Anti-Inflammatory Diet | At The Start

The last month or so I have alluded to this vague diet change I have embarked on. At our 12 week appointment one of our midwives suggested that I start following an Anti-inflammatory diet. The suggestion came as a way to help keep my blood pressure and blood sugars at a good level to allow for birthing at their birth center. The word "diet" was followed by no dairy, no flour, no etc. My eyes kinda glazed over. To be honest, I freaked out a little but with Berkeley's help, I jumped right in to this change that very day.

The next week, I got lost down the internet rabbit hole trying to research this new diet and only getting contradicting advice. What I found out that is that there is no specific diet. There is a general guideline that you cut out any foods that cause inflammation with the standard of starting with cutting gluten and excess sugars, and adding a ton of veggies. This "standard", with some input from others, was the basis for my diet change. I am currently five weeks in and my current guidelines for my diet are: as little gluten as possible, no excess sugars, whole grains, whole fat natural dairy products, using unsweetened almond milk instead of cow's milk, hormone free grass fed meats, and adding high quality vegetables with every meal. I have been diligently reading labels as well to make sure nothing I consume has High Fructose Corn Syrup. The most important things for my success have been cutting out cow milk, all the excess sugars, and low quality, unhealthy fats.

On the surface, this makes it look as easy as swapping this for that. To be honest, if this were just to get me to lose weight, not aiding in a healthy pregnancy, I probably would have quit after the first few days. It is hard to make the switch. Detoxing from the crap and chemicals left me feeling horrible. We were traveling at the time and I spent a good 6 hours in our hotel room with a migraine. It sucked but it has been worth it. Once I cleared out a lot of the things I couldn't have at home, things were a lot smoother.

I am in no way a dietician or nutritionist and these are just the things that have worked well for me, but this has definitely been really beneficial. I will also say that being pregnant has its own difficulties and sometimes I really just need some frozen yogurt or a small glass of chocolate milk. Another thing that had added to my success with keeping up with this diet change so far is allowing myself the occasional cheat. the difference is I don't put ten million toppings on my yogurt and I only drink a 4oz glass of chocolate almond milk instead of the 12oz glass and those things don't happen in the same day or even the same week.

Like I said, this is only five weeks in with very many more weeks to come. I hope to continue to follow this diet as well as I have these first few weeks for the remaining 25 weeks of the pregnancy and even further. I think the next challenge will be sticking with it during the holidays and up at Snowbowl once our season starts. Also, I hope to share more of the "recipes" of what we have been eating on this new "diet".