The Perfect Pregnancy Diet Plan - Get It Here!

It wasn't too long ago that it was a common misconception that if you were pregnant you should be eating for two. It was also pretty common that pregnant women tended to eat whatever they felt like regardless of it's nutritional value, hence most women struggled to lose their mummy belly after giving birth.

Thankfully, times and science move pretty quickly and we now know that you really don't have to eat that much more than normal to support a healthy pregnancy. We also know that rather than being able to eat whatever you want during pregnancy, you should be MORE focussed on eating good clean healthy food than before you fell pregnant if you want to keep your

Isn't it funny though how that voice in the back of your head still keeps saying to you, "Oh go on, you're pregnant, one little chocolate brownie won't hurt!"?

You know what - you're absolutely right! One little brownie won't hurt but if that one little brownie keeps shouting at you most days, (and don't kid yourself that it won't!), then you'll soon be putting on a lot more weight than you bargained for!

So one of the first things I do with my pregnant clients is get them on the right nutrition to guarantee that they'll stay trim, shapely and sexy throughout their pregnancy and ensure that they are giving their baby everything he/she needs to grow healthy and strong.

The rules I use are simple:

1) Eat ONLY from clean, wholesome, nutritionally supportive food that is as close to it's natural state as possible (ie. not tampered with by manufacturing or processing)

2) BAN all food that is toxic, harmful or that has been denatured by manufacturing or processing

This should leave you with foods that are nutritionally complete and that are jam-packed full of nutrients.

To make it easy for you here's a sample meal planner you can use to plan your own pregnancy diet. This is a shortened version of what I use with my personal clients.

Pregnancy Nutrition - Sample Planner

"I see the bad moon arising"

...."I see trouble on the way"

Well not quite on the way, more past actually. Turns out that there was a full moon last night, which would explain my tearfulness and sugar cravings of the last week.

No I'm not some weird breed of half woman half wolf, but I am regular as clockwork with the lunar phases. Before I fell preggers I could time my periods by the moon and ALWAYS 1 week before I would crave sugar and get all emotional. Seems like old habits die hard, my body is still in tune with the lunar tide.

Well good news after taking Tuesday and all day yesterday off to rest I went swimming last night and felt so much better. I left the pool feeling much more like myself and woke up at 6:30 am this morning. (The fact that it was sunny helped, yesterday we had rain all day and gale force winds - it was like November!). My alarm was set for 6:45 so I switched it off and woke up leisurely and had breakfast. I had the urge to go to the gym but held it back as I'm teaching Pilates at 1pm and don't want to tire myself out again, I'll save it for tommorow.

It feels good to be back. I was actually quite scared that the tiredness was to do with reaching the 6month mark of my pregnancy. Think I'd go stir crazy if I felt too tired to train every day!

Emotional highs and lows

These last few weeks have been great. Being at home, free from housing issues, landladies and awkward housemates is a whole other world! On top of that I can structure my day as I see fit, meaning that I get to train every single day. I did take Monday off as I realised I'd trained 6 days last week and probably could do with giving my body a rest.

All in all, life was good but every now and then, I'd see an advert on TV for baby products and I'd be struck by an overwhelming urge to sob. In fact a couple of times I did have a little cry and then wondered where on earth it had come from?

Then I realised. I hadn't really seen Carl for a couple of weeks and wouldn't see him for another week on top of that! It was a particularly long spell away for him, working for 15 days in a row and then he was off to Glastonbury Festival for a week. I managed to grab a few hours with him last night before he left at 7am this morning to meet his mates and go off to be a hippy for a week. It dawned on me that although I had friends and family around me, it was, (subconciously), getting me down that he wasn't around to watch my belly grow, or feel our baby's first kicks.

The second trimester is always a heightened time for emotions and dependency on your partner or loved ones is increased at this time, so at least I knew I wasn't being a wimp, or neurotic.

Once I'd realised what the problem was, I started to think that I'd actually had quite an easy time of it, emotionally, if this was the only thing that brought on my tearfulness. Thinking back on what I'd been doing for the past few weeks, since returning home at the beggining of June, I understood that all the good nutrition and daily exercise had really kept my mood buoyant and had it not been for that, then I probably would have been feelin a lot more lonely and a bit sad that Carl and I were seperated by unfortunate circumstances.

I loved the daily buzz I'd get from spending 20 mins on my body and it was definitely showing. My friend, also a trainer, commented on the fact that you could see definition and tone in my arms and legs and that I wasn't holding any water. My Auntie mentioned what a nice neat bump I had, especially for 5 months. And, to top it all off, when I was out with my single girlfriends at the weekend, the guys they were chatting to all commented on how trim I looked!

So, my point is, not to blow my own trumpet, but to tell you firsthand that following an all natural, clean, whole foods diet, plus regular short exercise sessions works. I'm looking well, feeling better and more motivated to keep it up!