Let's Make This Month Awesome!

[Gaming_Jeweler]

Hey guys! This is my 4th pregnancy fitness challenge. I did ok last challenge. I really messed up on my diet last month and ate out way too much. So this time around, I'm going to be focusing on what I'm eating by eating a salad each day. I'm also going from working out 3 days a week to 5.

 

As of right now, I am in the beginning of my third trimester. I've started making plans for what I'm going to do after the baby is born. I have bought a new pair of workout shorts and plan on joining the local Planet Fitness within a month or two of her being born. (I'm giving myself some wiggle room based on soreness and a possibly grumpy baby). 

 

Also, my birthday is at the end of the month!  So I'm going to try to make this challenge as fun as possible for me. I'm going to give myself a bit of wiggle room on my birthday, so if I have a bit of sweets I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I've been doing a bit of birthday shopping, and all of it is health or fitness related. I can't seem to get enough workout gear. Lol, I guess that's a good problem when you're trying to adapt a healthier lifestyle.

 

Goals:

 

1. Eating for Two: I am doing much better with my diet- as long as I don't eat out- so my overall dietary goals have changed. The current goal is to limit eating out once or twice per week and eat 1 salad per day.

 

2. Exercising for Two: My husband has decided to join me in exercising! We both want to be healthier when the baby arrives. So the current goal is to exercise 5 days a week. I will be walking with him 3-5 days a week and doing yoga 2 days a week. I get the weekend off. I'm not allowed to exercise then (unless I want to take a different day off).

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: I used to love cooking. Overtime, I began to feel overwhelmed and grew to hate cooking. I actually stopped cooking for a long time. When I started eating Paleo, I started cooking for myself and enjoyed it. But I hate cooking for anyone else. I recently read an interesting article where families cooked meals together and it sounded really fun. It's hard to feel overwhelmed when you're sharing the responsibility. So my current goal is to cook 4 meals with my husband.

 

4. Have Fun: Sometimes I get so focused on what I need to do that I stress myself out. I need to take at least one day a week to sit back and have fun for a few hours. I can do this by reading, playing games, or watching tv for 1-2 hours.

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: I have trouble sleeping. There are several factors I can't control (heartburn, baby moving) but there are some that I can. I have decided that I am not allowed to use my phone after 11:30pm. I can put it on the charger but I can't touch it until the next morning. 

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: This one is getting a bit harder to work on. Talking to people I don't know at the store has gotten easier. The problem I have now is that there are certain situations I try to avoid, like public speaking or speaking in front of a group. It doesn't matter if it's a group of strangers or friends, I seem to always clam up. So I guess the goal is to go to my friends' house and play DnD once this month. They tend to have games that run until the wee morning hours, so I need to pick one that isn't going to keep me up too late.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

Sometimes I feel discouraged about how I'm doing. Am I exercising enough? Am I eating healthy enough? Sometimes I honestly can't tell. But today, I saw I photo I took last year. I was amazed because when I compared it to a photo I took recently, I saw a huge difference in how I looked. I'm not perfectly healthy but I am a healthier person than I was last year. And I am a whole lot healthier than I was two years ago before I joined NF.

 

For anyone who's feeling a bit discouraged, just know it takes time. Document your fitness journey with photos so that one day you can look back and see how far you've came. There's always room to improve but don't spend so much time focusing on what you need to improve that you forget to celebrate your victories.

 

[Sunmage]

You look way more healthy. And its more than the "pregnant glow".

 

Great! As long as you feel better than before don't worry about doing not enough. 

It takes away time to enjoy life.

 

Easier said than done though. I struggle there, too.

 

Welcome Back!

[Gaming_Jeweler]

I'm not really allowed to say I'm not doing enough this month after this weekend. I feel in downtown Greenville on Saturday. I landed in a way that my baby bump didn't get hit. I had to go to the ER and get an ultrasound to see if the baby was ok or if the impact of the fall caused my uterus to tear. Everything was fine. Hubby got to see our little girl head banging. Then she turned and looked at the camera before rolling away. I'm scratched up and had to get stitches by my right elbow. But things could have been much worse. Right now, my arm's in a sling and Emmeryn loves kicking it. This week's goal is to go on a few short walks in and plenty of rest.  

[sterre]

Ouch. That sounds like a pretty bad fall. I'm glad everything is okay with the baby though, that's always good news.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

16 hours ago, sterre said:

Ouch. That sounds like a pretty bad fall. I'm glad everything is okay with the baby though, that's always good news.

