The Get it Started Workout

I am a little superstitious about my workouts on big, significant days. The first workout of the year has to be really awesome. My birthday better start off with a great one, too, because it kicks off my own personal New Year's Day! Any time I am embarking on something new, I want to launch it with a cleansing, therapeutic, and super-energizing workout. It's my thing. So, as today is the last day of my fit pregnancy, it was my "Get it Started" workout, maternity style. Meaning, heart rate low, energy high!

I could not have asked for more beautiful weather. High 50s, clear blue skies, really gorgeous. I only had time for about a two-mile walk, but it was enough to get out there and feel the energy of the day. Knowing that for the immediate future most of my runs will include a baby in a stroller, and thus no headphones, I set out for a walk with some really loud music.

My Get it Started playlist:

Duh, "Let's Get it Started," by the Black Eyed Peas 

Then, Smash Mouth: "Then the Morning Comes"

"Suddenly I See," by KT Tunstall 

"Walking on Sunshine," by, don't hate me, Aly & AJ

"Invincible," by Ok Go. Sooooo hard not to run when this song is on!

And no new chapter can begin without hearing R.E.M. and, "It's the End of the World As We Know It" 

.....and I feel fiiiine. 

Better than fine, actually. I feel awesome. When I got back home, I had gone through a roller coaster of emotions: sadness that this pregnancy is almost over, trepidation at the road ahead, excitement over finally seeing what this little munchkin is like, and laughter over just how much more amazing my journey is about to become. 

My Get it Started workout is in the books and now this new chapter can start! Do you have a new chapter starting in your life? Kick it off with a Get it Started workout to make sure it is positive, high-energy, and started in a healthy frame of mind. And then, you know the rest: get out there and get healthy!

Like Mother, Like Baby

I've been cleaning out the desk drawers in my office as I prepare for my permanent maternity leave, and today I found a list I made back when I had my first son of similarities between mothers and babies in those first few weeks of getting to know each other. It seemed suitable that I would be reminded of those things just a couple of days out from having my second baby.

On the list of things mothers and babies had in common...

1. They're both on a liquid diet: Baby on milk and mom on coffee to stay awake!

2. Poop is a big deal. Sorry guys, but it's true. They won't let anyone go home from the hospital until everyone has pooped!

3. Both bodies are adjusting to new settings, but get different responses. While little toots and burps from one elicit adoring coos from the people around them, the same things coming from mom aren't quite as cute. :(

4. Both probably have poop somewhere on their body and don't realize it. And likely don't much care anymore.

5. They're both wearing their jammies most of the time.

I can tell from the list that I had intended to come up with five more ways that mothers and babies are alike, but must have fallen asleep. I was a new mother after all! But it's nice to know that even in that hazy and altered state I had the capacity to grab a pen and jot down something I thought might be funny later. It gives me hope for next week!

Since then, I've realized a few more ways that mothers and babies are alike. Both are facing a brave new world, both have unlimited potential, and both will come to rely on each other for sources of inspiration, challenge, and accountability. We can apply this kind of thinking to all sorts of goals, wellness and otherwise. Are you a newbie? Search within yourself today for something new - it can be as simple as trying a new speed on the treadmill or switching from flavored yogurt to plain - and approach it with the attitude of a newborn. Just so we're clear, that would be one that is open to learning about the world around them, not crying until someone gives you what you want. :)

To all of the ladies having babies this month, of which I know at least three, look for ways you and your baby are alike (beyond poop) and look at wellness through new eyes.

And then, get out there and get healthy! :)

Pregnancy Fitness: The Final Countdown

It's the final countdown...well, kinda. I technically have a month left. But, every morning when my alarm goes off and I roll (literally) out of bed, I wonder if this will be my last trip to the gym. I waddle off to brush my teeth, nearly suffocate trying to tie my shoes, and then make my way to the gym where I set the elliptical on level 5 and mosey through 30 minutes of cardio. Then it's off to weights.  As one of my workout partners slams through pull-ups, speed work, bench presses, and who knows what else, I take it easy with seated free weights: bicep curls, lateral raises, lat pull-downs, cable rows...it's all good and it's what I can do right now.  I feel very lucky that I have made it this far.

Then I waddle back to my car, and within 90 minutes I am at my desk, exhausted. Like, completely pooped, ready to take a nap under my desk at 8:30 in the morning. And I wonder, should I stop going to the gym and sleep more? 

