here comes the PUPPP

Ugh.  Another awesome and rare symptom of first time pregnancy:  I have developed a PUPPP rash.  I'm not posting pictures, you perv, google it if you want to see rashy pregnant bellies.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, a PUPPP (Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy) rash is an intensely itchy rash that develops inside the stretch marks that tend to appear around 35 weeks of pregnancy.  It then spreads to the thighs, buttocks, breasts, arms, and in my case calves, and does not go away until 1-2 weeks after the baby is born.  If you're wondering if you DO have it, one of the things that distinguishes a PUPPP from other, more sinister rashes, is that it starts in the stretch marks, and that it avoids the belly button area.  The good news is, its not harmful to the baby.  The bad news is, it's way annoying and itches like a healing sunburn that you contracted on top of a patch of poison ivy.
About 1 in 200 women get a PUPPP rash in their first pregnancy, and it usually does not happen in future pregnancies.  I probably shouldn't have been surprised to get it, as my skin absolutely LOVES breaking out in hives and over-reacting to allergens, perfumes, lotions, etc., plus research has shown that 70% of PUPPP sufferers are having boys (which I am) and have large belly measurements (which I do).  Awesome.
Well, I started researching online to see if I could figure out how to deal with this latest development of gestational discomfort, and I have found a number of homeopathic remedies. If you are suffering with a PUPPP, here is some good news for you:
1. Many sites that I have looked at have mentioned that the most intense itching lasts about a week, and alluded to the fact that that is the first week.  If you are in the first week and ready to claw your skin off, hang in there! 
2.  It does not usually occur in future pregnancies, so if you are planning to have more babies after this, since you earned most of your stretch marks this time, you are most likely not going to have to deal with it.
3.  Washing with Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap 4 times a day (I know, some of us work) can really help soothe the rash.  Even though I DO work, I have found that 3 showers a day is do-able, especially if you invest in a decent shower cap.  Once in the morning, once after work, then before bed.  It smells like camping, so bonus if your husband is the outdoorsy type and that is a turn-on for him.
4.  After each of your 600 showers, slather on this fabulous stuff: Derma-E itch relief lotion.  It is watery and smells very fresh, as the active ingredient is actually Tea Tree Oil.  It sounds like it would irritate, but it is very soothing, and it actually works (for me) better than any of the hydrocortisone creams that I have tried.
5.  To soften your skin, if the above combination is making your skin feel a little tight, try a plain Coconut Oil.  I think it's much better than other body oils, as it soaks in and feels less greasy than let's say a vitamin E oil or bio-oil (which also smells like perfume).  Coconut oil is also anti-microbial, so it can help doubly in the healing process.
6.  If you can't deal with it at night (i.e. the rash is waking you up multiple times in the night) you might want to try Benadryl.  You may not need it after that first atrocious week, and the more sleep you get, the better you will feel and heal.  Benadryl is generally considered to be safe (even my midwife says it's OK!) but every pregnancy and every woman is different, so check with your healthcare provider before you start taking anything.
7.  Aveeno products: this concentrated anti-itch lotion works better than any of the 1% hydrocortisone products I have tried, with the added benefit of being steroid-free.  The active ingredient is calamine, but it doesn't make your skin all sticky and cracky afterwards.  Plus the bottle is relatively small, so you can keep it in your purse if you are still working or going out, and apply as needed.  Every once in a while, the good ol fashioned Aveeno bath is also nice.  I have found that it's relatively torturous during, but very soothing after.  Whether it's after a shower or an Aveeno bath, try to resist the urge to use a rough towel to scratch the absolute shit out of yourself.  Lastly, there is this intensive healing ointment that is great for the bit of overdrying that all of the showering and anti-itch creams are contributing to.  I have found that I can tolerate it at night if I mix in a little of the aforementioned Derms-E and put layers of tight knit clothing on top of it and slip into a Benadryl-induced hibernation of sorts.  This has been the single most beneficial element of my healing process.  Even though it feels like Neosporin all over your itchy body, in the morning you will wake up feeling slightly less itchy and much softer.  It DID take a few nights before I started to see a difference, but my red marks are healing and flattening, and my stretch marks are even getting lighter.
8.  I don't know if this is actually helping, but a few people on message boards about PUPPP mentioned drinking 2 servings of V8 each day.  I have been doing this, but I have also been doing all of the other stuff listed above, so it's hard to say how much the V8 contributes to the healing.  My only recommendation, if you are going to try this, is to get the low sodium version of V8, because the regular stuff has about 480 mg of sodium per serving, compared to 140mg in the low-sodium version.  If you don't like the taste, try to think of it as taking your medicine, and think about all of the extra vitamins and minerals you are getting!  GO YOU! 

