Fad Diets and Pregnancy

So, I haven’t written in a few days, but a lot has happened. First things though, Office-Girl-Who-Sits-Next To-Me-Doing-South Beach Diet comes into work about 4 days after my 2nd post and goes “I’m off that diet. Who wants to live without carbs, I’d rather eat pasta.” My point exactly. Deprivation often leads to excessive eating of the very food we have deprived ourselves of. There are so many of us that do this. As if our suffering factor goes up, we will be bound to lose the weight. This morning she came into work and said, she’s back on track – calorie counting – she wondered if I knew how much a KFC Zinger Works Burger was – there’s just no helping some people. Calorie counting is the best way to lose weight, but you need to make sure you eat the right food groups and in the right quantity. A strict calorie controlled diet that is, say, high in carbohydrates and high in fat, may ensure eventual weight loss, but because there is no balance amongst the food groups, you will not end up feeling as full for long, develop potential water retention, have dangerously varying blood sugar levels. Balance is key.

The other major thing that has happened is that on Friday 15 May I weighed myself (like I do most weeks or fortnights) and I was 54.2kg, so it appears that I have gained about 1.2kgs. In addition to this key fact, I did a pregnancy test. It appears I’m also 6 weeks pregnant! This is great news, a surprise but a good one nonetheless. So as soon as I found this out, guess what I ‘googled’? “Pregnancy exercises’. The literature supports activities that do not require too much bouncing or ‘up and down’ activities. Normally I combine my elliptical trainer workout with skipping, so I ‘skipped’ the skipping and instead increased my arm weights and today I began a series of squats and butt lifts. This is the only modification I have made so far. Normally I do 20 minutes at 5:30am and then 30 minutes in the afternoon. After about 12 minutes this morning, I felt a slight cramp, so I cut the workout short. Apparently if it starts to feel uncomfortable – stop. It certainly explains the amount of food I’ve been eating in the past couple of weeks. However, today I am back on track. I had my usual Weetbix and Soy Milk, 2 mandarins, 1 banana, and some sweet slices for morning tea. I also ate a Chupa Chup lollipop. When I got home, my Mum had sent some chevda (this is an Indian savoury snack), so I had 1 cup of Indian tea with a rather generous serving of chevda. Then for dinner I had some rice, curried lamb, curried yoghurt and ¼ potato sakh and ½ an apple. And that’s pretty much it. I only had 2 cups of tea today. I am put off it at the moment.

The other thing I am going to do (from tomorrow) is to begin using this gadget that you keep on your body and it calculates the number of calories you burn. I will see how this goes. I have decided that I really cannot do much about the tummy factor at the moment, but I may as well use this preggy time to concentrate on keeping my arms and butt toned – safely. I might also take pregnancy vitamin supplements. Last time I had Elevit and I found they were great for my energy levels. So the next few months are going to be definite interesting ones.