who knew?!

Thanks to one of my awesome former coworkers, I am now in possession of this amazing book. Let me back up first and say that I have hesitated in the past reading books about infertility. I’ve been the owner of How to Get Pregnant for a while, but never bothered looking through it. Out of sheer boredom over the weekend, I picked it up and skimmed through the first few chapters. While informative, it was mostly about the medical side of infertility: statistics, step-by-step explanations of procedures, and all about how little time I had left to conceive. Ack!

So, when I cracked open Making Babies, I didn’t know what to expect. But I was pleasantly surprised. I’m light years past some of the information (like charting your BBT), but there were a lot of tips about diet and exercise to help women (and men) of different body types with different issues with TTC. My symptoms related mostly to women with “tired” body types, endometriosis, and LPD (luteal phase defect). I was blown away to read all of the things I should be eating (and I don’t) and all of the things I do eat that aggravate my body. From here on out, I plan to:

• Severely decrease my caffeine intake. I know I can do it, because I did when we first started TTC. This will mostly involved drinking water or juice on the way to work instead of coffee.
• Limit my alcohol consumption. I’m a beer/wine girl (which isn’t terribly bad), and I only drink on Friday and Saturday nights. But I’m known to participate in a round of shots here and there. From this point on, no more hard liquor.
• Say good-bye to cheese and milk. Well, maybe not entirely . . . but I will try not to eat cheese with every meal, and I will also limit myself to a glass of milk every other day.
• Make whole grain bread my #1 choice. Really, I should have made this switch a long time ago, but I just LOVE white bread.
• Drink more water. At this point, I would say I drink an average of three 8 oz. glasses of water per day. By replacing my morning coffee with water and drinking water with dinner instead of milk, I hope to double that number, or at least come close.
• Eat less “processed” foods. I’m definitely NOT a fast-food lover (although I do enjoy an occasional trip to Chick-fil-a or Moe’s), and my mom uses fresh foods to cook dinner, so this shouldn’t be too big of an obstacle. Replacing my potato chips at lunch with veggies and dip should do the trick.

Those are some pretty big goals, but I think I can do it. Of course I am going to continue taking my prenatal vitamins and exercising (though no more running during AF). Hopefully these are steps in the right direction toward a better me . . . and a mini me! :)