Week 8, Day 6 - Day 2 of 100% Raw! & Arizona thoughts

My dear blogger friends, I have so much to say today!!! I doubt I'll be able to remember it all, or even have time, but I'll definitely try.

First of all - weight gain. So fun, right? My body is officially one full size larger than before - and that includes everything: arms, legs, torso. Of course my tummy is like 40 million sizes larger! I fit into size 5 jeans just right - almost too tight.

Weigh-in for week 8 is ~

133.0 pounds. I started at 127, so that is a 6 pound gain in about 4 weeks. NOT good. My last pregnancy I gained 6 pounds by week 10 - and I am barely to week 9. So if I hang in there and continue to eat raw I think I might be able to hang on to this weight and not gain more.

But actually, to be expected...I have been eating to survive. Especially on our trip to Arizona - the main goal there, was to feel okay enough to actually enjoy my time. There was no calorie restriction, no fasting, it was w.h.a.t.e.v.e.r it took to make me feel better.

Generally, though, I think I did okay. Not good at all, but not horribly bad, like binging crazily. I do seem to have a bigger appetite than before, but in Arizona I would typically eat at around 11am and have a snack at 3pm, then dinner at 6-7pm. Then head straight to bed and try my hardest to keep from throwing up. To date, I haven't upchucked at all BUT it's always there, I totally could if I wanted to at any given moment. I feel like it's a slippery slope, though - if I just let myself go then I won't be able to stop from here on out.

I ate meat - although it was mostly restricted to sandwich meat. One time I ordered chicken breast on pasta and after one bite, was like bleh. I just can't eat outright chicken breasts or steak - ever. Too gamey and meaty tasting no matter what the sauces or spices. I can, however, eat things like spaghetti sauce with hamburger, that sort of thing.

When I was in Arizona, I can't even tell you how INSPIRED I was to stay fit and not gain weight this pregnancy. Being smack in the middle of summer will do that to you! It was 90+ degrees every day we were there, not a cloud in site - and we did plenty of people watching. I know that the way I feel right now, chubby and not toned, is not the way I want to feel this summer.

This is one of my favorite pictures just because it was taken in the warm sun, at the pool. =)

That's a bag we bought at Marshalls after realizing that we had no way of properly transporting all the stuff we wanted to bring with us from our room to the pool - 2 SPF bottles, books, phones, squirt bottle, watch, water bottles. On our way to Arizona, we were at the airport for 7 hours before catching our flight because we were on standby. We found this "natural" spa and surprisingly enough, it was Bret's idea to get a massage (for him) and a pedicure for me (I mentioned I wanted to get one before we left but didn't have time/was too sick). Instead of normal nail polish, they offered "Minx" applications which are like a sticker - really strong sticker. $85 later, ouch, LOVE them!!!!! Especially on tan feet - mine are more tan now than the picture. =)

It felt AWESOME to get a good tan base - I love my tan! Just a hint of a tan - it was tricky trying to get a tan, yet being careful not to burn. Going from completely 100% WHITE to 4-5 hours at the pool in 90+ degree weather is not something to mess around with! So I wore 50 SPF and 30 SPF, and then on the last day, no protection on the parts of me that don't normally burn when I have a base tan. We spent a good portion of our day at the pool, it was pure heaven.

Here is the best picture I could find of the pool - at the far end you can see the cabana where you could order drinks and snacks - we ordered the veggie nachos twice...huge and sooo good with sour cream, guacamole, and salsa! Eaten in the HOT 90 degree sun is sure an experience!

Every day we went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 8am. That's just the way it had to be - I felt so completely and utterly SICK by about 6pm that it took all I could just to eat dinner and try to enjoy it, and then rush back to the hotel room so I could just lie down - I usually felt ok if I was lying down. Here's what our room looked like - but it didn't have so many green plants, lol.

In the morning I would wake up refreshed and with barely a trace of morning sickness (thanks in a huge part to Unisom, I think! I took 1 1/2 tablets each night before sleeping). Bret & I both went for a run 2 of the days - I ran for 15 minutes the first day, and 20 minutes the next day. It felt awesome! One of the days we also went for a pretty good hike after running - that made me SO, so sick...but I think it wasn't the hike so much as the trail mix I ate beforehand. I was just so darn hungry, but food always kicks the morning sickness into high gear and that + hiking made it miserable.

The last day, the day we came home, was the worst. I was in tears at many points that day - and different verses would come to me and I was reminded of how God is with me during this time. I worked hard to banish all thoughts of "this is NOT fair!" during our trip - in my mind, I was not supposed to be pregnant and sick on this trip, but in GOD'S mind, it was the perfect, the VERY perfect.