I knew there would come a time when I'd have to stop, but I'm so close!  I can handle the workouts, it's the fatigue during the rest of the day that is getting me down.  I'm honestly not sure what I will do, but one thing is for sure: I am so glad I've been active during this pregnancy and feel so incredibly lucky to have gotten to exercise this long.  Here's why:

1. Staying active has made it so much easier for me to maintain proper nutrition. With my first pregnancy, I wasn't able to exercise, which made me depressed, which made me eat sour cream on everything. It wasn't pretty. This time I've been eating well and it has made a huge difference in how I approach everything else.  When you fuel with fresh, everything is better. Even a head-butt in the bladder.

2. I've only gained about 27 lbs and am on track for about 33 lbs by the end of it, which is spot-on for a healthy pregnancy. At first I was worried I wasn't gaining enough, but it turns out that gaining 27 lbs in the first trimester, like I did last time, was actually a little bit frowned upon. Okay, a lot frowned upon.  As a result of my manageable weight gain, I have more mobility and energy than I did last time, which makes me glad that all bad memories of being pregnant, delivering a child, and having a newborn are magically erased from our brains over time because I must have been m-i-s-e-r-a-b-l-e.

3. It will make getting back into shape so much easier. I might not be lifting much weight or running sprints, but at nine months preggo I'm still doing more than the average American does for physical fitness.  That's pretty sad. But, I'm glad I won't be starting from scratch when I go out to reclaim my past self.

Pregnancy is a blessing, and I feel very lucky to have gotten to experience it twice.  If I do take a knee on the remainder of my pregnancy, it will be worth it.  I'll have to repeat that about a million times a day to convince myself that it's true. :)  Get out there and get healthy today! 

And if you hear someone snoring, just keep walking. :)

Pregnancy Fitness: It's happening here!

I'm baaaaack! The little smiley face stickers are lining up on my calendar because I am back in the swing of things at the gym and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm really looking forward to post-baby fitness, and instead of longing for the workouts I can't have right now, I'm appreciating the good health I have and anticipating the fun I will have later when I can seriously hit the weights again.

It feels good to be back.

Last week, after an upper body strength workout, I was caught off-guard by soreness in my pectorals. But you couldn't wipe the smile off my face when I realized it was from my workout. I'm back, baby!

What's really hit me this week is that I'm doing it. For weeks I have feared that the healthy pregnancy I had so much wanted was slipping away from me. But, as I see my healthy and strong self in the mirror I am realizing that I was completely wrong about that. I am almost giddy over it. I am doing it. I am having that healthy, fit pregnancy I always dreamed of!  And, that means that I will also bounce back higher than ever.  

So, yeah, there was a little twinge of yearning when my gym buddy was curling 25 lbs and I was with my little 15 pounders. But, it's good to have something to look forward to.

I have roughly eight weeks left, and I'm glad to be back in the gym. But, while I am relishing the workouts and embracing every day, I'm also looking to the future. This week, I'll be focusing on something really fun that I hope you can also get into: creating a vision board for the months following my baby's birth. We'll go over how to vision, we'll create some good goals, and best of all, we get to daydream. 

I hope you're having a healthy day, and if you haven't already, get out there and get healthy!

Open up and say FEED ME!

Is that a vacuum cleaner I hear?  Oh, no, that's just my mouth. Yep, I'm so pregnant and eating so often that I should just bring a cooler of food around with me all day. Oh wait, I already do that.  Score!

It's not even noon yet and I have eaten six times today.  I've also gotten to the point in my pregnancy when I pretty much want frozen yogurt with M&Ms every day. But, since I want to stick with just the one pound gained each week, and not eleven, I am trying to keep that to once a week and make the rest of my meals uber-healthy.  Which means:

• Turkey burgers
• Egg white wraps
• Fruit and almonds or nut butter
• Sliced veggies and hummus
• Greek yogurt
• Chicken (even though it makes me gag)

But the rest of the time, my sweet tooth is in overdrive.  So that means:

• Kashi
• Sweet potatoes
• Oatmeal with bananas and cinnamon
• And...chocolate chip cookies, frozen yogurt with M&Ms, and whatever doesn't run away first!

And yeah. About trying to keep the froyo to once a week? It's more like three.  Thank God for Fuzions.

Back off.
I'm hungry!
FEED ME!

:) Good day all, get out there and get healthy!

