Maintaining Fitness During Pregnancy

Staying Active During Pregnancy

While I am definitely slowing down now at week 39, I wanted to share that many CrossFitting women can continue working out all the way to due date or at least as long as feels good with their body--like I did until just a couple of weeks ago.

Although the third trimester brought back a bit of fatigue like I felt in the first, I still CrossFitted and did work around the house and yard up until about the 37th week.

My CrossFit Modifications

For CrossFit, here were some of my modifications:

• lifting lighter weights and working technique instead of trying to set new PRs, 

• using knee raises hanging on the pull-up bar instead of sit-ups (ideally these would be knees to elbows or knees to armpits, but I can't get that tucked anymore) and transitioning to shoulder press towards the end for midline stability work,

• using ring rows instead of pull-ups (the bands don't feel comfy hitting my bulging belly and kipping feels too violent and heavy), 

• performing hollow rock holds while hanging from a bar instead of the ground, 

• stepping boxes instead of jumping, 

• rowing and biking instead of running, 

• using parallettes for push-ups and burpees (adding knees on the ground for high reps/speed), 

• not squatting with weight at very high speed (i.e. no full squat snatches or cleans) since I have heard of women having ligament issues with that during pregnancy.  However, I did do weighted front squats, back squats, overhead squats, and snatches and cleans landing in the power position. And I transitioned to using dumbbells instead of the barbell once I realized I was arching the barbell way out to get it past my belly and returning it was belly-skimming sketchy. 

• and finally scaling down to stretching in the final weeks when opening, softness, and readying the body for birth is the goal (setting aside my CrossFit brain for a time to not be concerned with weight, reps, or time--which is really hard!). 

Lessons Learned

What I have found through personal experience:

• Rapid hip opening leads to round ligament pain in me so intense I have to stop and wait it out before continuing to straighten.  That happens when I try to get up too fast (I need to slowly transition from the rower or just from sitting to standing), bear crawl then try to stand, or when I open and close my hips with too much intensity and repetition--like long, hard rowing.  To avoid it, I know I can row a 250 with intensity, so that is my distance of choice, or I can go long and slow if I want to stick out a 500 or 1k, but I have to be really slow getting off the rower and stand up slooooowly.  And to note: round ligament pain is completely normal when you belly is quadrupling in size and latched in place by just a few ligaments. 

• Holding my breath is a no-no (it makes me dizzy and isn't good for the baby), so no more slow, heavy lifting.  I can go lighter and move quicker while holding tight and breathing at the beginning and end of the movement or breathing while holding tight during the movement if I stabilize tightly.

• I have to lift things off the floor with wide leg position and row with bowed legs too--which makes me laugh since I feel like a pot-bellied heavy lifter.

Listen to Your Body

Overall, I surprise myself with what I can still do and how it makes me feel--I love it.  Even though I am not CrossFitting now, I can still walk and lift and move things around the house that are reasonable.  I just learned to take the intensity down a notch to not get seriously winded and I feel out the movement--if I get ligament pains, I slow down or stop if necessary and wait them out to continue.  A lot of it is just feeling it out and using common sense.  Like with eating when I'm hungry and trying to provide my body with fuel not junk--I listen to my body. 

For the yard projects, in my third trimester I helped haul concrete chunks from the cracked slab we removed from our backyard, spent hours spreading mulch from our landscaping project, and helped shovel 4 cubic yards of granite base rock for the new patio, which my husband put in with the help of our friends on a weekend.  I single-handedly moved a woodpile across the yard--just me and the wheelbarrow.  Who says pregnancy needs to be a time of rest?

Pregnancy Side-effects

I am so lucky to have not had the quintessential pregnancy back pain.  I credit my level of fitness obtained over years of getting expert CrossFit coaching at CrossFit Santa Cruz to help drill midline stability and make lifting with a straight back second nature.  I am careful lifting to not go too heavy and strain my back that already has such a load to support on a daily basis.  But I certainly still lift--it's functional and necessary to life.  I love shocking the check-out clerks at the grocery store as I string multiple bags from my body like a Sherpa--"Nope, I don't need any help out today, thanks!"

