New Healthy Habits

So I know I've been MIA for several months, something that I intended to avoid when I set up this blog, but I had a really good excuse - morning sickness! Not-so-fun fact: morning sickness does not just happen in the morning. From the end of September to the end of December, I feel horrible all day long. To keep my sanity, some things had to go, and regular blog posts was one of them.

I've been spending the last two weeks trying to get back into a routine, while developing good pregnancy habits. Fortunately, I had a lot of healthy habits already:

• Cooking from scratch, or as close to it as possible
• Buying organic produce and hormone-free meats
• No carbonated beverages
• No deodorant with aluminum as the active ingredient
• Very limited caffeine (no coffee or tea, just the occasional chocolate beverage or dessert)
• Very limited alcohol, no smoking
• At least seven hours of sleep at night

Unfortunately, there are a few healthy habits that I've failed to develop. I'm trying to work on them now, but it is not easy! Here are my current health goals, and what I'm doing to make them as painless as possible.

1. Exercise - I hate it. I don't mean physical activity in general. I am totally enthusiastic about tackling yard work or painting a room, and will work at it six hours at a stretch without a break. What cannot become enthusiastic about is the boring hamster exercises that I'm supposed to do every day. I feel like a klutz doing them, and when I finish there is no visible benefit from them. The solution: water aerobics classes, three days a week. They are relatively inexpensive, much less expensive than a personal trainer. But because I'm paying at least something I will be less inclined to allow myself to skip a day. And because they are underwater, so my lack of coordination will be hidden from view. 
2. Substituting water for juice - Yes, juice has vitamins but it also has as much sugar as a can of Coke. What I'm supposed to be doing is drinking water instead, but water is so boring. I can have a bottle of it next to me all day long, and I will just forget it is there. Adding tea bags, Crystal Light, or fruit slices doesn't help. My birth center suggested watering the juice down, but that tastes even more gross than just plain water. The solution: I allow myself 8oz of juice in the morning to wake up, and 4oz in the evening while I'm cooking dinner. The rest of the day, I drink water. When I pour myself a glass, I immediately chug half of it, and then I top of the glass again before leaving the kitchen. That way I get at least some hydration before I get a chance to forget about it.
3. Multivitamin - Pills, in general, make me throw up. It isn't the swallowing of them. I did an experiment in which I swallowed jelly bellies whole instead. No problems there. But my body has always been very sensitive to medication, so when I swallow pills it can be too much for me to handle. Before I realized I was pregnant I was taking kids' Flintstones chewable vitamins and a folic acid pill, since I figured it was better than nothing. But now I have to shallow a humongous and smelly prenatal vitamin every day. The solution: At first the prenatal vitamins made me throw up too. But I found that if I took a pill after dinner and then immediately ate a little bowl of ice cream, or something else really cold, it sort of numbed my stomach until the pill was digested. After a few weeks, the ice cream became unnecessary and now I can tolerate the multivitamins without a problem. I've moved the jar from my kitchen to the bathroom, so that I see it while I'm getting ready for bed, and remember to take one.

I'm only halfway through my pregnancy, so I still have a long time to pursue these habits. I'm hoping they can become second nature by the birth, so that I can concentrate on the baby instead.