 

Thank you. The fall wouldn't have been as bad if it wasn't a steep hill and my purse hadn't shot my left side back when I tripped. 

[Gaming_Jeweler]

So I did pretty good yesterday. I managed to get out of the house. My husband and I went to a friend's house to give her son a birthday present we had bought a few months ago and kept forgetting to give him. What would have been a short trip turned into a several hour long visit. John played outside with her son while we sat on the porch talking. She did natural childbirth 2 years ago, so I wound up asking her when you can start exercising after giving birth. It turns out that I won't be working out until my little girl is about 6 weeks old.  We wound up staying for supper, which was salad and pizza. It was a nice visit and it was fun to see my husband get some daddy practice in.

 

Week 1, Day 1

 

1. Eating for Two: 0/2 meals eaten out 

1/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 0/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 0/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: My mom recommend a BBC crime drama and I finally got around to watching it. The show was so bad- the acting, the pace, and the plot- I started rewatching FMA Brotherhood. 1/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? No. 0/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

[spooky]

FOUND YOU (better late than never <3)

 

So happy to hear that the little girl is alright after the fall <3. Loving your goals for this challenge, you're building lots of great habits

 

I see a huge difference in your face, you look radiant <3

[sterre]

I hope the rest of the week has been going well!

[Gaming_Jeweler]

 

FOUND YOU (better late than never <3)

 

So happy to hear that the little girl is alright after the fall <3. Loving your goals for this challenge, you're building lots of great habits

 

I see a huge difference in your face, you look radiant <3

 

Yay! Spooky's here!  Thank you. I really want my little girl to grow up in a home where a healthy, active lifestyle is encouraged.

 

Thank you!  

 

 

I hope the rest of the week has been going well!

 

It has! I've actually been traveling to visit my family. My phone doesn't get a signal and internet sucks, but it's good to get to see them again.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

So my husband and I both did a lot of driving- 10-12 hours worth over two days- so that we could spend some time with my parents before driving to my hometown for my baby shower. Since my mom is hosting my shower and doesn't have a working car (my dad uses the only good car to go to work) she & my sister road back with us. My shower is tomorrow and I was/am looking forward to spending time with my family. My mom's sister is co-hosting the shower. She's the family cake-maker and I'm wondering if she'll make me a pretty cake, an elaborate cake, or just throw some candy on it so that it says "congratulations." She made my mom's shower cake back when Mom was expecting me. It was a question mark with a blue and pink trim that matched the icing she used to write "Boy Or Girl, What Will I Be?"

 

My mom's parents- who I affectionately refer to as Mommaw & Poppaw- are both sick. Poppaw is in the hospital with pneumonia. He's doing better after receiving treatment for a week and is being transferred to the "nursing home" part of the hospital that does rehab until he's better. Mommaw, who gave Poppaw pneumonia, spent 24 hours in the hospital and was sent home. Mommaw has Alzheimer's and has almost no short-term memory. The nurses my family had to deal with during her 24-hour stay were  very rude. They told my aunt that her mom isn't contagious and it's fine for me to be around her. But when my mom went to pick her mother up, they told her all pneumonia is contagious and that I needed to keep a 5-foot radius between us. So basically, I have to be super offish and avoid my grandmother the whole time I'm hear because we're staying in the same house. I hate this because it makes me appear rude. But I can't afford to get pneumonia from her. I have half a mind to either call or go to the hospital and tell them that I've already miscarried once and if I miscarry due to their stupidity/negligence I will take them to court. They will suffer as I have. My first baby didn't attach right and died. There was nothing I could do about that. Getting pneumonia because the hospital didn't want to keep my grandmother with Alzheimer's until she was better is something I can control. The hospital released my mommaw TODAY and kept calling the house asking when we were going to pick her up. My family lives an hour away from the hospital and the nurse kept complaining about how long it was taking for somebody to show up. 

 

I'm going to be hanging out on the forums and Twitter today while I avoid Mommaw. Ugh, I hate saying that. I'm also really mad at the local hospital for releasing her early.