GD Diet #3: Apple Snacks

This is SO SIMPLE, and completely fabulous.

Walnuts are a fabulous place to load up on DHA while you are pregnant, especially in the last trimester when your baby's brain is developing the most.  However, as many of you may already know, walnuts all by themselves are totally lame and boring, and taste like licking a tin can.  Another great food for pregnancy (see the book 100 Best Foods for Pregnancy, it is divided by trimester with nice recipe tips!) is an apple, but a whole apple, without a complementary protein source, is a big no-no for girls with GD, as it is one of the sugariest of all fruits (25g of carbs).  I give you, quick and easy apple snacks:

you will need:
1/2 of an apple
1-2 oz of soft goat cheese (depending on your taste)
halved walnuts (as many as you have slices of apple)

Cut the apple into 1/4 inch thick slices, smear the desired amount of goat cheese on each one, and use the goat cheese as a sort of glue to hold one beautiful 1/2 of a walnut to each piece.  If you don't have GD, or if this snack doesn't seem to bother your readings at all, and you desire a little more sweetness, try a spot of honey on each slice.  This also makes a great treat for parties if you are hosting with GD, or attending a potluck where you are concerned there will be no dessert for you. ;) 
1/2 an apple all dressed up (without the honey) is about 16g of carbs

GD Diet #2: Bunless Burger with Quinoa

Tip #1: serve on a tiny plate, as this dinner is dense, and doesn't look very filling.

This has been one of my favorite (and Dan's favorite) recipes that I have come up with since the GD diagnosis.  It really feels indulgent.  If you are finding that carbs like quinoa are spiking your sugars, try a vegetable side instead.  I will post a great generic veggie roasting tip in a few days for your reference.  The nice thing about this one is that it takes maybe 25 minutes.

Ingredients (serves 4):
16 oz of grass-fed ground beef (or bison if you want something a little leaner and earthier)
1/2 bag of pre-washed spinach or baby spinach
1/3 cup of pine nuts
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup uncooked quinoa
4 oz goat cheese
2 tbsp. faux butter (I like the Earth Balance made with olive oil)

Begin by cutting your 16 oz of meat into 4 equal pieces, and then hand-smooshing them into patties.  place in a lightly-oiled pan together and let them start to cook on med/high.  Salt and pepper to your liking (you won't need too much- the topping is flavorful).  Flip them when they look like they have almost cooked to their centers (when viewing from the side)
put your cup of quinoa and a cup of water into a pot and bring to a rolling boil, then lower the heat so it is simmering while you work on the rest of your meal.  Once the water is completely evaporated, turn off the heat and mix in a little faux-butter.
In another pan, pour a little olive oil and then dump your spinach leaves.  Allow them to wilt and toss them around a little.  Once they are completely wilted, mix in your pine nuts and goat cheese.  Combine until the goat cheese is completely melty and the mixture looks a little like fancy creamed spinach. 
On a salad-sized plate, place your burger, top with the spinach mixture, and add a side of the quinoa.
It's really, really lovely, promise.

The GD diet #1: A few of my fav-or-ite things

If you've ever been pregnant, or female, you know that snacks are very important.  When you have GD, they are important for a different reason: to maintain somewhat stable blood sugar, you need to be eating approximately every 2 hours, and ideally, your snacks should be healthy (and under 20g of carbs).  The best snacks are healthy snacks that make you feel excited, so here are a few treats that really get me going.

1. True North Nut Clusters: 9g for Almond Pecan, 12g for Chocolate Nut.  These are exceptional because they satisfy your candy bar cravings without killing your diet.  They are, however, slightly dangerous if not divided up into single-serving baggies.  5 clusters sounds depressing, but it's actually quite satisfying.

2. Kashi Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Cookie- 1 is 20g.  This one is my absolute favorite.  Full of whole grains and dietary fiber, this filling cookie is BETTER (no joke) than it's unhealthy counterparts.  A few weeks of these and chips ahoy will start to taste like buttery chemicals.

3. Carrots and Peanut Butter- JIF to go and 3/4 cup carrots = 18g  (Or you can do ants on a log if you can stomach disgusting, awful celery).  Now, JIF to go is the EASIEST option, but not the only option.  There are healthier peanut (or almond) butters out there that have no added salt or sugar.  If you have the patience, get some tiny Tupperware, and fill it with your fave nut butter, and bring that along instead.  I'm just going to eat this JIF til my midwife spots it and calls me out.  (Don't tell!)

