5 miles

The past few days have been difficult. I've felt very hungry and tired. I've done well making sure I still at least walk, but I got a little out I control with my eating the past two days. Having donuts (2 days in a row) in the office, and pizza on Friday, didn't help me one bit. In those two days, I gained a pound. 

This morning I got up early and went for a run outside. It was a little warmer than it has been (20 F), and there was something I haven't seen in awhile....the sun!  I wanted to run 5 miles, but told myself that if I ran at least 3, I would be happy. I felt a lot better on this morning's run than I did last week. I think not having to wear a face mask to run helped. My breathing is a little labored with the face mask, so I felt a lot better today. By mile 3, I was still feeling strong, so I decided to go for 4. As I approached 4 miles, I was getting tired, but knew I could pull out 5 if I didn't run close to my house, so I headed towards the back of my neighborhood to force me to run a full 5. It worked!  I feel very proud of myself.

Before I found out that I was pregnant, I had just upped my mileage to 5, and was on schedule to run 7 the next week. Since then, I've felt very tired and between the fatigue and cold have not kept up with my training schedule. This worries me a little about my training for the half marathon I'm registered for on May 18th!  I still have plans to run it, and if all else fails and I have to walk some, I'm ok with that too. My only goal is to keep moving, and not come out of this pregnancy 66 lbs up like I did my last!

Now...if only I can control my hunger today...

Nauseous

The past few days have been pretty good food and exercise wise. I've stuck to my goal of working out consistently so far, but I know it will soon get harder. 

I'm beginning to get out of breath more easily. Walking stairs winds me pretty badly, but I was able to run for 30 minutes consistently on Sunday. I was pretty proud of that, despite my pace being slower. I don't get why I can run, but 2 flights of stairs winds me. 

Fatigue has set in. On Monday, I was too tired to exercise. I couldn't do anything, but go to bed. And on Tuesday, I had a super busy day, and lead my daughter's Girl Scout meeting until 8pm. I was so exhausted, but I had already taken a rest day on Monday. So, after putting both kids to bed, I threw on my workout clothes and went to walk on the treadmill. I've made a commitment to not let one rest day turn into two, and so far, so good. 

On Monday I was 7 weeks + 3 days along and the nausea began already. I've felt a queasy feeling almost all day, every day since then. :(

On a brighter note, I'm maintaining my weight so far!

Bad Choices

I had been doing so good with my eating and exercising over the past week...until yesterday. Last night I was so tired I didn't workout at all. Not even the 40 minutes of walking that I had been substituting my runs for when I was too tired to run. Nope, last night I did nothing and went to bed early. I was exhausted. 

It was an exhausting day. I woke up and got the kids ready for school, then when I went to look for the baby's car seat, I couldn't find it. I called my husband to see if he knew where it was and that's when he realized it was in HIS car, an hour away and almost to his work!  We share the carrier car seat and he had picked the baby up from childcare, and when he got the baby out, he just in strapped him, instead of taking the whole carrier out. Thank goodness we had already purchased the convertible car seat when it was on sale, and had it in the basement, but exchanging the base of the carrier and installing the new seat made us run late. 

On top of all this, my 8 year old decided she wanted an omelet for breakfast. We were already running late and out of eggs, so I offered her cereal. The first three offerings she turned her nose up because she wanted an omelet. Fed up, I told her she was eating Cheerios, the plain kind. She moaned because it was plain, and I offered to add granola to it. She's just discovered granola and loves it, so this was an agreed to solution. Problem though, was my husband picked up a peanut butter granola and she was whining because she didn't want to eat it. I told her to eat it, she's not allergic to peanut butter, she's tasted it before and didn't go into convulsions, she just doesn't like the flavor. Well, I'm not sure if that is true anymore or not because as we're pulling into school to drop her off, she puked everywhere!  Thank goodness for baby wipes because I can't afford to miss another day of work with all the illnesses the baby has picked up from daycare. I had her clean herself off as best she could, then I got out and cleaned everything else up...and I sent her to school. Yep, Mom of the Year here. 

So that's how yesterday started, and then when I got to work, I was handed 15 state income tax extension applications that had to be mailed out the same day!!  So needless to say, my day didn't get any better. By the time I got home, I was too exhausted to work out and after we put the kids to bed, I went straight to bed too. I didn't prepare breakfast or lunch for the next day, so I was stuck eating from the work cafeteria. I did well for breakfast, but I chose horribly for lunch and had a chicken quesadilla on a wheat wrap. Then dinner was equally bad...Panda Express' Brown Rice bowl with beef and broccoli. I weighed myself and I'm up 6 lbs!  I'm sure a lot of it is water weight from the salt, but it still sucks. After not working out yesterday and eating horrible today, I had to break the cycle and I forced myself to walk tonight. 

All in all, I learned that I need to go to the grocery store more often and make sure we have good choices to choose from. Hopefully I can get back on track tomorrow!

Water works

Thank goodness the weight that was showing in the scale at night wasn't real weight gain!  I spent yesterday consuming more water than I've ever drank in a single day (about 10 glasses), and this morning, the weight was gone. Shew!

