Pregnancy Blog-Update 1

I posted last week an update on my great news!  You can see that here.

This past July I spent the majority of my time traveling around South Africa, and then returned home to Canada through a short stay in Paris, France. During this whole time I did not train regularly or eat very well.  I managed to workout twice during this 4 week period – one hot yoga class in Cape Town that was fabulous, and a weight/cardio workout at Virgin Atlantic in Durban. Other than that, it was a lot of sitting, waiting, watching, reading and be patient.

I waited until I took a blood test, before letting certain family members know the outcome.  Then good news of a different kind arrived in my inbox.  I qualified for the 2015 Olympia!

My first impression was ‘Shit, I knew this was going to happen‘.  There are certain goals you want to achieve in your life, and unfortunately with some you cannot do all of them at the same time, as there are only so many hours in a day, and some conflict.  This particular one conflicted – be pregnant, and competing.  I could not ‘lean in’ on this opportunity.  I always wanted this goal to be achieved, and now it was here in front of me and I had to turn it down.  When you decide to make a run for an Olympia qualification you have to plan to achieve it and if it works out great, and if it does not well there is always next year.  I have a hard time putting a year in my life on hold for something that might not happen. I love competing, but I also have other interests. My family, traveling, being normal as some people would say, and doing other things that just training, planning my food, and being so focussed on myself all the time.  I knew I would be doing other things in the summer, and anytime I think I want to go to Olympia I remind myself of the sacrifices that would have to be made to get there.

Giving up my summer (at least it felt it would be that way), especially with the nutrition, feels limiting, spending more time in the gym, the focus required, staying near home as I rarely travel much when in prep mode, and the end of August/September is always such a rush time of year – back to school, back to schedule, travel for my husband, and return to my clients full time as I usually take a few weeks off from my in gym clients.  There are a lot more things to consider before just “going to the Olympia” and I would want to bring my best, not just an okay package.  It would require a year of preparation, not just training ‘in case’ I make it by points.  A year in your life is a lot of time.

Most of August, was spent feeling extremely tired, having to use the bathroom frequently – especially at 2-3x per night, having my sleep interrupted, with mild insomnia in which I never had that before, and food aversions especially chicken, and any and all vegetables.  I tried to eat various things as I basically felt hungover most of the time, mild headache, nausea, bloating, and just uncomfortableness.

Since I could not take any medications, I tried other foods that I would not be part of my regular nutritional habits.  Such as McDonalds (many times), St. Hubert, Mr. Noodle, lots of chips (which is recommended for nausea), fries of any kind, lots of pickles, ketchup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and lots of soda crackers.   During this time, I ate whatever could stomach.  However, I did NOT have cravings for sugars of any kind. The only time I crave sugar is when I am prepping for a show.

Other than the food, the other major thing that changed was my extreme lack of energy.  I am running into my 39th birthday, so I realize things are different when you are ‘older’, and honestly,  I don’t remember any of this with my son who was born in 2006.  I slept most days for 2 hours in the afternoon. My work when I was teaching was a challenge, and for me personal training is more calm, still active, but not as crazy as a classroom of 30+ students would be.  Luckily I am entering my 13-14th week, and my energy is returning.

When it came to training, most of August was spent trying to train. I kept a log, which I will share with you, but honestly most days I skipped it.  Either it I was too tired (oh, I was so tired), felt sick, or I would do a modified shorter workout, just to feel like I ‘did something‘ that day.  I would have a great morning workout, and then have to recover with a 3 hour afternoon nap.  My workouts were not intense like it would be training for a show – it was maybe a full body workout 15 sets total tops.  I really had to scale back.  I know this is temporary, my scaling back, but for this pregnancy I am determined to do it differently than last time.

When I had my son, I stopped training for 9 months. I had so much hip/pelvic pain from 4 months on, that I could barely stand or walk.  So when I returned to the gym after having him I was so weak I could not do just one pushup.

Oh, and I gained 65lbs during that time. I said yes, to every piece of cake offered to me, ate ice cream every night (I had heartburn a lot), and did not restrict or consider what I was putting in my body. I considered this to be the one time in my life that I could ‘get away’ with it.  Even for me, someone who is more active than normal, I was not immune to gaining weight.

I enjoyed my first pregnancy, but gaining 65lbs was not easy to get off.   By the end of it walking was hard, I had laboured breathing from climbing stairs, and really was just big.  I was 185lbs before giving birth, hung out at 145-155lbs for at lest 4-6 months post pregnancy, lost a hell of a lot of muscle, and by the time I was back in shape – to where I could say “I’m back” I weighed in at 109lbs lean for the 2007 Canadian Fitness Nationals.