False Starts

Seriously, all I want to do right now is WORK OUT! But, with nine weeks to go before my baby is born, other areas of my life are pre-empting that plan.  Take, for example, today: it was to be my first day back at the gym after a few weeks of exile. I laid out my clothes, packed my bag, filled my water bottle, and dug out my favorite cap. I was soooooo ready. Then, I was foiled. No sleep.

I am blaming it on my husband, since he's the one who turned on the bathroom light and woke me up at 12:57 am. For the next two and a half hours I laid awake with the lyrics to "Uptown Girl," running through my head and my brain spinning with all of the stuff left to do before the baby comes. The point is, I wasn't sleeping. And, if I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't resting.

The old, single me would have just sucked it up and gone to the gym anyway. I know, not ideal but that's me. But I'm double now. I can't just do whatever I want and deal with the consequences later. I knew that if I didn't get some sleep and still went to the gym, by 2:00 I'd be falling asleep and wearing myself out, killing any chances of another workout the next day.

See?  I do learn some stuff once in a while. :)

ANYWAY, I finally fell back asleep around 3:30 am (after reading a few chapters of a book and eating a raspberry muffin). When my alarm went off at 4:20, I said a silent curse word in my head and changed the time to 6:30. Damn grown-up being responsible and *&%^ing sleep!

>:/

I have my fingers crossed for tomorrow, that I'll get a good night's sleep and be able to meet my walking group. But at this point in the game, I'm realizing that crossing my fingers is about the best plan I can make some days!

I wonder how evil it would be to disconnect the bathroom light... :)

Good day! Get out there and get healthy!

My 5k to Couch Training Program

Whew!  I'm back from a whirlwind vacation and...wow...yeah.  That was a crazy week.  I always feel the need to detox a little after a vacation because of the inevitable road food, stress, and wear and tear of traveling.  You know how it is.  But this time, the detox is more like shock therapy, because life changed a lot for me while I was gone.

Before we left, I laid out my workout clothes for the morning after our return. I always do this so no matter how late it is, my first workout back isn't hijacked just because I was too pooped to prepare for it.  It feels great to know that when I get home, my real life can pick up right where I left off.  But this time, those clothes stayed where I left them. Thanks to too much activity, stress, and fun on my vacation, I'm on an exercise hiatus for a few weeks.  My husband is referring to it as my "5k to Couch," program.  He's right: I need to spend some time on the couch!  And yes, it is driving me crazy.

You know I like to live in that high-energy zone where I am always challenging myself, pushing my fitness limits, and training for something new. In wellness-speak, this happy zone is called, "flow."  Flow is when your challenges are equal to your ability to manage them.  In other words, it's that place where you feel like everything is good: you're challenged, but not overwhelmed. You're managing life, but not bored. You're in flow!  As a wellness coach, I help people achieve and manage flow, and I also do things to keep myself in flow.  Since I've gotten pregnant, my workouts have changed a lot, but the challenge has remained equal to my ability, so I've stayed in this happy flowy place.

Now that I've been *ahem* advised to slow down, I'm faced with a truly scary proposition: no exercise. I haven't been told I can't exercise at all, but I need to stay off my feet for a while and take it easy. It's scary for me to think about not being active; it's my lifeblood. But, I obviously have bigger fish to fry for the next 11 weeks. I have to deal.

I was pretty down about it and could feel myself atrophying just at the thought of a sedentary lifestyle. I'd been in such a euphoric state of flow and I didn't want to let go of it.That's when a wonderful friend (and wellness coach buddy) helped me realize that really, I'm just entering a new type of flow. The challenge...well, it might be a little above my ability. LOL  Truly resting?  Wow, that's new for me. The only time I have actually acheived it is by doctor mandate.  But, I love a challenge.  So, I've spent a lot of today embracing this new flow. It was weird to sleep in this morning, and I didn't go swim at lunch.  But, baby is way more important.

The 5k to Couch training program is in effect, and so far I am an A+ student! :)

Being active is a big part of holistic health, but there are times when our emotional, mental, spiritual, and nutritional health take the front seat. For the next 11 weeks (OMG JUST 11 WEEKS?!?!?) I'll be flowing in a new direction.

Are you in flow?  What does flow mean to you?  Let me know, and as always, get out there and get healthy!

With a little help from my friends.