It's a good lesson to learn how important adequate water intake is. 

Today has been a rough day. I've felt very tired today and when I got home, I was so hungry, I went on a small binge (5 Chip Ahoy cookies and a croissant). I'm pretty sure the hunger was directly linked to my insane tiredness, but I couldn't nap because I was home alone with our 13 month old. 

It's now his bedtime, and I'm hitting the sack before I go on another binge!

WTH

I have been so good with my exercise and food, yet tonight (and last night) when I stepped on the scale, I was up 3 lbs than I normally am at night!  I'm pretty sure it's water weight and a slowed metabolism from pregnancy. This morning when I weighed, I was back down to normal, but it's still scary. 

I think I need to up my water intake to prevent this water retention. I'm really bad about getting enough water each day. Tomorrow, I'm going to make it a point to drink a glass every hour and see if that makes a difference. 

Tonight I worked out with my trainer. I could tell he did his research on training a pregnant woman. I'm his first pregnant client, so it's good experience for him, and I was happy to see he did his due diligence in research. We worked on some ab work that I won't be able to do in another 6 weeks. He wanted to get some stability muscles built to help me in the coming months. We also worked on some back strengthening exercises, again preparing for the changes my body will be making. It was a fabulous workout!  I'm going to miss it once these sessions run out. Due to preparing for me to be a SAHM, I can't justify the cost after these sessions run out. I've learned a lot though, and I'll continue keeping the strength training time on my schedule. 

Today I had to take a PTO day (Paid Time Off) due to the snow storm we had this morning. When I went to take the kids to school, the roads hadn't been plowed and I could barely tell where the road was!  After being rear ended in the week before last's winter storm commute, I decided my life was more important than accounting so I wasn't going to chance the 20 mile commute. I had plan on just working from home, but my boss said I had to take a PTO day. Fair enough, if I was going to have to use one of my vacation days, you bet your bottom that I won't be doing ANY work...month end close deadlines or not!  So instead, I did laundry, had lunch with my husband (he worked from home), and took a 3 hour nap! I must say, I enjoyed my day off. :)

This doesn't help

Work donuts. Today's goal is to just resist these!

So far, so good.

The past week's eating and exercise has been pretty good. The one thing about tracking my calories in MFP (My Fitness Pal) is that it really helps me make healthier choices most of the time. Since I'm trying not to over eat, I'm really conscious of making my calories count nutritiously. Last night when I was packing today's lunch I noticed that I had quite a bit of risotto in my container. This, along with the Johnsonville brat wasn't very vitamin rich. So, I took some of the risotto out and added a cup of fresh spinach!  When I reheat it, the spinach should wilt nicely and be delicious. 

Another change we're making now is prepping for me to be a stay at home mom after this baby is born. I finally finished our budget, and woah. The amount of money we're spending on cable is ridiculous. So, we're researching getting rid of the cable and only keeping the high speed internet and Netflix. That should save around $100/month. 

I also noticed that we spend a LOT of money on what I call Work Meals. These are meals we eat either at our work canteen or out to eat during work hours (this includes driving to or from work). In an attempt to severely cut this out, the hubs and I have made it a challenge to see who can spend the least this month on Work Meals so we are packing our breakfast and lunch. 

Tonight is a rest day, so no exercise on the schedule. My daughter and I (I'm her Troop leader) have Girl Scouts tonight, so there's really no time for working out. The good thing...it really limits the time for mindless snacking too!  Before I left for work, I put beef stew in the crockpot to preempt the pizza I know my husband likes to make in Girl Scout days!  He's going to be so disappointed. :P

New Focus & A Brave Stance

I mentioned last time that my focus on losing weight has taken a turn and I will now focus on maintaining. I didn't mention why the change of heart because I fear a backlash. 

You see, I just found out that we're going to have our 3rd child come October!  And I'm going to do something I didn't do with #1 & #2....I'm going to attempt to maintain my weight for the majority of the pregnancy. I know that there will be people that say that you shouldn't "diet" while pregnant. And I could use semantics and say that I'm just going to eat healthy (which is part of the plan), but I'm going further than that. I will be tracking all of the food I eat, and limiting my intake to the amount of calories needed to sustain my weight, plus the 300 calories in the last trimester needed for the baby.

Does this mean I'll be perfect?  No. And if I feel like I need to eat more, I'll add the calories in lean meats and vegetables. What I vow not to do is gain the 50-66 lbs that I did with the last two!

My goal is to only gain the 11 recommended pounds for someone who is already obese. I will be logging my food daily, I will be running until I can no longer run, and I will be getting some form of exercise at least 5-6 days a week. For now, I will keep working out with my trainer once a week and focusing on strength training. And I will do it while journaling here. 

When we decided to have another child, I wanted to prepare for a healthy pregnancy, so I went online looking for blogs where pregnant women talked about controlling their food intake and exercising while pregnant, and they are few and far between. My guess is that it's a taboo subject and they fear the backlash from the public that they are harming their baby. I fear that I will be trolled and hear the same. My saving grace is that I will be working closely with my obstetrician and monitoring the baby's growth while I do this....and my hope that this blog will help others.