My life currently: I'm 24 weeks 4 days pregnant with a baby boy. I've been with the love of my life (and best friend) for just over 3 years now and I'm excited to see what life will bring us this coming year! Currently I'm trying to focus on right now while also preparing for January 9 when our little guy is due to arrive. I'm a planner and an organizer, so I have faith that everything will be in place before he arrives. Granted, one can never really be prepared for a baby but I'm going to do my best!
The first few months of pregnancy were definitely challenging and I completely lost track of my health/fitness goals because I was so sick and exhausted. I started feeling like the old me a few weeks ago, and shortly thereafter I got my eating habits back on track...for the most part. It's been really difficult for me to adjust to how frequently I'm hungry and that tends to lead to snacking on junk food or food lack of much nutritional value. It's taken a couple of months to get my taste buds back to normal, so to speak.
My goal right now is being active and eating healthy for my baby. I want to improve my diet even more and really push myself to go on a walk at 3-4 days a week and get my body back in to a yoga routine. My yoga practice has suffered tremendously since becoming pregnant, and I miss it deeply. It's a tough thing being this motivated when my body is limited in what it is capable of, but it is so worth it. On a more superficial level, I also don't want to gain an excessive amount of weight that will be a huge challenge to take off after the baby is born. I'm perfectly okay with gaining as much as my body feels is necessary to grow a healthy baby while I am also active and eating healthy. My body knows what it needs and I need to honor that!
All this being said, here's my plan of action:
Physical Activity:
- Find any excuse to get up and walk around at work. Some days I need to sit with my feet up, and that is okay.
- Stretch my body throughout the day.
- Walk for 30 minutes 3-4 times per week.
- Attend 1 prenatal yoga class per week.
Nutrition:
- Begin each day with warm water & fresh lemon or a honey lemon tea. Great for digestion & tastes yummy!
- Always eat breakfast! Toast & almond butter followed by a green smoothie seems to work best at keeping my hunger at bay until lunch.
- Create a meal plan for every week. Having a general idea of which meals to cook will both help do groceries and ensure that Chris and I both have healthy dinners and lunch the following day.
- Set aside a few minutes on Sunday to prepare snacks for the work week. (Sliced cucumber, sliced pepper, pickles, strawberries, mixed nuts, etc.)
- Every evening before getting comfortable on the couch, blend up a smoothie! This is double duty because I always do up the dishes along with my Vitamix, which leaves for a tidy kitchen to wake up to; win, win!