I know how shallow and petty it is to complain about the minor physical limitations of my body while it is in the process of undergoing the important business of growing and incubating another person, but I still do.  I have a feeling I'm not the only one who has marveled at the awe-inspiring magic of the whole thing while also griping about how nice the grass is on the other side of the fence.

We always want what we can't have, don't we? 

Yeah, I'm still eating healthfully and exercising five days a week, but I miss my extreme workouts. When I was complaining about feeling "blobby" to a friend yesterday, she reframed my reflection in a wonderful way, reminding me of my love for a challenge and that after the baby is born, I will get to embark on one of my all-time favorites: achieving my maximum genetic potential as an athlete. It was the pick me up that I needed and it helped today be a much better morning.

I had a great workout today, really fabulous. I walked/ran on the treadmill, did some lunges and deadlifts, some chest/shoulder work, and some crazy bicep curls that had me reveling in the old days of my workouts with Captain Awesome. I left feeling incredible.  Thanks for making that possible, Carole!

Another friend asked me earlier this week what color I felt like at that moment.  In a nanosecond I knew it was yellow.  To me, yellow means vibrant, energetic, full of sunshine and smiles.  At the same time, it is calming and serene. I'm a great place right now where I get to live on both sides of the fence: I have a massive source of energy within me holding a pep rally every day for some really incredible things about to happen in my life, and at the same time I have a calming smile on my heart because I am completely at peace with all of it. This is new territory. I'm not used to being at peace. I'm a problem-solver, and this doesn't feel like a problem.  It feels like I am finally where I should have been all my life.

These revelations, brought on with a little help from some wonderful friends, snapped me out of my blobbyness and into reality. I am a lucky, lucky girl.  I might be walking now, but my heart is running, and that's enough for me.

Walk, run, jump, leap - just get out there and get healthy. :)

Hello Third Trimester! Let's go running!

Hungry. I am so hungry! I’ve hit the third trimester and I am H-U-N-G-R-Y! And tired. But mostly hungry.



So I am eating! Naturally there’s a bit of a gap between what I crave (sweets upon sweets) and what I know I should be eating (not sweets). So, I am eating fruits and veggies that are naturally sweet…and making a few stops at the frozen yogurt place for when I just can’t take it anymore. I figure I’m at about an 85/15 split of uber-healthy and healthier-than-candy so it’s all good.


I might feel like a bulldozer in a bagel shop but in reality, my nutrition plan is pretty sound:


• Banana pre-workout


• Egg whites (and one egg) in a pita along with a smoothie (strawberries, blueberries, a little OJ, some water, and a scoop of protein powder) for breakfast


• My big ginormous salad for lunch: spinach, romaine, grilled chicken, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts, and a little feta tossed with a tablespoon or so of Annie’s Papaya Poppy Seed dressing for lunch


• Snacks including carrots and a Horizons Organic Colby cheese stick, an organic apple with peanut butter, and some turkey, spinach, cucumber, tomato, and mustard in a wrap, along with some almonds.


• Dinner varies: turkey burger, grilled chicken, healthified pizza, and one of these days we really will get around to grilling fish like we always want to!


When I am not eating I am exercising, and while I am exercising I am wondering: “should I still be exercising like this?” A trip to my doc today confirmed that I’m in the clear: I can continue to run, swim, elliptical, and lift weights until I decide to stop. That will make the strange looks and sometimes outright chastising I get from spectators a little easier to take. It’s amazing some of the myths people honestly believe about pregnancy. But, as hard as it may be to wrap our heads around, exercise is actually GOOD for pregnant women (and everyone else) and as long as you have no health concerns, moderate exercise is safe until your doctor or you pull the plug on it.


The intensity of my workouts have scaled back quite a bit but a typical week is full of energy:


• Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I call “Gym and Swim.” That means I hit the gym in the morning for some low-impact cardio on the elliptical (and History Detectives on PBS) or run (okay, shuffle) on the treadmill and then strength training with my trainer. I’m still running the gambit and exercising all muscle groups, just modifying things a tad. I’m pretty sure last week was the end of real push-ups for a while…and no it wasn’t because my stomach hit the floor first!


• Tuesday I walk with my running group! We recently switched to walking to accommodate some injuries, and this is a perfect workout for me right now.


• Thursday I rest. And yes I still feel like a slacker about it.


• Saturday I run! And by run, I mean shuffle along the street for 5 miles or so, alternating three minutes of running with one minute of walking. It keeps me sane.

