Brewer Diet Update

So I'm supposed to be tracking the food I eat this week, counting how many grams of protein I get, and trying to follow the Brewer diet as well as I can. I got an Email from our Bradley instructor today sending me this modified Brewer Diet for vegans. So I think I am okay, though we do not drink fortified soy milk since our efforts to reduce our soy consumption probably more than a year ago . . . but I'm not that worried.

Anyway, I'm actually really into keeping food logs and tracking my protein, something I wouldn't really have known before pregnancy. My midwife had me do a food log when I first started seeing her, so this is my second one.

The focus of this log is on counting the amount of protein you get. I have been really getting into it. When I made a pizza the other night, for instance, I added up all the protein in each ingredient of the pizza, like this:

1.5 cups gluten free pastry flour--9 grams
1.5 cups oat flour--18 grams
1 cup buckwheat flour--20 grams
2 tablespoons chia seed--5 grams

(This was all the dough)

Sauce--6 grams
Vegan cheese--10 grams
Carrot--.6 grams
1 cup kale--5 grams
1 cup broccoli--5 grams

So the entire pizza had 78 grams of protein (beat that, gluteny non-vegan pizza)! We cut it up into 8 pieces, so each piece of pizza had 9.75 grams of protein.

So, as an example, this is what I mean when I say I am getting really into tracking my protein. If I had a non-vegan, "normal" diet, I could probably just look up online somewhere how many grams of protein was in a piece of pizza, but clearly with this kind of homemade pizza, I need to figure it out myself. To my delight.

Anyway, the ideal amount of protein for the Brewer diet is 80-100 grams, and for three days now I have consistently gotten around 75 grams--(78.8, 75.7, 73). Honestly I think that's pretty darn good. Keep in mind that most diets do NOT ask for this much protein, and you would never need this much if you weren't pregnant. Honestly it is kind of hard for me to just plain eat this much food--I'm typically not that big of an eater, and while I have been PLENTY hungry and I think I've eaten PLENTY as a pregnant lady, I still don't quite have the capacity for food that other people seem to--though I did out-eat James, his Mom, and his Step-Dad by several helpings the other day. I'm not worried about myself--I'm gaining weight fine and the baby is growing right on target.

I DO appreciate the encouragement to fill my diet with lots of healthy foods right now since James will be doubling his weight in the next 7 weeks. So I'm sure he and I both need all this fat and protein and calcium, etc, and I'm just plain not worried that I have 75 grams on average instead of 80.

As I previously mentioned, Dr. Brewer looks like he could stand to eat a little less, to be honest--maybe I should make a diet for HIM.