Meagan Jumps In

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be joining your challenge. Mine will be a little bit different since I am 21 weeks pregnant, but staying on track during the pregnancy should help me with the challenge after. I'm grateful that you are all letting me be a part of this blog because I am really challenging myself this pregnancy to gain only the weight I need, instead of eating whatever I feel like and hoping it will go away after.

With my first pregnancy I gained roughly 50-55 pounds. The last 10 or so pounds was water retention, but still that's more weight than I needed to gain. I desperately want to avoid that with this pregnancy and I think that writing down what I eat on a daily basis (plus the calories that go along with what I eat) will help me pay better attention to how much I am eating, as well as how healthy I am eating.

I should probably admit that I have very little self control when it comes to food. My best bet to stay away from sweets is to not have them anywhere near me. For this reason one of my goals this year was to not eat candy. I went for 3 weeks without candy which was the longest I have ever been. Then Valentine's day rolled around and I simply couldn't resist those yummy conversation hearts. I am doing much better since March began and so far this week I have not had any candy!

My total weight gain goal is 25 pounds. Honestly, I would be pleased as punch if I could stay under 30 pounds, but 25 is the actual goal. I am in the process of eliminating all white flour from my diet. The only white flour that I will allow myself to eat is desserts, and I want to limit those as much as I possibly can. Unfortunately I haven't found many dessert recipes that don't use white flour, so I need to do some research before I can completely eliminate white flour - I just don't want to completely give up dessert. As a family we mostly eat what is called a "Real Food" diet. Check out this website for what "Real Food" actually is. The basics of it is that you don't eat any preservatives or processed foods. We mostly follow this except for some things like condiments and desserts. I figure all things in moderation right?

Sorry this blog post is so all over the place. I guess I have a lot of thoughts about weight gain during pregnancy. We are headed to Hawaii on Friday so I think I will "officially" begin my contributions to this blog when we return. However, I am definitely not going to splurge while we are gone. I will still be watching what I eat while on vacation, but I want to enjoy myself as well. Hopefully I will come back having gained no more than a couple of pounds. We will be hiking quite a bit so maybe I'll get lucky and come out even! Good luck to you all this week and next week!