Many people look at me like I am an alien from a foreign country and that I am out of my mind. Others wonder, am I trying to get pregnant now? And there are a handful who look at me like a baby is about to pop out of me right that very instant.
Pregnancy has become an excuse to eat whatever our body is "craving," including pizza, pop, ice cream, and all other types of self-indulgent forms of "food" because our mentality of health is as deep as a number on a scale...thus, pregnancy is the one time that a woman can be fat and have a good excuse.
I am sorry if I offend people with this post, but sometimes a little offense is necessary at properly distributing the truth to a world full of distortions, white lies, and slap you in the face straight up back-stabbing deception and manipulation.
This mentality on pregnancy is selfish and all about self-indulgence at the cost of the health of an innocent baby. We need to change our mentality about pregnancy and raising healthy children otherwise we will lose our children before their time or raise children with all kinds of imbalances and diseases.
The health of my child that I will birth one day is completely my responsibility and completely dependent on my diet and lifestyle while I am preparing for conception, during pregnancy, and before birth. Another mentality on health that has lead to so many people being able to dismiss responsibility for their health is the topic of genetics. My mother had diabetes, my grandmother had diabetes, and therefore I will just automatically develop diabetes. I might as well eat all the brownies, cakes, and ice creams that I can see because it is all based on genetics anyways. Right?
Wrong. Scientific understanding of genetics has come a long way and what we now know is that genes can be turned off or turned on based upon diet and lifestyle. You may have received a gene for diabetes, but the reality is that it does not need to be turned on. It can stayed turned off forever if you make a commitment to your health and to keeping refined carbs, refined sugars, processed foods, and fast foods out of your diet.
Back to my baby. That I will not be having tomorrow. That I will not be having next week. Or even next month. In fact, we probably will not be trying to conceive for 1-2 years. And yet, I am preparing, not just financially, not just emotionally, not just relationally and spiritually, I am preparing my body to do the most awesome task that it has been created for: to create human life.
This life is going to be spectacular and amazing, if I have any say in it. This life is going to change the world, if I have any say in the matter. And this life is going to be health, and this I know that I have a say in.
Women for centuries upon centuries have taken the same careful, strategic planning in their diets in order to create the most healthy, spectacular human being that ever walked the face of the planet. In many cultures, it is extremely normal for women and men to be on a pre-wedding and pre-conception diet in order to prepare to have children. In fact, in these cultures, it would be strange for a woman to NOT prepare her body for conception with the best and most life-giving foods that their culture has to offer.
I am WEEK 1 into a journey that I am so excited about. Preparing for my baby to come to planet earth and be the healthiest baby that it can ever be.
I will be blogging throughout this journey, so join me, learn with me, and let's learn from cultures that I come before us who have paved the way. We simply need to take the books off the shelves, dust off the years, and embrace all the wisdom that these cultures have to offer.
