Well, having just delivered my baby in September and having tried (emphasis on the "try") to be paleo the whole time I would say that the whole "listen to your body and what it wants" is (no offense) kinda ridiculous because as well all know who already eat paleo, your body will trick you into "wanting" things it doesn't need just based on a crazy roller coaster of hormones and sugar. And that is when you AREN'T pregnant! So, here is what I learned in 9 paleo months...

• 1. If you have a food aversion, it may change later, but if not... don't sweat it. I couldn't eat eggs from before I knew I pregnant until the day I delivered... who knows why... just made me want to retch.

• 2. Try to be as paleo as possible because it IS healithier, because gestational diabetes is a terrible complication to have and your body will be more sensative to insalin after a long period of the paleo diet prior to pregnancy, and those pounds are going to pack on in the final trimester no matter what you eat so if you eat whatever you want in the first two trimesters than by the third it will be insane...

• 3. As long as you are eating healthy, don't stress about weight gain. I ate mostly paleo the whole time and STILL gained 55lbs, but I WOD'ed until the day before I delviered... whatever you do, DON'T quit the gym unless it is medically necessary. It will be your savior when you feel miserable and fat in a few months... Most weight gain is just genetic and there is not much you can do about it and if you eat healthy, it WILL come off post-partum.

• 4. Sounds like you are in your first trimester with all the food aversions... that will change! I could only drink chocolate milk for breakfast my first tri (SO not paleo) but by 14weeks I felt much better and could eat realy breakfasts again (just not eggs!) So, hang in there... your tastes will broaden...

• 5. Finally, making sure you take your prenatal (I used Perfect Prenatal by New Chapter Organics bc it was guaranteed not to upset your stomach!) and in your final trimester at least 1500 mg of calcium daily is super important... if you don't take that in (mostly in a supplement because you would have to drink over a gallon of milk daily to take that amount in through whole foods) your baby will rob your body which will hurt you in the long run. Also, if you can keep down your fish oil than you and your baby will both benefit: Omega-3's for baby's brain and reduced inflamation for you! :)

Good luck, girl! I agree with the other posters, whatever you can do is worth it, but I will say... you get pretty large and in charge by the end and not putting on pounds at the beginning can help with that a little (I swelled up crazily but that was a whole other issue... water weight is just as uncute as real fat! Lol)... good luck & congratulations!! :)

Being a man with no knowledge of nutrition and pregnancy, I'd still give the following vague advice:

1. Like others have said, chill. But you seem pretty chill already, if my typing-style-inspection meter is accurate.

2. If you truly feel like guilting yourself into changing things around, why not pick up a copy of "The Healthy Baby Code" by Chris Kresser? I'm always dubious of these kinds of things, but everybody and their mom gave a testimonial on that page (Emily Deans, Robb Wolf, Kurt Harris, etc). Chris is awesome at summarizing large amounts of evidence into simple advice.

3. Don't name your baby something weird like Apple or Blanket.

It's interesting because meat aversions during pregnancy are common among hunter-gatherers and several tribes even have taboos regarding meat during pregnancy. Nina Plack writes about her own struggles with food aversions in Real Food for Mother and Baby. If I were in such a situation I would eat what I could, trying to do my best and trying to find relatively nutritious things to eat, and supplement.

You can also "clarify" the broth with egg whites to remove fatty gunk.

Congratulations!!! Great news about lack of symptoms.

I didn't start feeling nauseous until about 9 weeks and it lasted until around 25 weeks. I was meat phobic for the first half of my pregnancy and then couldn't get enough for the last half; but for the first half I barely ate at all, I was just so nauseous that I couldn't eat anything other than saltines and macaroni and cheese from the Safeway deli. I wrestled with this all this time, but the thought of anything else had me in convulsions and heaving. I even had problems with the smell of food. My poor hubby, it was such a nightmare. I was horrified at the time about these choices, but you have to eat!

Food aversions are quite normal, and they will change throughout the pregnancy.

I am sure that you are going to have a load of people telling you what you need to do - stern words included. IMHO - don't beat yourself up and do the best that you can do. So many people will wax poetic about what you should and shouldn't do while you are pregnant, but I know from experience that pregnant food aversions and nausea are not just a minor complaint they are extremely tough to deal with.

I would say find a doc or midwife who you trust and respect and make sure to have these kind of conversations with them.

Hang in there! Very likely you're at the peak of morning sickness now, and you have a month or less until most of the aversions diminish.

Maybe not a popular view here, but if gluten is what it takes for you to be able to eat, then eat it (this is assuming you don't have celiac or other autoimmune issues, in which case more care might be advisable). I think that people shaming you for this don't understand how serious food aversions during pregnancy can be. I know that, for me, it wasn't a matter of choking healthier food down despite the aversion - if I did that, it was likely coming right back up again. Advocating avoiding gluten while morning sick would have been the same as telling me to starve myself, and I think we can all agree that it's better to eat even horrible evil gluten than starve yourself while forming paleobabby.