 

I'm also going to do a quick update for the week before I forget:

 

1. Eating for Two: 3/2 meals eaten out 

3/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 1/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 0/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: 1/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? No. 0/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

[Gaming_Jeweler]

Ok, the internet basically decided to crash on me after 4:30. My grandfather was in the hospital for 2 weeks, not one, before the hospital he was at said he needed to be discharged and moved to a different hospital. The new hospital is the one my grandmother was at this morning. That hospital said they couldn't take my grandfather because he is "high risk." They arranged his discharge papers before he even arrived and told the oxygen supplier to call his house to have an oxygen tank delivered. My aunt had to call the oxygen supplier and tell them that he wasn't going home. She then called the hospital he was supposed to be transferred to and ask them what was going on. Despite the fact that a few hours earlier they had told her it was fine for her to drive him from one hospital to the other, they said she couldn't drive him there because he was too high risk and it was too much of a liability for anyone but the EMTs to take him. That would be a fee over $1000 for my grandfather to pay (because insurance doesn't cover ambulance rides). My aunt tried to reason with them but they gave her two choices: EMTs take him or he goes home because of his "high risk" status. My aunt said she'd take him home. They quickly changed their minds and said she could drive him there. But they didn't put him in the Rehab Floor. Nope. They put him in the Main Floor, where all the sick people is. But he will get physical therapy. 

 

Speaking of my grandmother, despite the fact she has Alzheimer's, she was able to notice that I'm pregnant when she saw my belly. She also noticed the sling on my arm and the bloody knee cap. She kept forgetting what happened to me, but she remembered that I'm pregnant and carrying a little girl. This was pretty amazing, considering she can't remember if she ate dinner or not. I think she sorta remembered that I fell, because when I went downstairs to use the spare bathroom she lectured me about falling.

 

Other than the hospital-induced headache we're all dealing with, things are going pretty well. My appetite is kinda going everywhere. Emmeryn has pushed my stomach up pretty high and I can't eat much at once. So I eat meals in waves. I had 4 meals today. Lunch was just chips and dip, but I couldn't really eat anything else without feeling sick. I seem to lose my appetite every time she goes up a pound.

 

We're going to be driving home tomorrow after the shower. John's still recuperating from doing most of the driving up here and I still have stitches in my arm, which leaves me wondering how we're going to do all of this. My dad's sister, who's a nurse, will be at my shower. I'm thinking about asking her if she could look at my stitches and remove them for me (the ER doctor told me my husband could remove them for me if I wanted him to). 

 

Tomorrow looks much brighter than today. Unless you're talking about the weather. Then it's the same.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

So my husband and I got back home at 1:00am. My aunt took my stitches out after my baby shower. I feel great now. My husband and I alternated who was driving. We're still recuperating from all the traveling and all the eating out we did. We've agreed not to eat out until his next payday which is right before my birthday. 

 

After getting back, we stocked the fridge and I bought 2 prenatal workout dvd sets. Now that my stitches are out and the rest of my scrapes are pretty much healed, I can't wait to take on week 2.

[our.lady.of.ashes]

Hello beautiful,

 

Just stopping by to say hi and let you know I'm thinking of you and all the things you're up to. 

 

Drive by loving.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

 

Hello beautiful,

 

Just stopping by to say hi and let you know I'm thinking of you and all the things you're up to. 

 

Drive by loving.

 

Hey girl! Good to see you back again!  *hugs*

[Gaming_Jeweler]

After getting back from my trip to Virginia, my back had gone out. A quick trip to my chiropractor fixed it and I feel better than ever. John and I went for a walk yesterday. Which is funny, since I normally have to wait 2 days before exercising after seeing my chiropractor (I threw my back out by working out too soon once...). I'm still healing from my fall. The only injury that's a pain in the butt to deal with is my knee. Half of the time, I can walk around the house and do what ever I want. The other half, it seems to want to keep my knee stuck at a right angle or else I'm in pain. So I can't do any yoga for a bit. Which is annoying, because I just got 2 prenatal yoga/ workout dvd sets recently and I really want to use them. But today is a pretty day and I could use another short walk.

 

Life has been good. My husband got an email from Ruby Tuesday's for 44% off any order placed yesterday. Since I love Ruby Tuesday's, we went and both got meals. We ordered a not-so-healthy appetizer but we both ordered the salad bar and sweet potato fries with our main courses. I was full from eating half of the appetizer and half of my giant salad, so my main course- which was a steak- was lunch for today. Although I'm probably going to be eating a second lunch with the way this baby's growing. 

