… throw in everything but the kitchen sink to make a salad. Or a tortilla wrap. In this case, I made a salad. (The wrap idea was hindsight while I was writing this.)
There are times when pregnant that hunger hits you or with GD it’s time to eat and you’ve got nothing. Whether you didn’t prepare (mama, I get it and no judgement here) or the husband took the leftovers you’d been planning to eat to work or the older kids were DYING of hunger and ate your leftovers (wait what? super mama has to eat, too?). All three have happened to me. Leaving super mama hungry, desperate, and feeling not so super.
Fear not hungry mama. Scrounge up what you’ve got. In this case, our fridge held salad, hard boiled eggs, bacon, green onion, and cheese. That’s a pretty good salad right there, I’d say. So that’s what I had for dinner. You could add ham, turkey, ground beef, chicken, canned tuna, frozen (and cooked) shrimp, etc. for your protein. You could add red onion, mushrooms, avocado, olives, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, bell pepper, or cucumber for no carb vegetables. You could add slices of a small orange or a serving size of berries (check carb count depending on the berries) for your fruit carb. Beans (black, navy, kidney, chickpeas) or whole grain pasta would be good starchy carbs to add to the salad.
On the side, have a glass of milk for another carb. If you were like me and had no carbs in the salad, that’s ok. Add a piece of fruit such as an apple for carb #2, and a piece of buttered toast (whole grain of course) for carb #3 and you’re set. Or if you can’t do bread, have some carrot (or celery or bell pepper) sticks and hummus for carb #3.
Just be careful of those salad dressings — be sure to check the label. If you only have sugary dressings, use salt, pepper, olive or avocado oil and balsamic vinegar if you have it. If you don’t have those, use the dressing but sparingly and promise yourself to buy some no sugar/carb free dressing ASAP.
It may seem obvious to do this, but I’ve been there. The timer says it’s time to eat based on GD dieting, but being pregnant and hungry with nothing to eat in the refrigerator, the minor dilemma seems like the end of the world. I keep it real on this blog and I won’t lie — I had some emotional breakdowns. Don’t judge. Pregnancy brain is real and pregnancy emotions are no joke. It wasn’t until after having my kids and becoming clear headed again that I’d look back and think, “Why on earth did I not…?” (Fill in the blank.) So in preparation for my second pregnancy, I began writing meal ideas down, including the obvious solution of everything but the kitchen-sink salad.
Then I thought to myself, someone else may be struggling with this, too. Hence this blog was born.
My GD 