Protein Diet

Part of the Bradley method is to eat a diet high in protein. It's called the Brewer pregnancy diet and is supposed to help me avoid complications like toxemia. I need to eat 80-100 grams of protein every day. But it's also a balanced diet, made up of the following:

Daily servings
Milk - 4
Eggs - 2
Protein/Meat - 2
Green leafy vegetables - 2
Grains - 4+
Vitamin C - 1+
Other Fruits and Vegetables - 1+
Fats/Oils - 3 Tbsp
Salt to taste
Water - 8

Weekly servings
Yellow/Orange Fruit or Vegetable - 5
Whole Baked Potato - 3
Liver - optional

I must confess that I haven't really committed to it. I do keep a daily diet journal where I record everything I eat and the amount of protein that's in it. It's definitely made me more conscious of what I'm eating. But I seem to fluctuate in and out of the target range of protein. Plus, it seems like WAY too much food to be eating on a daily basis. Really - 2 eggs every day? Three baked potatoes every week? Who eats like that? Not me. At least not normally.

I have felt a little guilty that I'm not more committed to eating a balanced diet. I do know that it's very important. And I have made improvements in cutting down on sweets and eating more fruits and vegetables. But I'm still nowhere near meeting these numbers.

Well, at my Bradley class this week, my teacher told us that if we could get the 4 servings of milk and above 80 grams of protein every day this next week (we submit our journals to her and she looks over them), she would give us a prize. She hinted that it might be zucchini bread. I LOVE zucchini bread! I am totally motivated to meet my protein numbers and get enough milk for one week.

I feel bad that I've been motivated by zucchini bread rather than my love and concern for my baby. But it's true. Although, in my defense, I have been trying to improve from week to week. And at one point I was going to challenge myself to meet the daily protein goals for an entire week, just to see if I could do it. But now I'm determined to do it.

It certainly helps that we had Thanksgiving this week, and there are almost 80 grams of protein just in the turkey I ate. Plus, we had the leftovers for dinner tonight, so that's two days down, only 5 I really need to worry about. I had over 80 grams of protein on both Friday and Saturday, so now I only have 3 more days... Wish me luck!