 

Week 2, Days 1-2

 

1. Eating for Two: 1/2 meals eaten out 

3/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 1/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 0/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: 1/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? Yes. 1/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

[Gaming_Jeweler]

Well, I screwed myself over yesterday. It was our turn to bring snacks to church on Wednesday and I was in a rush to get everything together, so my husband and I went to our local Deal Mart and bought 4 packs of cookies for about $4. We had plenty of cookies left over, like 2 1/2 packs, which we left in our car. Yesterday, we had some errands to run & hubby had band practice that night. My stomach was a mess most of the day and I wound up not eating much for breakfast or lunch. I just wasn't hungry. But after 1:00pm, I was starving and we were running from one place to another. So I ate some cookies, and a doughnut, and a bagel with cream cheese. When I logged it, I was shocked to see I had eaten over 1,000 calories in empty carbs. But I felt fine. Until this morning. Due to all the sugar in those empty carbs, I had a sugar crash this morning. I couldn't make it downstairs to the kitchen. I told my husband what happened and he quickly brought me 1/2 cup of frozen berries and a bagel with cream cheese. I feel much better now. I'm also planning on not eating cookies on an empty stomach.

 

Week 2, Day 3

 

1. Eating for Two: 1/2 meals eaten out 

3/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 2/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 0/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: 2/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? No. 1/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

[Gaming_Jeweler]

I had an appointment at my midwife's today. I'm doing good, baby's doing good. All in all, what you want to hear. My husband decided to weigh himself- we haven't owned a scale in over a year- and discovered he's over 400lbs. That's a scary number. We decided to go back on the Paleo diet. We're not going 100% because of the foods I have to eat while pregnant, but we agreed to cut out all cookies, breads, and ice cream. I still have to eat some grains right now to keep my blood sugar in check, so I have to make sure I buy foods he won't eat to keep temptation at bay. I bought some sweet potatoes so that I can get my carb fix and not have to worry about my blood sugar dropping. We still have some cookies in the house, but those probably won't last long. Since we decided to go back on the Paleo diet, I decided to make salad and Paleo chicken nuggets with my special seasoning. I'll let you guys know how the chicken nuggets turn out. 

[Gaming_Jeweler]

I felt the need to not post anything for a bit. I took almost an entire day to let the fact that my husband might not live to see many of the future big events in our daughter's life or grow old with me. I had a good cry about it simply because I kept telling myself things would get better and he would lose the excess weight over time by making a few changes here and there. But instead of getting healthier from the small changes he's made, he's only gotten more unhealthy. He rarely drinks soda- only when we eat out- and he joins me in my daily walks. But that hasn't been enough. And the idea of raising our baby on my own terrifies me. So I cried about it. Then I made myself workout. One of the prenatal workout dvds I bought was a stretching & dumbbell workout series. It kicked my butt (I made it 10 minutes into the workout before I felt like my arms were going to fall off) and made me feel better.

 

Today was our first day back on the Paleo diet since I got pregnant. It was hard for hubby but he's made it through. I did pretty good, even though I did finish the snickerdoodle cookies that were in the house. The Paleo chicken nuggets I made on Thursday were great! They tasted delicious both when they were first cooked and when they were microwaved the next day. I made mine without breading, just a little garlic, pepper, and sea salt. I found the original recipe on Paleo Leap. The next Paleo dish I'm going to make is going to have spaghetti squash in it. I'll have to look up directions for how to cook it, but it shouldn't be too hard.

 

Week 2, Day 4

 

1. Eating for Two: 1/2 meals eaten out 

3/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 3/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 1/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: 2/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? No. 1/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

 

 

Week 2, Day 5

 

1. Eating for Two: 1/2 meals eaten out 

5/7 salads eaten

 

2. Exercising for Two: 4/5 workouts completed

 

3. Rediscover My Love of Cooking: 2/4 meals cooked

 

4. Have Fun: 2/4 completed

 

5. No Phones After Midnight: Did I use my phone after 11:30? No. 1/7 nights used

 

6. Slay the Dragon of Social Anxiety: 0/1 DnD campaigns played

[Gaming_Jeweler]

In other news, my cat decided to attack the string on a balloon I got at my baby shower. He makes the weirdest faces.