The first morning I was back (we got in Mon night, so this was Tues morning) and my alarm went off at 6:40 - the first thing that came to my mind was this song,

"Minute by minute, in God abide....
...better than gold is faithfulness..."

I thought about how God awakens my ear each morning to hear. How He is so good to whisper those thoughts into my heart first thing in the morning, that today will not be too much for me. It came to me so clearly not to fret about how I would make it through this day, this day that is so daunting and looming with all the things I need to do as I struggle against the waves of nausea. Minute by minute, to call on Him in my need. And then to have that ONE goal in my heart, to be faithful. Not to give in to self pity or to feeling sorry for myself. But to stand firm in my faith KNOWING that He has sent this situation perfectly for me.

And now, on to eating raw!

I ate SO much regular food in Arizona, for basically 6 days in a row. Whatever I wanted, I ate. Sometimes after eating dinner I had to eat gelato (I know, pull my arm, lol!) ice cream and that settled it down. I ate NO raw at all - and I was getting really really tired of it. Oh except I did have quite a few salads, but of course the feta cheese, dressing, etc were not raw.

So starting yesterday, I have plunged in and I have not looked back. It really gave me a vision in Arizona, that summer is just around the corner and I really really really want to feel good about myself!!!

I took the 3 kids to the Oriental Market and got 9 thai coconuts. Drinking the milk when I got home felt absolutely like HEAVEN! Then we went to the farmer's market and stocked up on so many yummy things. With all these options around me, it is easy for me to find at least one thing that sounds good to my stomach. I can't wait for even more options to make their appearance like cherries, peaches, fresh strawberries, blueberries!

I am also going to be buying some raw cocoa powder from Amazon in a few minutes, here. That helps me to stay raw when I can have some chocolate - and I am really looking forward to having my raw chocolate maraschino cherry frozen drink!

Other than that, though, I am hoping to stick with mostly fresh fruits & veggies, mostly mono-meals. I was highly successful yesterday and felt SO good about myself! I didn't feel any different sickness wise, but the hope and spring in my step made it all worth it: finally I'm doing something!

Yesterday I had:

**2 Thai coconuts - including the milk & meat, shared with Marie(4).
**3/4 lb of sugar snap peas - so sweet, pure heaven!
**3 cups of fresh squeezed OJ - ice cold, soooo good!
**10 baby carrots - brought to munch on during the kids' school program.
**3/4 pineapple - ice cold, delicious (can you tell everything needs to be icy cold? ha ha!)
**1 banana

I think I would have eaten more if I'd been able to, but things got super busy after school - I had to take Rachel(11) to get a sparkly red dress for the school program, with some shoes to match - and we finally got home at 5:00. We had to LEAVE for the program at 5:45, yikes!

So cereal was in order for the kids for dinner, while I ran around like a crazy lady trying to get everyone dressed nicely, fed, and of course the odds & ends like James(10) wanting me to put the sticker on his DS that he got for his birthday. And of course I didn't notice when I ordered it, that there are actually TWO sizes of DS's and his is smaller so the sticker had to be painstakingly cut to size. That is not something to be attempted when you're fighting off waves of nausea and trying to be in warp speed at the same time, ha ha! But I was able to keep my cool and not flip out, and we got 1/3 of it finished.

So anyway, I grabbed a banana to snatch bites here and there while trying to get them ready - but what I should've had on hand is a couple of green smoothies ready to grab & go. I felt like having a ginormous salad......I really enjoy them with my vinegar/honey/EVOO dressing.

These days everything leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Things like watermelon leave an aftertaste of nutrisweet, that sickly sweet taste that is just, bleh. So sometimes salads are a nice change - withOUT onions or the taste in my mouth will be even worse. Someone described it to me as a metal taste once, and it's almost like that - and of course it makes me sick, sick, sick.

That's all for now - I was without internet for a whole week! The night before we left, as we were eating at our fave restaurant and then were to go to our hotel for the night, to catch an early flight the next morning....someone broke into Bret's truck and stole his briefcase with laptop, GPS, bluetooth, sunglasses, passport, and several expensive books from our church - Smiths Letters and Shepherd & Prophet. It was such a shock - just FEET away from where we were sitting, they bashed his window in! What a way to start a vacation.

So my plans of blogging each day and really getting caught up on blogs on my vacation were, brought to a halt rather quickly.