4. Berries! ...and other fruit, but be sure to look any up for carb count, some unexpectedly have A LOT of sugar.  Strawberries are about 1g each, blueberries are about 10g to 1/2 cup.  Plums are surprisingly low at 8g per fruit, and so are peaches!  Indulge in an entire peach for the price of only 14g!  Cantaloupes (14g per cup) and oranges(11g) are also good.  Apples (24g), pineapples (22g per cup), bananas (25g), pears (27g) and watermelon (22g per wedge... you know you can't limit yourself to a cup) are all high in sugar, and therefore should be used sparingly (see #5).  Of course, it's the expensive fruit that you can eat...

5. Bananas are high in carbs, but fabulous for a lot of other reasons, like the fact that they come in their own wrapper.  If you are getting a lot of leg cramps, bananas can really help.  A great snack is 1/2 a banana and 1 hard boiled egg- about 14g.  That little yellow thing in the picture?  That's a Nana-saver, and its a $3 wonder of modern science (its a clip you put on the 1/2 of the banana you didn't eat to keep it from getting all crusty and brown.  Or you can use a little piece of plastic wrap if you're not a gadget-loving jackass like I am)

6.  Nature's Bakery Fig Bar- 2 bars in a pack- 20g.  Made with stone ground wheat and so delicious.  They come 2 to a pack and you can split them up if 20g of carbs are making you a little uncomfortable.  Lots of flavors to choose from, and if you are lucky enough to have a Wegmans near you, you can pick up a 24 pack variety box for less than $10.  Way cheaper than online.

7.  Kind bar- dark chocolate, nuts and sea salt- 16g.  If you have other favorite KIND bars, just be sure to check the label, they are all different for carb count.

NOT SHOWN:
8. Dark Chocolate Covered Anything.  I especially like walnuts covered in dark chocolate because every "eating for pregnancy" book out there suggests walnuts, but by themselves they taste like licking a tin can.  Walnuts are especially high in DHA which is super fantastic for your baby's brain development in the 3rd trimester, which is probably when you found out you had GD in the first place.  Next Organics Dark Chocolate Covered Walnuts- 9g per serving

9. And a suggestion from Steph: Light n fit Greek Yogurt by Dannon.  Lots of flavors to choose from, only 9g of carbs, and 12g of protein to balance it out.  I can't wait to try it!!!  ...Um.... and they have a flavor called Caramel Macchiato.... oh no...

The Good News and the Bad News

At the end of the day last Wednesday, I got the call from my midwife that I had been fearing for a little over a week:  I DO have gestational diabetes.   The bad news is, that means counting carbs, testing my blood sugar 4x a day, and avoiding most things that have any resemblance to bread or sweets.  The good news is, I have the best possible over-achiever mentality to absolutely nail this diet and get an A+ in baby-building.
The first day with the news was pretty rough.  I choked through the over-the-phone directions I was given by one of the nurses at the midwives office, and started bawling into my husband's chest after I hung up the phone.  The only thing I could think about was how relatively well I thought I had been eating, and that I still screwed up.  That all of my fears about the delivery process were going to come true; the baby would be huge, unhealthy, and doomed to be unhappy for the rest of his life and it would be all my fault.  After a few minutes of pretty serious sobbing (I know, people have MUCH bigger problems in the world), we took a long walk around the park and ended up at the Rite Aid, where I would pick up my glucose meter and get some additional instructions from the pharmacist.
I was still fighting back some tears when he started his schpiel about which lancets hurt more and what meters could be afforded with crappy health insurance policies.  About 30 seconds in, I think he noticed the tears welling up in my eyes and started to rush through the rest of the info, grabbing a silver meter and some test strips and heading toward the back, at which point I squeaked in a shaky voice, "Well if you're going to give me that one, at least give me the pink one!"
Surprisingly, the lancets don't hurt too much, and the testing gives me a way to prove to my midwives and doctors that I am, in fact, doing a fuckingfantastic job of building this baby, and I always like making proof.
The other good news is that I think that I have always had a sensitivity to carbohydrates (see post about the gluten-free cleanse), and the diet I need to adhere to for the duration of my pregnancy will help me deal with that sensitivity after the baby is born.  Further, I will have the tools necessary to deal with the fact that 1 in 3 children born to women with gestational diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes before they are out of school.  This is not a temporary diagnosis.  It is a call to take nutrition more seriously.

