Pregnancy Food Diary: Twenty Eight Weeks + Supplements

Oops....this was supposed to be posted on Monday, like every edition of my Pregnancy Food Diary. Sometimes life happens. And that's ok. :)

Third Trimester, baby! It sort of feels crazy that it's here already, but it also feels crazy that it didn't come sooner. I'm feeling so large already! I think baby's been having a growth spurt, because I've been starving!

Here's what I ate last Thursday.

Breakfast: baked oatmeal with butter and milk, hard boiled egg, decaf coffee with cream
Snack: a banana (in the car while shopping)
Lunch: leftover Best Darn Lentils, roast beef (cooked by my wonderful mother-in-law and left here after they visited...thanks!) in a corn tortilla with cheese, salsa, sour cream, and avocado
Snack: Plain yogurt with blueberries and honey
Dinner: slow-cooked Ziti, big salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, feta cheese, toasted almonds, and dried cherries
Snack: 2 pieces of freshly baked Honey Oatmeal Bread with lots of butter. :)

Servings (recommended amount is in parentheses): 

Protein: 3.5 (4)

Eggs: 1.5 (2)

Dairy: 3 (4) 

Butter: 3 (3)
Whole Grains: 4 (2)
Refined Grains: 0 (0)
Veggies: 2 (3-4)
Greens: 1 (2)

Fruit: 1 (1)
Citrus: 0 (1)

Probiotic Foods: 3 (4)

I fell short in almost every food group. (Except grains and butter!) But amazingly, I felt great! I think it's because I ate often and I ate enough.  

Now, as promised long ago, these are the supplements I take when I'm pregnant.

1. New Chapter Perfect Prenatal
I like the idea of getting all my nutrients from food, but I also know that just because I'm eating well doesn't mean I'm necessarily getting everything I need. A whole food vitamin seems to be a good compromise. New Chapter's prenatal vitamin is also pro-biotic, which leads me to believe that my body is absorbing more of what I'm taking in. Also, since it's food based, it can be taken on an empty stomach and won't make you queazy. These vitamins are a little pricey, but I love knowing that my body can actually use the nutrients! You can save money by using Subscribe & Save on amazon.com.

2. Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil 
You can read more about our experiences with this super food here. It is the number one recommended supplement by the Weston A. Price foundation. (Who are they?) It provides fat soluble vitamins A and D and important fatty acids. I usually take it in painless capsule form right now, though once in a while I brave the fishy taste and take the liquid (only because it's cheaper, and you have to take a LOT of capsules to get the same amount you'd be taking of the liquid).


3. Pregnancy Tea
A couple weeks ago I posted my recipe for Pregnancy Tea, which tones the uterus and helps support your growing blood supply. I'm coming down with a cold right now, and my midwife recommended adding honey and lemon to the tea to soothe my throat. It adds flavor and feels great!

4. Elderberry Syrup
I take this off and on through the winter months - pregnant or not - to boost my immune system. I'm taking extra right now to help fight this bug. 

5. Vitamin C and Echinacea
Earlier this pregnancy I had a cold that just wouldn't go away. My midwife recommended taking vitamin C and Echinacea, and sure enough, that kicked it. The immune system has to work harder during pregnancy,  and these two supplements give it a little boost. I take the vitamin C capsules whenever I think I may have been exposed to something (which is often, since I teach dance and am around kids with sniffly noses all the time), and I take the echinacea only when I start to feel something coming on. You are not supposed to take echinacea for more than two weeks at a time, because it becomes ineffective.


6. Magnesium Oil
I've recently starting using magnesium oil, at the recommendation of Anne Marie of cheeseslave.com. I'm hoping this will help with the muscle cramps and aches I've been getting occasionally, as well as help relieve stress. It's quite frugal when you make your own using magnesium flakes.


Update! I almost forgot!
7. Floradix Iron + Herbs
I've been taking this on and off this pregnancy, and I do find that when I take it consistently I have more energy. I did not have my iron levels tested this pregnancy, but I have been low in the past, and I'd much rather take this easily-absorbed, food-based supplement than those nasty iron pills! It is pricey, but it is hard for me to get enough iron from food and since it makes me feel better, it's worth it!


What supplements do you take while you're pregnant?

This is part of Fight Back Friday.

Our Adventures with Cod Liver Oil

A year or so ago I ordered some chocolate cream cod liver oil that was on clearance. I took it three times, and it has been staring at me from the door of my refrigerator ever since. Now I know why it was on clearance.

It was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted. Except for the time a lady bug landed on my water glass in the middle of the night and I woke up thirsty and took a swig in the dark. Texture: a bit like a half-popped popcorn kernel. Taste: indescribably nasty. Still makes me shudder to think of it.

The cod liver oil was nasty in a different way, not quite so bad as an evil lady bug. Just the most extreme fishy flavor you can imagine mixed with...of all things...chocolate. What was I thinking!?