I feel good, I look good, and most of all, the baby is perfect. I’ve surpassed my goal of running through the first six months and now I am just curious to see how long I can go! It’s been a really wonderful pregnancy and I am so thrilled to have maintained my fitness throughout.

Okay, enough baby talk. I’ll be back tomorrow with answers to some questions I’ve been getting about preparing and packing food, and the social stigma that goes along with it. In the meantime, get out there and get healthy!

Rear-end Mirrors

You know how it seems like some women are just never happy with how they look even though they look perfectly fine to everyone else? Yeah, I've been that woman. Seriously, who hasn't? Our eyes are not calibrated for reality when we're looking at ourselves (or our children, for that matter). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in most cases women drop themselves like a hot potato.

I left negative self-talk in 2010 because it was just bringing me down and making me feel, well, pathetic.  I don't like feeling pathetic so I stopped.  Since I've stopped using my obviously malfunctioning mirror as a gauge for my self-esteem, I've realized how much of how I feel about myself is related to how active I am. When I'm working out and eating well, I feel like a bombshell. When I can't get to the gym or have a few days of haphazard nutrition, I feel more like a bomb.  No rocket science there. It's virtually the same body either way, but it's a lot easier to feel positive and confident about it when I am taking an active role in making it stronger.

Well, that all reversed itself on me last weekend. I've been working out consistently throughout my pregnancy, but I haven't been feeling very bombshellish. I've tried to remind myself that it's time to stop being so selfish and suck it up because it's just temporary and seriously, get a grip, how shallow can I be? It worked for a while but I still felt larger than life.

Then on Saturday I came home from my 5 mile run, high on endorphins. I was so thrilled that I had such a great workout that I didn't think twice when my son wanted to take pictures of me. As I flipped through them I was caught off-guard.  I wasn't seeing a mushy, over-stuffed, sloth of a person. I saw someone who looked pretty darn awesome for five months pregnant and just back from a run. In fact, I felt so great about it that I uploaded them to my Facebook page.

It was nice to have that reversal of perspective. I was immediately able to appreciate the level of fitness I have been able to maintain and be proud of it. I had gotten caught up in self-pity over what I felt I had to give up but realized I hadn't given up anything. I had gained the best gift of all: a strong body that can maintain fitness throughout pregnancy, a husband who showers me with compliments no matter how hard I make it for him to do so, and a son who wants to take my picture.

Cue the sheepish grin. I guess I have it pretty good afterall.  Remember folks, a lot of fitness is mental, and the messages we send ourselves resonate loud and clear. Don't be afraid to look in your rear-view mirror: believe the nice things people tell you and look for a few of them yourself.

In other words, get out there and get healthy!

The Veggie Pros

So after my confession - and the response I got - about having such a hard time eating veggies these days, my stubborness has kicked in. Darn it, I love vegetables! Not only are they delicious, they're so good for us, easy to prepare, and right there for us to enjoy. I love filling my plate with bright colors and knowing that every bite I take is doing something great for my body.  So I made it a challenge: eat vegetables for one meal every day for a week, starting TODAY.  I'm making a huge salad for dinner and I am going to love it!

It's a choice.

I was choosing to let my whiny pregnant self call the shots, but the muscular, strong, vibrant, vegetable lover inside of me was withering in response. That's not cool. I'm making a different choice and turning the tables.

When it comes to making tough choices, I turn to decisional balance, a logic tool I use in wellness coaching to shed light on motivators that may be in the wings, waiting for a moment to shine.  Some ways to use decisional balance are to list the pros and cons of each choice, visualize yourself living in each choice and experiencing the emotions that result, and simply asking yourself to list reasons why not to make the change. It's pretty difficult to find enough reasons why not to eat vegetables to justify actually not doing it! 

I made my pros and cons, and my con list had just one reason: overcoming my tastebuds. Dude, I've done that so many times and had amazing feedback as a result that I know I can knock it out in no time and I will feel incredible as a result. So, the decision is clear: I want to eat vegetables...I just need to do it long enough to remember why.

Veggies for one meal for a week. Here we go!  If you're struggling with making healthy choices, simply apply some logic.  When you see your reasons why you should stay unhealthy written on paper, they seem pretty lame. Don't be lame.

Get out there and be healthy!

Eeenie Meenie Miney Moe: Choices

This week is about the choices we make between the healthy path and the not so healthy path.  I'm reminded of this daily, mostly because I rant on and on all the time to people about how health is a choice and the vast majority of the health issues we deal with are the result of our own stupid decisions.