Here are the basic details that I have absorbed over the last 10 days:
1.  Try to limit your carbs to 25-30g for breakfast, and 30-45g for lunch and dinner.
2.  Try to eat a little something every 2 hours.  Great snacks are made from less-processed grains, low-carb fruits, crudite, nuts, or other protein sources.
3.  Take a walk after you eat.  Or, if you can't leave the house, or the weather is bad, get up and do laundry or vacuum.  Resist the urge to sit still or take a nap after eating.  Light exercise will help your body metabolize your food more quickly, leaving you less susceptible to sugar spikes.
4.  Drink lots of water.  If your pregnant, more than the recommended 64 ounces is usually good.
5.  For the most part, don't worry about the carbs in vegetables.  They are the absolute best place to get nutrients for your amazing baby.  Do not, however, be fooled by starches that pose as vegetables, like sweet potatoes.  These are ok to eat as long as you measure your servings and stick to the allotted g of carbs per meal.  WARNING:  some fruits also masquerade as vegetables... shady-ass tomatoes.
6.  Pay attention to your body and your readings.  If you know you are obeying the rules and you still have seemingly random spikes in your blood sugar, try to connect the dots.  Some people are more sensitive to certain types of carbs than others.  One thing that I have noticed about my own body is that, for the most part, I do not seem to be sensitive to fructose or lactose.  Bread products have a dramatic impact on my blood sugar, but I can go to the top end of my carb allotment with fruit and it doesn't seem to touch my readings.  Look out, bananas, here I come!

I guess I wanted to let you all know this because the next few posts will focus on eating to support a diabetic system.  I will label them as such (the GD diet #1, etc.) and will try to post at least weekly with delicious and filling recipes that I have discovered.

How to get a bikini body

You don't need to hear an excuse about why I haven't posted in over 6 months, but you're getting one anyway...
My husband and I found out in March that we are expecting our first baby!  Today, I am 25 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good.  My energy is almost normal, and I am not as susceptible to the nausea associated with first trimester nonsense.  I do, however, become hungry quickly and ravenously, and my cravings, while not crazy, are... interesting:
1.  Seems the little man prefers salty to sweet foods, so I often find myself ordering desert out of habit and then after a bite, pawning it off on one of my unfortunate trying-to-diet friends.
2.  No seafood.  Really, buddy?  I let you live in my stomach for all of this time and you would deprive me of one of my favorite food categories?  Rude.  But it works out alright because I have to watch my mercury anyway.
3.  No mushrooms.
4.  Yes to like, every dairy product known to mankind.  And I will straight eat a tube of goat cheese right now.  With a fork.

But all of that aside, I wanted to talk about something unexpected that happened fairly recently, when my baby bump became more obvious.
I was initially concerned about the inevitable weight-gaining part of being pregnant, as I have had some body-image issues in the past that I will not bore you with now, but I'm sure many women can relate to not feeling thin enough, fit enough, and definitely not flat enough in the tummy area.  I made sure that my midwife and my husband both knew about my past body image issues, and asked them to keep an eye on me and keep me on track.  In other words, hide the scale, think about the health of the baby at all times, and enjoy the many interesting changes going on in my body.
The funny thing is... so far it hasn't been a problem.  I have had a few moments where I have caught a glimpse of myself naked in the mirror and thought "Whose tits are those?!  And why are they pointing that way?!"  But this passes rather quickly and I go back to feeling sleepy, hungry, or really really happy.
A couple of months ago I received some lightly worn maternity clothes from my fabulous sister-in-law, including a tankini.  When I tried it on, I was disappointed and felt that I looked bloated and short.  The stomach area was also a little loose (because I'm sure it's designed for someone closer to the END of their pregnancy), so it seemed to be moving around a lot, which made me uncomfortable.
A while after that I happened upon a rack of discounted bathing suits at a local shop and spotted an adorable black and pink Betsey Johnson bikini and fell in love.  I tried it on thinking it would be funny... and I loved it.  I loved my big round belly sticking out between these sexy little swimsuit pieces.  I felt feminine and lovely, and powerful.  So I bought it.
I have worn it A LOT so far this summer.  I think it is also worth noting here, that if I had tried on the suit last year,  I don't think I would have bought it.  I would have thought it was too young for me, too revealing for my not-quite-perfect-yet stomach.  Or, if I ended up buying it in an effort to "get out of my comfort zone" it would have sat in the bottom of my underwear drawer, and I would have maybe gotten up the nerve to wear it once before donating it to a thinner friend.  It would have revealed all of my physical shortcomings to me every time I looked in the mirror, and I would have felt exposed.
Recently, a friend posted an adorable infographic on facebook which read "How to get a bikini body: put a bikini on your body"  I love it.

I think it is interesting that this pregnancy is giving me a new respect for and love of my body.  I am so much more interested in what my body can DO rather than how it looks.  I have been trying to adopt that mindset for the past few years, but I guess it took a major shift in body shape, for the first time in my life, to show me that I really can think that way.