(Based on observation of myself and others, I suspect that gluten is an appetite stimulant - bad if your goal is weight loss, maybe good if you happen to need your appetite stimulated.)

Do what you can to minimize the morning sickness in other ways. Try to manage your blood sugar well and not let yourself get hungry, as this can make the aversion/sickness worse. If you take supplements, don't take them on an empty stomach.

Don't stress too much about forming bad habits. Personally, I left half a loaf of bread uneaten when my food aversions went away. It just didn't hold the same appeal once my appetite widened. I do think it helped that I got some sort of "wholesome" sprouted whole-grain bread that wasn't particularly appealing in general.

Go back to eating healthily when your appetite allows.

I wouldn't worry at all, your body is designed to make sure the baby gets what it needs. Things generally balance out later in the pregnancy.

The most important thing I would do is get your Vitamin D level tested ASAP and make sure your blood level is between 50-80 ng/ml. (If your D level is good, you won't need as much calcium as one of the other posters suggested, BTW.)

Here are a couple of blog posts I wrote that may be helpful:

Primal Pregnancy Nutrition

Vitamin D deficiency in Pregnancy

acknowlegde what is most important. if avoiding a couple of weeks of the discomfort from eating foods that will benefit your child and subsequent grandchildren for all of their lives, then carry on.

Pregnant bodies are very wise, just listen and eat what feels right. I couldn't even look at meat for several months, but the aversion eventually passed. I was also craving massive amounts of dairy, which I usually can't handle, but I must have needed something. Be gentle with yourself, and eat as well as you can without the guilt!! Stress is worse for a developing babe than a little gluten (well, I think it is!)

Ok, so you have aversion to lots of paleo foods, that's fine. However, you and your debeloping baby need tons of energy, so you are fulfilling that by eating tons of pasta and ice cream.

So how about this: Keep eating the ice cream, but switch over to fried starches instead of the pasta. Oven or deep fried potatoes, sweet potatoes and celeriac are awesome and fried plantains are the best thing ever. Most oven-ready fries I've seen over here are usually prefried in palm oil, which is Paleo Approved(tm), so you don't even have to spend much time cooking.

Good luck with the whole thing!

Listen to your body and eat what you need to.

My wife is pushing 8 months pregnant. While she doesn't eat Paleo, I do, and I do most of the cooking.

She has always eaten a healthy diet, mostly organic and natural foods, but she does eat grains (though most of them are the "healthy" kind). While she's been pregnant she has been eating surprisingly healthily and "normally," and mostly eats the Paleo food I make. For snacks she's been having a good amount of fruits and yogurt, and very rarely will she splurge on something like Ramen Noodles.

When she was in her first trimester she did end up doing the McDonald's thing a few times a week, as she said she felt hungover and this was the only cure.

I would assume that most of your aversion and discomfort with Paleo foods will pass. And if you think about it, it would be hard to NOT eat something that was paleo... unless you always eat fast foods.

Keep trying different combinations of recipes and flirt with Paleoesque foods.

Sorry, I know this is rambling, but I hope it helps.

Oh, and SUPER Congratulations!!

Is it the food, the smell of the food or the looks of the food?

I had a nasty spell of "all day" sickness, but once I stopped losing everything I ate I could eat most paleo foods one at a time and away from the odors of a spread/mix of cooked foods. I couldn't walk into/by a restaurant or supermarket, but I could eat a plate of one relatively non-fragrant food and then a plate of another, etc.

After a while of that, I could and did eat everything. Just realize it's hormonal and it's not your fault and keep experimenting.

Never been pregnant, but when I was really sick a few years back and couldn't stomach much of anything for several months, what sustained me were plain skinless chicken breasts (cooked with salt only), plain yogurt, oat bran cooked with a little cinnamon, and chicken broth. Those foods were my only source of real nutrition.

My only other suggestion would be to try an egg custard. Eggs, heavy cream, and some honey or stevia make a high-quality nourishing dish that's pretty tasty and easy on the digestive system.

Tips for eating nutritious stuff you don't like the taste of:

• Hold your nose
• Puree it into liquid form and drink it as a shake
• Do both at the same time

Seriously: you'll be surprised what you can stomach if you just hold your nose, swallow it quickly, and keep holding your nose while you wash it down with a bit of water.

Failing that, here are some ways you can get some nutrition into your junk food diet:

• Put several pastured raw egg yolks into a few scoops of ice cream. Blend. Drink your milkshake. (That's French Vanilla, by the way: ice cream with egg)
• Smoothies! Blend some vegetables in with a small banana and some frozen blueberries/raspberries (you'll need a good juicer that can juice things like carrots). Add powdered dextrose to sweeten it up if you must. Add pastured egg yolks if you can.
• Get a small deep-fryer and a bunch of refined coconut oil. If you can't eat small salmon chunks breaded with potato/rice starch and deep-fried, I don't know what to tell you.

