24/02/2025
Early morning breakfasts have become one of my favourite rituals throughout this pregnancy…
…it’s definitely a first to wake up hungry at 4am (luckily only a handful of times!) but the practice of nourishing my body and the baby has led me - through instincts, cravings and some research - to pay closer attention not only to what I eat, but also how and why.
After the nausea of the first (and partly second) trimester, I’ve been lucky to have really quite a smooth journey. I can thank nutrition, movement and getting enough sleep for this, but even on days when I’m less active or have woken up wide-eyed way before the sun, I feel how much the right food has helped to keep me going. And after wearing a continuous glucose monitor in my seventh month, I also saw evidence that supported what I could intuitively feel.
Here are my top takeaways from the past nine months:
🍳🥦 starting the day savoury - thanks to the insights of I’ve been eating a savoury breakfast for over a year now and notice how much steadier my energy is throughout the first half of the day
🥚 eating eggs! On the sometimes controversial topic of runny vs hard-boiled, and both have resources on the nutritional benefits of eggs, along with research demystifying the common thought to avoid all runny eggs
🌿 making friends with fibre - adding veggies to every meal or carrying around high-fibre snacks like whole nuts has been one way to maintain healthy digestion and avoid any hangry moments… (so many in first trimester, yikes!)
☄️ understanding food as fuel - wherever possible, changing my relationship with food for the better - aiming to eat the rainbow (colourful high-iron foods), all kinds of good fats and all food groups and flavours to nourish this tiny human inside (who develops tastes even in the womb)
🍋 getting curious about cravings - using these as signals for what might be low/lacking. For me it was meat (after 10 years without!) and lots of lime/lemon/grapefruit 😄
🥰 (re)discovering the joy of cooking - trying out all kinds of new recipes while I have the energy and time, knowing I’ll be in bed for plenty of the post-partum time
