Pregnancy Blog – Update 2

Week 15 Day 0:   106 days down; 175 to go.  (+10 days)

During my first ultrasound the doctors/technician thought the baby measured large so they changed my due date from April 8th, 2015, to March 27th, 2015.  I am tracking my pregnancy, from an app that I have from my previous due date.  If I go by the new date, I am now Week 16; Day 3, however, just for simplicity I will go with my calendar tracking app, and let the chips fall where they may.

It is official; I have heart burn. I had this with my previous pregnancy, and now it is back.  I think it is due to the volume of food I try to eat, or want to eat, and my body just does not process calories the way it used, and well, I just feel too full.  When I train more I can eat more.  (who would not want that?) Now, that I train less, I need to eat less. I am habitual in my eating patterns, and after years of regimented eating, 5-6 meals per day, trying to cut back seems a little off.  I can see my muscles shrinking, and all my hard work wasting away.   I know this is all temporary but some days it is hard to stay motivated.  I used to get so excited for food, for the process of eating, and deciding what I am going to eat. But now that I can eat whatever, whenever, I am not hungry at all.  If I choose to overeat now I end up with heartburn.  Preventive measures include staying away from acidic foods such as coffee, wine, strong cheeses, chocolate, and various citrus fruits.  However, I do not have heartburn on a regular basis, so this is definitely pregnancy related.  Small deterrent, but a strong one, as heartburn is uncomfortable and painful at times.

So smaller meals are the remedy, and sometimes I just want to be able more.

For instance yesterday I ate:

[nz_il type=”none” icon=”icon-food2″ icon_color=”#ffcd6b” background_color=”” ]

• Meal 1:  Coffee (1/2 milk; 1/2 coffee)
  Protein pancake (1/2 in the am – egg whites and oatmeal, coconut)
• Meal 2: Protein shake w/cashew milk
• Meal 3: Protein pancake (the other 1/2 at lunch)
  w/a few chips
• Meal 4: Still too full from lunch.  Tang drink – aspartame other fake sugars give me a headache.
• Meal 5:  75 g of cooked rotisserie chicken
  Handful of potato wedges w/ketchup
  1/2 English cucumber w/dill dip

[/nz_il]

I miss being able to consume a large volume of food, as I do not get to excited about food anymore.  When you are dieting, or watching your calories or what foods go into your mouth, you develop a sense of appreciation for food, and how good it tastes, especially when you get to eat things that are off your plan. Food just tastes average to me now. Nothing really excites me about eating right now. I fill the void, and move forward.

This week’s preferences: protein pancakes, rotisserie chicken, potato wedges, cucumbers, scrambled eggs with cheese, tofu, quinoa, some chips (really getting bored with chips), soda crackers, dill dip, protein shakes, bananas.

I have a strong affinity for salty foods, and really cannot even consider eating super sweet foods.   I bought peanut butter cups thinking I wanted them, and really I cannot even bring myself to eat them. I found the peanut butter spread as I dying to try it, and now I cannot even open the jar to taste it.  My husband on the other hand feels the Reese’s peanut butter spread to be amazing!

I find myself buying food with the intent of eating it, only for it to go bad, as I just cannot bring myself to eat it.  Foods such as salads, various vegetables, any thing with strong dressing or flavour, any meats, or fish, I am just avoiding them as they just don’t appeal to me.

My weight really has not changed in the past two week, which I am happy about.

I am hovering around 138-139 lbs.

In no way am I trying to diet.  In my first pregnancy I was hungry all the time, and had major heartburn. To fix that the hunger I ate a lot, including every piece of cake or treat that was offered to me, and vanilla ice cream every night to cool the heartburn.  I really do not want to eat myself into another 65 lbs like my first pregnancy.  Although it took the better part of 16 months to arrive at the place where I could say “I’m back”,  it was fun getting back into shape as it was linearly progressive.  My the load on the bar when up weekly, I lost on a weekly basis (for the most part), and visually things were moving along, but in reality we know that it does not work like that.  You see I was returning from a layoff and I was gaining back everything I lost.  I took all of my pregnancy off from the gym, and when I finally returned to the iron 9 months later, post C section, I could barely do 1 push-up.

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane on where I started back in 2006/2007 when I was pregnant. I wanted to track my belly growth and like clockwork I took pictures every 2 weeks.  In the beginning, I did not have a belly, so there wasn’t much change week to week, but then near the end things really took off.

Interesting to see the progression:

Over the last few months, I have recorded videos, rather than take pictures.  I wanted to see my off season shape, and how things progress leading up to having a belly.  Mostly I just look like I have gained weight, which I have but for a purpose. Someone asked me the yesterday what show I was preparing for,  as I had really nice muscles.   It is comforting to know that I still look the part, even though it will be about 2 years before I step onstage again..

Looking at these videos, I am reminded on how comfortable in my own skin.   Some girls may not want to show their ‘off season’ bodies, as they think they don’t look their best.   Those on the outside looking in may not realize those who compete don’t look stage ready all the time. Shocking, right?  Yet, this is not truly my off season body, nonetheless, I am still proud to show it.   I will be gaining weight.  It is inevitable.  I don’t have to gain an excess amount of weight, but I have to gain some weight.  I am uncomfortable some days, as rolls are starting to appear, some of my pants no longer fit including the stretchy ones, and skin touches skin, when it never did before.   It is an odd feeling being in a bigger body, even though I know it is only temporary.

I have always been very open with my shape, the struggles I have faced over the years, and how I worked to improve on the genetics I was given.  For the most part I am okay with whatever size I am. I have lots of experience competing, being in that extreme contest shape, being in photoshoot shape and off season shape.    I find that I can toggle between the various visions of myself.  The competitive eye, and the off season eye.  I have never been overly hard on myself, my physique or how I looked.  There are times when I get too in shape, too lean, and I actually don’t like that look on me. Gaining weight is easy to accept as it is a curvier, fuller looking me; however, walking around like a ripped muscular system is impressive for show, but it is not appealing sexually or cuddly for that matter.

I accept that if I want to look a certain way it requires work – an increase in training, and being a little more selective with what I put in my mouth. There are times when I am motivated to do that, and other times when I just want to be ‘normal’. This time in my life – for the next year or so I am choosing to be normal.  But that does not mean I have to let myself go completely.  But then again, I know both sides – I know being in super shape and the effort required for that, and being what some would call ‘normal’ or out of shape which in comparison to training for a show, requires very little effort at all.

Let me know your thoughts, and impressions.

Feel free to like, share, or comment.

A. [nz_icons icon=”icon-happy” animate=”true” size=”small” type=”none” icon_color=”#0cceff” background_color=”” border_color=”” /]