 

[Gaming_Jeweler]

My blood sugar wound up being a bit crazy yesterday. I did eat healthy, despite the fact I had a jumbo soft pretzel as a part of lunch. I managed to cook my spaghetti squash for lunch. It turns out baking them is easier than boiling them. I had forgotten how much food comes from one spaghetti squash. When I cooked it, I filled an entire tupperware dish with just the squash. I had enough leftover for a couple of lunches (I'm not sure how much is going to be leftover after today). 

 

Since today's the beginning of week 3, I decided to post my grades for weeks 1-2. Week one was terrible. And I'm not saying that because I couldn't workout. I'm looking at what I ate and how much I ate out. Week 2 has been much better. I joined Habitica to see if it would help me any with keeping to my "No phones after midnight" rule. It has! I only used my phone twice after 11:30 last week. Eating has been good. I bought a salad spinner that I can use to store my salads in after I make them. This means that if I want to eat something but don't want to cook, I already have salad made. My husband has enjoyed having pre-made salad sitting in the fridge for the same reasons. It's harder to justify eating out "because I'm hungry" when there's pre-made food sitting in the fridge. In fact, the only times we ate out last week was when we had a 44% off our entire order coupon, when I got stressed out and needed an iced coffee (the regular stuff was giving me heart burn), and when my blood sugar crashed during church. My sugar crashed so quickly there was no way I could have made it home, cooked lunch, and eaten it.

 

Week 1 Grade: D

 

Week 2 Grade: B

 

[spooky]

I so sorry about all the stress that's going on in your life right now. The healthcare system sucks  

 

I know you're worried about your husband, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that on top of everything. Have you communicated what you wrote in that post to him? It might help. It does sound like he is trying, you two might just have to sit down, talk about this, and figure out a concrete plan for him to get healthier along with you.

 

Sending you lots of love and good vibes <333

[Gaming_Jeweler]

 

I so sorry about all the stress that's going on in your life right now. The healthcare system sucks  

 

I know you're worried about your husband, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that on top of everything. Have you communicated what you wrote in that post to him? It might help. It does sound like he is trying, you two might just have to sit down, talk about this, and figure out a concrete plan for him to get healthier along with you.

 

Sending you lots of love and good vibes <333

 

Yes, the healthcare system does suck. The hospital that my family goes to seems to belong on the list of worst hospitals in the area. There are 3 big hospital chains where I live in South Carolina but I think there's only 1, maybe 2 chains where my family lives in Virginia. Oh wait, there is 2 chains. One of which is also down here in SC. But my family's doctors are at the crappy one.

 

Thanks.  We actually did talk about it... a lot. We talked about it when he came up with his battle plan and we talked about some more it later when he noticed I was acting depressed. He's asked me to help him track his calorie intake. I try to help him, but it's a bit hard for me since I'm using Fitbit's app to track my calorie intake to make sure I don't forget to eat or eat enough. I swear my brain is a scrambled, foggy mess anymore.  We have the fridge stocked with fresh veggies and meat. I made sure anything I bought that could possibly tempt him I bought in flavors he hates- like mushroom or blueberry. IDK why, but the smell of blueberries or mushrooms is absolutely disgusting to him. But at least that lets me have carbs in the house without having to worry about him eating them.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

I have been super tired lately. I can't eat much due to how big Emmeryn has gotten. She's over 3 pounds now and feels huge. Which is funny, because I know that she's nowhere near what her birthweight will be. But I can't eat much because of how high Emmy has pushed my tummy. And this has bothered my hypoglycemia. I go from feeling fine to absolutely exhausted at the drop of a hat.  I don't drive anymore because of how fickle my blood sugar is right now. But I do have some good news. I managed to help cook supper and I cooked lunch all by myself. So my blood sugar woes, as annoying as they may be, haven't interfered too much with my goals. It's just adding a bit more of a challenge to completing them.

 

For lunch, I made a massive pot of chicken soup. It was great! It filled me and my husband up quite quickly. We had 2 bowls each and felt stuffed afterwards. And I think I have enough leftovers to last us until payday. So no more cooking lunch for the week! Yay! I didn't stray too far from the original recipe, although I chose to leave out the squash and tarragon and substituted seasoned salt for the salt and pepper.

 

[sterre]

Wow, it sounds like a lot has been happening lately. That was a great improvement between week 1 and week 2. Hopefully week 3 is going to be even better.

 

I also hope you manage to keep eating enough, despite the baby getting in the way. That does sound tricky. Maybe more frequent small meals will help?