But also because I have also been working extra hard to make healthy choices.

Pregnancy appetites are rough, yo!  I've waddled into a very gray area of health lately. Technically, the food I am eating is healthy.  It's mostly organic, definitely all natural, and my calories are more or less prudent for an active pregnant woman (it's hard to tell if I am eating too much or too little these days).  But my diet has been sooo bread-heavy, and a lot of it has been bars. Sugar bars. Clif bars, granola bars, fig bars...if it's held together with honey, I am all over it.  It's been driving me batty!  I haven't had a vegetable in months and it's really wearing on me.

As someone who just a few months ago lived almost exclusively on vegetables, fruit, chicken, and oatmeal, this is new territory. I can't even look at a piece of chicken these days...unless it is covered in cheese and wrapped in a tortilla!

So I am making choices. My sweetened Chobani yogurt is now plain and sweetened with blueberries.  My granola bars are back to being oatmeal with walnuts.  I haven't made sweet potato fries in two days.  Two days!  I'm having to be very strict with my tastebuds and sweet tooth and they are not happy about it not one little bit no siree.

These are choices I make today, but also for the future. I want a healthy baby, and I want a healthy me. I want to be able to keep running, lifting weights, and swimming all the way to the end.   So when I face a case of the grumpy pants about the whole deal, I remind myself:

Health is a choice, and the choice is mine. I choose it today so I will have a choice later.

Are the decisions you make each day towards health or away from it?

Towards your goals or away from them?

Are you limiting your choices in the future because you choose the path of least resistance today?

Make healthy choices with me...or risk the resentment and wrath of a pregnant woman who wants a fig bar. I'm looking at you!

Go out there and be healthy!

The Rule of the Belly: Workouts

Okay, I promised not to constantly bore you with the details of my pregnancy (although it is thrilling and I could talk about it for days) but so many have asked how I am coping with changing my training routine to suit my new maternal state.  So, get ready for some ME TIME!  And by "me" I meant specifically me.  Everyone listen to meeee!

To be honest, not much has changed although you wouldn't know it to hear me complaining every day about how lame I feel as a benchwarmer.  I am still running, but I've started doing mostly 3 minute run/1 minute walk intervals and have decreased my frequency from 4-5 days a week to just 2-3.  The frequency decrease was more related to achilles tendonitis than being preggo, but it suits me better now.  So, my mileage has gone down from 25-30 miles a week to more like 12-15.  Replacing those runs has been time on the elliptical, which gives me plenty of time to examine the state of my butt in the gym mirror.

When I got pregnant I announced to a friend that I would have the best-looking pregnant butt ever seen.  But for some reason I still have the same butt I had before I got pregnant. Strange. It's looking better these days, though, because I've been swimming.  Once the temperature gets over 80 degrees and the sun comes out, I cannot resist the lure of chlorine and lane ropes.  So, about three days a week I've been swimming laps for 30 minutes.  I'm planning to continue this until they close the pool in October (gotta love Florida) or I start shivering, whichever happens first.  Check out some pregnancy swimming guidelines here.

Finally, weights.  Yes, pregnant women can lift weights! I have a great trainer who has completely embraced my challenge to keep my arms and legs toned and muscular even though I am gaining fat, and he is definitely delivering.  Three days a week I am doing total body resistance training, mostly compound exercises, just like before I got pregnant, just being sure not to overdo it.  So far so good!  I miss my plyo and speed/agility workouts but I've found I am able to do those vicariously through my preschooler, who has experienced a sudden surge of physical activity now that his mom is an athlete in exile.

Not overdoing it is the hardest part.  I love training really hard and being completely fatigued at the end of a workout but those are on hold for a while. Right now my goal is 60 minutes of decent cardio five times a week, weights three times a week. Luckily, I have a great gym buddy who has generously offered to pick up my slack, and by the looks of it he is going to be totally ripped by the end of the summer.  David, you're a machine!  A very sweaty machine. LOL  Preggos, read about the signs that you're overdoing it in the gym when working out for two.

I hope that in a month I can report the same - still active, just modified!  At almost halfway though (cannot believe that) all signs point to yes.  It's a good thing too, I'm eating all of those burned calories!  More on that later.  For now,

Good day!

