Miscarriage, Weight Loss, & Angel Food Cake

When I started this post, I really debated on how personal I should get. I certainly didn't want to cross the TMI line (and don't worry I don't think I do), but when I started writing, it all just flowed and made sense so I went with it. I've learned to trust things like that.

Basically I'm telling you this as a warning that I take a real round-about way to getting to my point here and I have no problem if you'd like to skip to the recipe portion of the post - it is totally awesome :).

Last year, I

had some medical issues that caused me to gain about 10 pounds

got pregnant.

The boy and I were thrilled. We started preparing our lives for the addition of another. We re-did the bathroom, stockpiled books, started clearing out our collection of live electrical wires and candy-shaped rat poison, ya know, the usual nesting behaviors.

I felt good for the most part, except that I couldn't eat vegetables or fruit (and especially not sugar, but that doesn't really add anything to my point). The only things I could eat fell into the "bread and cheese" category - macaroni and cheese, bagels and cream cheese, cheese sandwiches, you get the idea. This a) did not do any favors for my lactose-intolerant husband; and b) caused me to gain 10 pounds within the first 3 months. Oops.

Actually, make that, 10 additional pounds, 10 pounds on top of the 30 I was already trying to lose when I got pregnant. I tried to not let it bother me. Most of the people I talked to said they had similar weight-gain experiences.

Then, at 14 weeks, we learned that we lost the baby. It never developed past 11 weeks. 

Needless to say we were devastated. To make matters worse we had just announced to friends and family that we were expecting, and now had to tell everyone that it wasn't going to happen. 

That was probably the worst part - I just felt so stupid for jumping the shark and announcing before knowing that everything was ok. Then again, I guess you never really know if everything is ok, and things can happen at any point in pregnancy. But they specifically tell you to wait until after the first trimester to "be in the clear" and here we were, into the second trimester, thinking everything was fine. It never occurred to us hold off announcing until after our 12-week doctor appointment. We just thought that 12 weeks was magic number, after which everything was good to go.

I'm self-conscious that I say the worst part was telling people. I feel most people would probably say that losing the baby was the worst part. And well, obviously, it was, but I just feel I had no control over that. It's hard for me to be regretful over something I couldn't change. I mean I was the dumbass who went and told everyone without waiting for more information. Blame it on excitement.

Once we processed the initial grief, I started to feel like we were getting a second chance. I mean we got pregnant right away. I was thinking it could take a year or so, but that wasn't the case, and I'll admit, I was caught a bit off guard. Delightfully off guard, but still. 

Now we had a few more (well, hopefully only a few more) months to save money, work on the house, take vacations, drink wine, be alone as husband and wife, and get in shape and lose weight before getting pregnant again.

It didn't help that this all coincided with the onset of the holiday season - emotional eating and pumpkin pie are a dangerous combination. 

(+5 pounds).

End 2011. 

So there we were, wanting to try again soon, my body refusing to give up the weight it had gained, and not really knowing were to start. I mean, I've always known what I was supposed to do - more veggies, no diet soda, many small meals throughout the day, only one box of Girl Scout cookies in a sitting, but when you get home at 8:00 s-t-a-r-v-i-n-g, it's just easier to stand in the pantry and alternating between handfuls of salty (i.e., baked cheetos) and sweet (i.e. chocolate chips) until your husband comes home and the two of you stand in front of the freezer until you settle on peanut butter sandwiches. Again.

First thing on my list: take control of my eating. While the main point of all the meal planning and revamping our recipe collection was to figure out how to cook dairy-free, there was also the goal of cooking healthier. I have 40 pounds that I'd like to lose before baby. Not sure if that's going to happen (i.e., I'm not going to stop it from happening until I lose 40 pounds), but I'm willing to give it a valiant effort.

I've since signed up with a personal trainer (who kicked my ass so hard on Thursday, that I still couldn't climb stairs on Sunday). And, once my body released its death-grip on the extra pounds it refused to let go of for the first two months, I'm down a few pounds. It's not much, but it's a start and the only thing I can do is keep working at it and keep making healthy recipes.

(if you skipped ahead, start reading here)

I've realized that "all-or-nothing" diets (and I mean diet as in, the food that someone eats - not as in a fad diet, as in, "a panda lives on a diet of bamboo") don't work for me. As soon as you tell me I can't have something, nothing else will do. So I wanted to work in options for not-so-bad-for-you, dairy-free desserts as well. 

Enter (again) Pinterest! I saw this recipe for angle food cake made only with cake mix and pie filling and it looked really interesting. However, while this doesn't have all the oil, etc. that normally gets added to cake mix, it still called for a can of pie filling, and I didn't even want to know how much sugar and artificial who-knows-what was in that can.

So I tried a more natural version. Using a pint of fresh blueberries and some frozen raspberries, I made up a quick cake with fist-sized pieces that have only about 150 calories a piece. I didn't even need to add sugar, the cake mix had plenty to counteract any tartness the berries may have had.

This was so delicious. It tasted so...is "fresh" the right word. I mean, it just didn't have that processed taste. It was really good - sweet, full of blueberry flavor, guilt-free. I will definitely be adding this to the weight-loss-while-eating-desserts menu. And who knows, maybe this will be a favorite of my someday-kids. :)

Ingredients

one box of angle food cake mix

one pint blueberries

one handful (about 1 cup) frozen raspberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Add blueberries and raspberries to a medium sauce pan and cook over med-low heat. If need be, add a little water so the berries don't burn, but I just let them cook down for 15-20 minutes.
3. Let the mixture cool (to avoid burns specifically) and mix with cake mix in large bowl.
4. Pour batter into 9x13 pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
5. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center).
6. Let cool, sprinkle with powder sugar if you'd like, slice, and serve.

Enjoy responsibly!