I was thinking this: the benefits of taking this stuff are unmistakable. The Weston Price Foundation can tell you all about the benefits of cod liver oil in this article, but I'll name just a few. It has been known to help reverse and prevent: heart disease, cancer, depression, bone loss, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, allergies, and learning disabilities (among many other things)! The only downsides are cost and taste. I did not want to let those things stop me. I thought I could get over the cost ($44 a bottle) by buying it on clearance. Bad idea.

But, wait a sec, Joanna, why don't you just buy the cheap stuff that comes in capsule form at the grocery store?

Because not all cod liver oils are the same! Most are heated to super high temps, stripped of their natural vitamins, and have synthetic vitamins added back in. Yuck! But there is one company, Green Pasture Products, that extracts their cod liver oil using time tested fermentation. This results in a much more nutritious supplement!

I don't know about you but I'm willing to pay a little more if it means a better product that my body can actually use. And let's think about this: $44 a month, 118 servings per bottle. That means one bottle lasts almost four months for one person taking it daily. So we're paying only $11 per month! I can never remember to take it every day, so for us it lasts even longer.

OK so even if you don't buy a nasty clearance flavor, I think we can say that $11 is not a rip off. I can handle that. But it doesn't do any good to have a bottle of fermented cod liver oil in your fridge if you never take it! So how DO you get over the nasty taste?

The easy answer is to buy the capsules. The problem: they are a bit more expensive. 60 servings per bottle, and the bottle costs $30. So more like $15 a month. Not that bad, but if you've got the same frugal mindset that I have, you might think it's worth it to take the liquid. In our house, Caedmon and I take the liquid and Steven takes the capsules. It's a good compromise for us.

So, how to take the liquid? Well, here is what I do.

1. Measure the dosage of FCLO into a medicine cup/shot glass.

2. Add about a teaspoon of homemade elderberry syrup.

3. Get a glass of juice or other strongly flavored beverage ready.

4. Take the shot, chase with juice. Keep sipping til you can't taste fish.

5. Wash all utensils immediately to avoid making your whole kitchen smell nasty.

Now you can do this without the elderberry syrup, but we were taking that daily for our immune systems this winter anyway, and it really does help mellow the taste of nasty fishiness.

The FCLO liquid comes with a syringe to measure the dosage, and you can just shoot this into the back of your throat if that works for you. I prefer the shot glass method.

Now, what kind to buy? The chocolate cream I ordered is a gel, which really only lends itself to being taken right from the spoon. Gross. Currently I am taking the unflavored liquid, which enables me to mix it with the elderberry syrup. There are a few flavors, too, but really, if you can't disguise the fish, why bother trying?

They also have combination butter oil/cod liver oil liquid and capsules. Why? Because Dr. Price found that the two have a synergistic relationship and each makes the other more effective! I figure with all the grass-fed butter we eat, we're probably getting enough of this healthy fat in our diet.

So go get yourself some Cod Liver Oil - your body will thank you! One of these days I might have the strength to finish off the chocolate cream.

More info? You can find another helpful post on the subject here.

Also, have you heard that cod liver oil is dangerous because of possible vitamin A overdose? Read this for some clarifications.

Do you take cod liver oil? Why or why not?

What We Do When We're Sick

Well I'm back after a week-long hiatus. I came down with a cold a week ago and haven't had the energy for anything extra.

But today I'm feeling great, minus the residual junky sounding cough. Here's what I did to take care of myself and recover quickly from the dreaded late-winter cold:

1) I ate nourishing foods and drank plenty of liquids.

When I'm sick, I pretty much only want to eat liquid foods. It's a lot easier to breathe when you are sipping rather than chewing. So this week I lived on soup, smoothies, and herbal tea.

The day I felt the worst, I somehow gathered enough strength to make some chicken soup with homemade bone broth. I added some crushed garlic at the end, since raw garlic has so many healing properties. I also pulled some tomato soup from the freezer (made last summer with heirloom tomatoes). I had a smoothie containing frozen fruit, yogurt, coconut oil, and pastured egg yolks every day to get some more nutrients in me - since other foods weren't very appetizing. I drank like six cups of tea a day - mostly immune system support and throat comfort (we like Yogi Tea and Traditional Medicinals). And I drank a lot of water.

2) I supplemented my diet with superfoods.

I continued taking all the things we usually take: Homemade elderberry syrup, fermented cod liver oil, and liver capsules. In the first couple days, I took the elderberry several times a day, in hopes of giving my immune system the extra boost it needed. I have also taken a homeopathic remedy in the past at the first sign of a cold with definite success - it's called Alpha CF.

3) I rested.

I took two days off of work, let the housework and laundry go, slept in as much as I could, and rented Jane Austen films from the library. (I recommend the BBC version of Sense & Sensibility!)

And now I'm back to my chipper self and ready to face the week ahead of me!