Week 19: The Belly Popped, the Pace Dropped & the Sugar Cravings Entered the Chat

I made this salad yesterday that was so good and just like really is such an easy go-to meal prepping type salad because it's going to sit in the fridge and like it's going to hold up really well because it uses kale.

But basically, I just cooked some quinoa on the stove.

So I did – One cup quinoa dry yields two cups of quinoa wet.

And I dumped that on top of some kale.

I bought the pre-chopped kale from Trader Joe's.

I massaged it with some salt and pepper until it was like nice and soft.

Then I dumped the quinoa on top.

I bought some like pre-cooked chicken.

I shredded that on top and then I put some raisins, some Parmesan cheese and I made dressing.

It was like a lemony dressing with like honey, mustard, lemon, olive oil, thyme, oregano and black pepper and a little bit of salt and mix that all up, dredge that on the salad.

And then once I'm eating the salad, I'll add some nuts as well.

And, um, that keeps in the fridge really good.

And the reason I'm just bringing that up is like, that is a salad that is rich in healthy fats.

It's rich in fiber, carbohydrates, uh, nutrient density, and really, you know, making sure that we're eating these balanced meals that are super easy to just like have on hand so that when we're hungry, we're not kind of sitting here like, God, I'm hungry.

What do I eat? I don't know what to eat.

Okay.

I'll just grab like a granola bar.

And then like, you're urge to eat and feed yourself can be so annoying, especially when you're pregnant and you're tired and there's a lot going on.

There's a lot of emotional changes, physical changes, just everything is a little extra when you're pregnant.

And so we really want to make sure we have food available that's easy for us to grab when we're hungry, right? So I made that for dinner last night.

And then when I get hungry today for lunch, I know I have a lot of leftovers that that I can use for lunches like today, tomorrow, depending on how much my husband eats, maybe even the next day.

So, you know, I really just want to encourage you to make sure that you're thinking about meal planning, you're thinking about meal prepping, you know, buying the pre-chopped kale, buying the pre-cooked chicken from Trader Joe's, If you don't like making your own dressing, buying the pre-made dressing, like we can take shortcuts.

We can take these foods that are pre-chopped or prepared or processed to help make sure that we are getting in the calories and the nutrient density we need.

That's really important, right? Like it is not helpful to be like, I'm going to eat clean.

I'm going to eat unprocessed foods.