate oatmeal, bagels, English muffins, cereal, pasta, anything I could get my hands on that had wheat or flour as a main ingredient. That craving stayed with me (and still has stayed with me) through my entire pregnancy and postpartum life breastfeeding.
Salmon was on my top 5 list of things that I would never eat pre babies. I am unsure if it was the smell, taste or a combination of the two, but it made dating an Alaskan a challenge. It was almost a deal breaker, kidding… I knew it was so healthy for me and I wanted to like it, but every time I tried it grossed me out. Well, once I lost my sense of smell and I decided what better time to try it. A bonus was that the twins godfather has a fishing company up in Alaska and sent us a whole box of goods. Shameless plug for Alaskan Seafood Co. I took one bite and have been hooked on salmon ever since. I think carrying two half-alaskans had something to do with it, but interested to hear if there is any real science behind that huge shift.
Now the best craving of all was the one that was the most intuitive to me. I always thought the babies were a boy and a girl. With Baby B health scares it sort of stuck out to me that she would be a girl and then I just felt like I was having at least one boy so that left Baby A. Tanner was convinced we were having two girls because a friend in college told him he would have twin girls. We would have been so happy with twin girls, but as you can imagine he said this as more of a curse not a blessing. Anyway, one day I was laying in bed and had this insane urge for one breaded shrimp taco from Chronic Taco and sour gummy worms. Not just any sour gummy worms, they had to be the Trolli brand that came in the black bag. I literally went onto Postmates and set to get them ordered. Right then I thought, Baby A is craving the shrimp tacos, Baby B wants candy so it must be a boy and a girl. Who knows if that was a random coincidence or some sort of premonition, but I did get my boy and girl.
Now fast forward to postpartum pumping life. I am producing so much milk and have been so fortunate in that, but that comes at a huge caloric cost. I was back to my pre pregnancy weight within two months and actually fell under my normal weight because pumping burns about as many calories as running 5 miles a day. I now crave the same carbs: English muffins, waffles, bagels, burritos, pasta, chips, etc. I also crave sweets. I have NEVER had a sweet tooth in my life. I would rather have a bag of ruffles than a piece of cake at a birthday, but now my sugar intake has been at an all time high. Nobody really talks about postpartum cravings, but they are real and they are unkind. This is my note to myself to eat more Alaskan Salmon and less Australian Red Licorice.
*For the, maybe, three people that read this blog: this is not medical advice in any way, just my experience. Talk to you doctors about what is best for you and your babes.
