Ready to Run

It's time to get back on the treadmill.

Before I got pregnant with Emmett, I was in the best shape of my life.  My weight was the lowest it had been since high school.  I got up every morning at 6:30am and did at least a half hour on the treadmill (usually walk/run intervals).  I was eating well (for the most part).  I felt good.  When I got pregnant with Emmett, I was 26.5 lbs lighter than when I got pregnant with Annika.

Then came pregnancy.

I was determined to keep going with my exercise routine for as long as I could.  However, during that first trimester, I had so little energy that my running intervals quickly disappeared from my workout.  But I was going to keep walking.  Then came the pain in my pelvic floor muscles.  With Annika, I had similar pain towards the end of my pregnancy, and it made some movements (rolling over in bed, walking up stairs) extremely painful.  But I only had to endure it for a month or so at the end - now it was showing up only 3 months into my pregnancy.  I was afraid that I would be in so much pain by the end of the pregnancy I wouldn't even be able to get out of bed.  Luckily, with a little physio, I was able to keep the pain to a manageable level (even my physiotherapist said it would be unlikely to get rid of the pain completely, as the pressure on the muscles was just going to keep increasing until the baby came).  I could manage regular life, but any extra movement (like walking on the treadmill) was too much for me.  So I basically did not exercise for most of my pregnancy - other than running after a 2 year old, which can be quite a workout on its own.

My eating habits also went down the drain.  You'd think with nuturing a new life inside, I'd want to put only healthy foods into my system (yeah right - does any pregnant woman actually do that?!?), but I did the opposite.  I gave in to almost every craving I had (and I did not crave broccoli!), thinking that this was my one chance to not have to worry about gaining weight.  I also did quite a bit of emotional eating - a habit that I had worked hard to break.  So I ended up gaining a bit more than what I had planned.  In total, I gained 33.5 lbs during my pregnancy, which was not bad, but it was more than I had gained with Annika.

Now, 3 months later, I've still got about 10 lbs of baby weight hanging on.  I was down to 6 lbs left, but then I went on vacation, stopped breastfeeding (that's a whole 'nother post in itself) and started taking bc pills again, and the scale started creeping back up.  So now it's time to start getting my butt back in gear.  I really want to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight by summer.  It will be more of a challenge now to find time to exercise, as I don't think I can manage the 6:30am workout any more.  Emmett has just started sleeping through the night, but I still need to get sleep whenever I can!  Hopefully I'll be able to find a new routine and stick with it, as I like the predictability of exercising at the same time every day (or even every other day to start off).  I'm planning to redo the "Couch to 5K" running program, as it worked really well for me in the past.  I also need to start making better choices with what I eat - and no more emotional eating!  Hopefully writing about it all on this blog will help motivate me and keep me accountable.

So, time to dust off those running shoes, and get going!