Pregnancy Bible: my guilty pleasure read!

Book title: Kareena Kapoor Khan's Pregnancy Bible

Book authors: Aditi Shah Bhimjyani, Kareena Kapoor Khan

When I bought the book, it was just out of curiosity and what largely impacted my decision was my huge crush on Kareena recently. I am usually not very attracted to celebs. When it comes to Bollywood movies, I would pick up movies off the shelf like I adored the 360p version of “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones”, I watched on YouTube. But I would never play Jawan even though it starts to autoplay annoyingly in my Netflix home.  So, I was asking myself what’s happening to me, is this a mid life crisis? I think what made me interested in celebs is- their hard working ability. Because I was trying to practice discipline and achieve a better work life balance, I was instantly intrigued to know how people like celebs achieve any balance in life.

To my delight, I loved reading this book! It was not anything like an unfruitful stalk in social media. The book is about the nine months of pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal days and about diet, exercise, self care for new moms. Experts summarized their wisdom in both light technical terms and traditional terms. Kareena shared her experiences through some parts of the book. The best part of the book is- it’s written in an Indian perspective! Which is more or less relevant to Bangladeshis as well. These Indian spices in the book are what made it very special.

I was glad to know many unknown things about pregnancy. I have come to know about spotting very recently from a girls group I dearly love. But other than that, there were other unknowns that were not covered in either girls chat or cinemas, LOL. The book discusses childbirth in detail. I loved how it included all the local traditions while also explaining Western fancy traditions like what is a water birth etc. Throughout the book the authors tried to encourage local practices like- rice and daal for your dinner.

The book had a great impact on me! I am very passionate about health habits. The book helped me stick to my goals- sleep enough timely, eat balanced and nutritious food, keep my body active and engaged. By reading about the benefits of these simple habits, I felt more connected and I was delighted to form a sleep routine.

My kitchen shelves are impacted as well! I swapped crackers for unsalted cashew nuts, sugary dessert for a cup of warm milk with a pinch of nutmeg. I loved the local hacks shared in the book. I cooked daal with a tablespoon of ghee instead of my regular olive oil and it was a hit! Trying to give food assimilation some thoughts. I realized I don’t like outside food. I can eat it fine but don’t feel good afterwards. I mostly eat outside food to comply with social life. I would feel a craving for soda water or sugary dessert after a meal outside. Feel sloppy. Making simple changes and sticking to my home food also brought a huge shift in my energy level! I now wake up feeling energized and looking forward to my 7 meals of the day, but also not craving anything fried or sugary!

I found myself reading labels of my skin products too while reading this book. All in all, it was like a guilty pleasure for me to read this book. Because I am not pregnant and not planning to be a parent soon (rather planning how not to get pregnant by accident). My parents visited us twice and I had to keep the book hidden otherwise my mom would jump into excitement thinking I am taking her suggestion of “take a baby” seriously. Also I can’t do this to poor Samudro, all the “you are being a baba” jokes, LOL.

I don’t know if there’s a term for my situation. Health-freak? But if you are an Indian girl who loves routines, diets, exercise and sleep and books- may this also be your guilty-pleasure-read… Oh, and for pregnant moms, you can keep the book on top of your prep list!