Cravings.

One of the questions that everyone loves to ask you when you’re pregnant is “So what kind of things have you been craving?!”. I think most people expect you to turn around and respond with something utterly strange like gherkins dipped in nutella or pulled pork atop a mound of ice cream. Unfortunately for those that asked expecting to hear something fantastic this wasn’t really the case for me.

As a woman who has been on a diet since 1999 I was used to not being allowed things that I wanted and was a pro at restricting myself from giving into certain urges when it came to food. I also had no shame with my eating and when things got really bad would often break a diet in a spectacular way by eating everything in sight with such rapidity that I almost ingested my own face. Many a time had I dug half eaten sandwiches and chocolate bars out of the bin and decided to give them another go, telling myself that the weird smell of mince and baked beans wasn’t so bad and that stale bread was entirely edible and actually quite tasty. I have fond memories of pouring copious amounts of salt and pepper onto my leftover food at restaurants just to ensure that I would exercise some self restraint and occasionally waking up incredibly hungover at uni to find last nights fried chicken amongst my duvet and deeming it worthy of a second shot. One time I even had to fill a whole jug with tap water and pour it into the kitchen bin so that I would soak everything in there because I was so damn hungry and pining for a titbit. What I am trying to say – is that I had indeed been in some pretty dire situations with food, so that when my pregnancy cravings reared their ugly head I put it down to a food deprived lunatic just wanting to get her chubby paws on anything. Bear in mind that I also didn’t even know that I was pregnant when they started and therefore stamped them down as best I could.

This isn’t to say that they didn’t win on occasion however. Sugar. For some reason sugar seemed to be something that I found myself drooling over at around October/November time. I would catch myself halfway through a raging snack session, standing in the middle of Matt’s kitchen at 1am in my dressing gown with a 1kg box of Crunchy Nut clutched against my body mumbling the words ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me’ to him. I spent one hungover morning crying my eyes out for a Mcdonald’s Strawberry Milkshake, something I had never even tasted. I had to be dragged past the Pick ‘N’ Mix section in the supermarket and found myself in team meetings at work surrounded by a hell of a lot of chocolate and sweet wrappers thinking to myself, did I just make all that mess? Not once did I think that this rogue behaviour was pointing towards pregnancy however and with the Christmas period coming up it only felt right to give into my cravings and pause the diet for a couple of weeks.

Christmas came and went and shortly afterwards I embarked on the whole ‘New Year New Me’ thing that everyone decides to do in January, that barely ever works. Come June we are all shocked to see the sun, facing an excruciating time in a itty bitty polkadot bikini and quite frankly hating ourselves, a few pounds heavier than we were when we first started. As I have said countless times before I am no stranger to a diet so chopping my calorie intake down to a measly 1,200kcal a day was going to be painful but entirely doable. Or so I thought. Day TWO into this diet, after having been on one run and feeling like I had an anchor in my ovaries (oh god) I was ready to faint. I remember calling Matthew when I got home from work and screaming ‘I can’t do this’ down the phone, hysterical that I was already failing at my new venture. Now that I am aware that at this time I was around six months pregnant – it doesn’t come as so much of a shock that I struggled the way I did. But I wasn’t aware, and I was miserable.

Luckily it wasn’t long before the 17th January came along and all was revealed to me. The moment the sonographer told me that I was pregnant nothing much went through my head as it was entirely consumed by thoughts of the impending responsibility. Not too long afterwards however when craving sugar like I had been for the past couple of months I had a very euphoric moment. “Matthew. Get in the car we are going to Mcdonalds, and I am going to have myself a bloody strawberry milkshake!”. I genuinely don’t think I have ever been so excited about anything in my life, technically I had made it to my third trimester and had only put on five pounds. The next three months were my once in a lifetime opportunity to eat entirely guilt free, within reason of course. The pregnant body apparently needs no more calories per day in the first two trimesters than at any other time. In the third trimester, women need approximately 500 kcals a day more. Now in my opinion, teamed up with cravings for sugar, a guaranteed calorie packed ingredient, 500kcals is not a lot. I was sure to put on a few pounds (stones).

That first ‘guilt free’ meal was one of the best moments of my life, we went to Mcdonalds and I scanned over the menu with absolutely no regard for calorie content or the obligatory diet coke that I would usually order. I ordered a large meal with a STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKE to drink and quite possibly a ‘side’ and an apple pie for pudding. It wasn’t pretty and I didn’t manage to eat it all and I felt incredibly sick but the feeling of freedom was incredible. I remember sitting on Matt’s floor (my stomach made it hard to bend over to reach the low table) doing a food dance whilst sucking on my straw. It was bliss.

And that was when my love for sugar and strawberries started. Strawberry milkshake was the one but I had a go on real strawberries, strawberry sweets and bought myself a jar of strawberry jam. I couldn’t keep myself away – it was like a full on addiction. I seemed to have swapped my need for cigarettes with one for strawberry flavoured objects. I would sneak off to the shop during work to find myself a Yazoo or similar and trot back to my desk with a tangle of strawberry laces shoved in my gob. Matthew bought me a load of Nesquik powder and I kept it in my drawer under my desk. I would sit and lick the top of my finger, dip it into the powder and shove that in my mouth at different intervals throughout the day. It became a bit of a problem, the guy in the newsagents near Matts flat had to order in some more milkshakes because I would buy two (they were two for £1! bargain) before work every day. And drink them both during the 1/2 hour drive to work. It was a love affair and I was in deep.

Prior to being pregnant I had discovered the word ‘Hangry’ on many occasions and had experienced first hand what it does to people. I hadn’t however, felt it myself. Living with my best friend for a few years taught me the outward signs and symptoms of hanger, often she would become extremely quiet and morose and would stop talking to me for a period of time. She would come across as quite angry and impatient and when it came to food the situation would be close to dangerous. It was often best to leave her to her own devices until she found herself a petty morsel and all would be restored. She would often describe the awful feeling that comes with hanger but quite frankly I never really believed that it was a true ailment. Part of me thought that it was just an inability to be patient and a demanding nature. How wrong I was. Hanger, is quite possibly the worst feeling in the world. The pain experienced in your stomach is stabbing, you have tunnel vision through which you can only see food at the end and people talking about anything other than going to get food are so irritating that you would happily throw them on the BBQ and have a good go. That one person who slows down all your attempts to get to food because they quite simply don’t understand how desperate the situation is is Satan and if anyone crosses your path or attempts to take any of your food they will have a fork in the back of their hand. It’s simple. It’s not pretty but the struggle real.

So as much as my cravings weren’t particularly exciting I did experience them in all their glory, and they are real. They existed before I knew I was pregnant and I was forced to shut them out and put it all down to being a bit of a pig. When I did find out about our baby they certainly became stronger as I was now consciously allowing the temptations to creep through. So to those of you who come across the path of a pregnant lady on a rampage to find that one thing she needs, help her with all your might. Luckily, Mcdonalds is a 24 hour establishment, and Matt never had to know about my 4am expeditions to the golden arches for one of my beloved strawberry milkshakes.