The Rule of the Belly

It was an unladylike, multi-napkin lunch at Moe's for me today.  I know, pick up your jaws from the floor, pregnancy makes you do some wacky things!  Today, it was a burrito.  Not only did I need one, I needed one bad, with real sour cream and lots of it.  It would not, could not, should not be ignored.

Remember how I told you that I gained 75 lbs in my first pregnancy?  Sour cream had a lot to do with that experience.  I just could not get enough!  I ate tacos for three weeks straight, no lie.  Well, this time around I am going about things with a little more restraint so I'm working hard to strike a balance between giving in to pregnancy cravings and not eating like a vacuum cleaner.

So, I pulled up Moe's website and went straight to the Nutrition Calculator so I could find exactly what I wanted - because you know pregnant ladies need exactly what they crave - without eating 900 calories just in lunch. It was perfect.  I was able to satisfy my craving and get out of there under 500 calories.  A little more than I would typically spend on a lunch, but the beast has been fed!

I have a firm belief that pregnancy cravings should not be ignored.  There is some weird reason why we need bagels with cream cheese and cool ranch chips sprinkled on top (saw that one online) or a specifically specific brand of ketchup to go on our grilled cheese sandwiches (no I do not want to eat that...yet).  Who knows why it happens, but I've learned the hard way not to try and reason with a baby.

But, I apply the same three rules to pregnancy cravings as I do regular ones:

1. Stall. I've gotten through many a craving by telling myself I could have it tomorrow, a day that never comes.  "Oooh, a brownie sounds good.  Maybe I'll have one tomorrow."  Most of the time by the next day I am not as interested anymore.  But when a craving keeps tapping you on the shoulder for a few days, move to rule #2...

2. Go get it.  Get exactly, precisely what you want or you will just eat around it, circling closer and closer until finally you cave in and eat it, and by which time you have now eaten way more calories than you would have had you just eaten what you wanted in the first place!  Which is why you should....

3. Manage the portion.  I didn't get a ginormous burrito today, I got a small one and I made it work with the rest of my day.  I knew it had to have sour cream, so I skipped shredded cheese to save calories.  Go get what you want - exactly what you want - but manage the portion and make compromises on the stuff that doesn't matter so it doesn't wreck your day.

I love the fact that I was able to get what I wanted today and still keep my day healthy.  Cause who knows what I will want to eat tomorrow. :)

Good day!

My ladder's new rung

The past few years have been like climbing an athletic ladder of awesome. The Ultimate Fitness Challenge, my first triathlon, a couple of half marathons, and a steady fine-tuning of my personal fitness into a place where I was having a lot of fun challening myself and doing what I love and ending each day completely used up and maxed out.  I've loved it!

But this year, I didn't do the Ultimate Fitness Challenge like I had hoped.  I didn't even register for the training camp like I had planned.  I didn't sign up for the Red Hills Triathlon, and the last time I ran more than 8 miles was the half marathon back in February.  My Turkey Trot goal this year is not a sub-90 minute 15k, but the 1-mile Gobbler...and that's just a maybe.  Why?

Because I'm running for two!

Yep, I've taken up residence in that wacky world of food cravings, undeniable fatigue, and purposeful weight gain!  My family and I are thrilled to be welcoming another little personality into our lives, and I am rolling with the punches of being a walking science experiment for the next six months. 

In my first pregnancy, I gained 75 lbs.  S-E-V-E-N-T-Y  F-I-V-E.  I knew that it was highly unlikely that I would give birth to the world's first 75-lb baby, and I hoped against reason that I was one of those women whose bodies just sprung back into their pre-baby shape after leaving the hospital.

I was not one of those women.

No, I sweated off every single one of those pounds, and then some, off over the course of about 18 months and ended up in the best shape of my life.  It was honorable, but it was a pain and this time I'd rather just not gain that much and skip to the fun part.  So I've been sticking to my workouts and eating as healthy as I can even with cravings for ham sandwiches and cake (not together, thankfully).

I'm really looking forward to this new rung on the ladder and seeing what happens.  So far, I've been able to strike a balance somewhere between being that perfectly fit pregnant woman that everyone secretly resents and being the total couch potato that I was last time.  It's a good place to be, and I hope I can enjoy it while it lasts.

It's hard to watch my gym buddies heave their way through challenging, sweaty workouts while I scale it back, but hey, that's where I am right now. And that's cool.

I'm totally gonna kick some Turkey Trot butt on that Gobbler.  :)

Good day!