You'll probably gain a whole bunch of weight, but at least you'll be getting some nutrition along with the junk.

Eat what you can and as your body shifts into the second trimester, you'll start being able to eat those foods again. You could have described me to a "t" in my first trimester, baby #2 (aka, the Bagel Baby). No salmon, no veggies, no eggs.

I also couldn't eat meat or broccoli during pregnancy. Talk about feeling guilty! I ate a lot of peanut butter. Not paleo but at least there's good fat and protein. I also ate a lot of sausage and hot dogs (the uncured ones) because for some reason the processing seemed to make them easier to digest. Steel cut oatmeal with sugar free maple syrup (again not paleo but had to really watch my sugar) and sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon helped me when my stomach just didn't want real food. I can't eat wheat, pregnant or not, it acts like glue in my stomach and pregnancy causes enough issues in that department. I gave in to cravings, but tried to keep it minimal. Also, I would go for a 20 minute walk after meals. This REALLY helped with my blood sugar. Nothing crazy, just a walk. If I couldn't walk, I have a recumbent bike I would use. The good thing is, as soon as the baby was out, I could eat my usual foods again, and since I nursed them they too developed a taste for heatlhy foods. Depsite not eating much broccoli while pregnant, all my kids eat veggies with no problems :).

I'm 25 weeks pregnant and I too couldn't stomach any meat or vegetables in the first tri. I ate bread, pasta, cheese, fruit, not in excess, but carbs were all I wanted. The aversions go away and you'll be back to eating Paleo (probably) by the second tri.

Don't worry too much about it..even with all that carb loading I still only gained 5 pounds in the first trimester. Your baby takes whatever it needs from your body anyway so even if you were deathly ill and barfing all day your baby would still be leeching nutrients from you.

I didn't get back on track diet wise or exercise wise until just recently...eating mostly paleo but I still eat a little dairy. I don't really crave meat so I'm not eating much, but I can eat a lot of vegetables now, and go to the gym to do some lame cardio stuff (I can't do any intense HITT type stuff at all), but it seems to be enough.

Good luck, it'll be fine, and don't let anybody make you feel bad, it doesn't sound like you're just "eating whatever you want because you're pregnant," just sounds like this is what your body wants and you have aversions. There are so many women who just go balls out and eat tons of crap because they think it's a free pass....that's not smart, but you are already thinking about your diet in a productive and healthy way, you know you don't really want to be eating this food but the aversions make it hard.

Anyway, congrats...it gets easier in the 3nd trimester...the 3rd, I can't attest to.

There is a living being inside you. You mention this fact in passing. You talk about your "beloved bacon." Quick comparative check. With which do you feel greater affinity?

I love the advice from your commenters. Here is a helpful article on prenatal vitamins that I found helpful. Btw..I'm turned off by a lot of foods, as well:( I get very nauseous. http://www.surebaby.com/prenatal/nutrition-during-pregnancy/prenatal-vitamins.php

Maybe there is something to these cravings? You say you crave gluten but is it in the form of cakes and pastries?

Ray Peat says woman crave sugar and salt during pregnancy because these are two vital nutrients.

Drinking some salted OJ and milk will meet about every nutritional req, choke down some liver occasional and your baby should be just fine if not great. Drop the cod liver oil, its junk.

It sounds a lot like you crave a ton of salt and calories. Down a ton of salt (teaspoons more) and see if it gets rid of this urge. Over eat what you crave, or components of it (isntead of pasta, white rice or potatoes) and see what happens.

I'm just curious if you found the second and third trimesters easier to get back on the paleo bandwagon?

I'm in the first trimester and after being strict LC paleo for about a year I was very surprised to have such an aversion to protein and cooking. I'm just hoping it gets better in the second trimester. Would love to hear an update on your experience.

My wife simply introduced dairy during her pregnancy but stayed mostly paleo. Third trimester all bets were off, she was specifically craving macaroni and cheese, fish, and watermelon.

Make your partner/housemate/family member/people near you your slaves as far as cooking goes- my prego roommate figured out that she had the strongest aversions to food that she prepared. If she didn't have to smell it in the various stages of cooking, or touch it when it was raw or in the process of cooking, she had a much easier time eating. Eating big bowls of pho at a local restaurant, or getting me to make her yogurt parfaits, smoothies, cheese-melted-on-random-things, popcorn etc was what kick-started her back into eating any vaguely healthy foods.

Might be worth a try- at the very least, you get to order people around "for the good of the child" and might get a meal you can keep down out of it!

Might it not be possible to eat paleo, while still not eating the foods you can't handle? Eggs, offal, bone broth etc. aren't obligatory.

Far be it from my place to tell you what you can or cannot eat, but I'd have thought that potato was about as innocuous a food as you were going to get. Get most of your calories from potato and you've got a surprisingly comprehensive array of your nutritional bases covered. It's obviously an improvement on pasta anyway.