I have also noticed that my recovery during pregnancy is truly amazing and much more accelerated.  The speed at which I recover when I do feel a little sore and how rare soreness is for me now is truly remarkable.  Another wonder of pregnancy!  I continued taking 5g of omega-3 fish oil a day for most of my pregnancy, but started to decrease that to just over 1g by the end so that I don't overly bleed during delivery and recovery (fish oil thins the blood and I have found that especially true with my body).  My soreness now in the final weeks is mostly upper back strain counterbalancing that medball-sized 50# weight in front and leg numbness/cramping, which is just my uterus squishing nerves in there.  Normal, but annoying.

But I must admit: at week 39 and 3 days I am getting more and more uncomfortable, which is a good thing.  I have LOVED being pregnant and have felt wistful about losing the amazing feeling of having my little one so close and squirming and hiccuping inside.  I already feel like I will miss that intimacy, the happy cocktail of hormones that have made me feel amazing and literally glowing, and the mental time-off from caring about body image.  But as the end approaches, I am happy to be about ready to leave behind my amazing pregnancy and embark on a whole new journey of discovery and wonder at my little one.  I can't wait to meet him and share the world with him! 

So the moral is: basically eating healthy, home-cooked foods and exercising using functional movements really does help a pregnancy go smoothly and become a wonderful, fun experience?  Go figure!

DIY Food Adventure: Dinner

DIY Food Adventure


The challenge has officially ended, but many of us are continuing to eat home-cooked meals.  It has created a positive feedback loop where making your own food:

• feels gratifying, giving you a sense of accomplishment for your precious time and effort,
• makes you feel good on the inside with normalized digestion,
• has a positive emotional response: you feel good and don't have the blood sugar highs and lows that make you cranky and short-tempered,
• improves your performance at the gym and in your daily life because you are fueling yourself with quality nutrition and feel energized.

I look forward to continuing this challenge and feel so appreciative for the boost to get my nutrition on a healthy track, especially for my pregnancy--the most important time in my life to be eating healthy!

Week 32 of 40

So now my belly is so huge people keep asking if I am due at any moment.  However, I still have over a month and a half to go!  I have gained quite a bit of weight, over 35#s already, but my midwife doesn't mind and it seems to be almost all in the belly--I have quite a basketball of baby!

The interesting thing about the weight gain is that I am not eating any differently and if anything I have been pretty good with fewer weekend treats.  When I do have them, I splurge on an ice cream dessert, steamers with whip cream and light flavor at the coffee shop, corn chips, french fries when I eat out, and Chipotle burrito bowls with a bit of rice.  Not too awful and much fewer and farther between than in the past.  I'm still staying strong with my gluten-free diet and it isn't all that hard--eating food that makes you feel good is a really great motivator.

My meals are home-cooked still, usually starting with bone broth and fruit, then eggs and fruit, cheese and pepperoni or chicken (maybe with grain-free biscuits) and fruit, and meat and veg at night often with a dessert of fruit.  Yeah, it's a lot of fruit, but I vary it up with bananas, grapefruit, grapes, figs, pears, and apples.  And hey, I'll take fruit over sugar and processed crap any day.  I usually have 4 meals if I am up early and with the time change I have been up early lately.  My body is just part ready to be up and part sick of trying to find a comfortable sleeping position where my legs don't go numb or have shooting pain when I move--doesn't happen all the time, but it isn't fun when it does.  Leg cramps when sleeping and numbness when standing for a long time is about the only uncomfortable pregnancy "symptom" I've had to deal with regularly--not too bad!

But my pregnancy is going fabulously for me.  I feel great and absolutely LOVE the experience of having my little one moving around inside my belly.  He is adorable already and sometimes I just stay up in the middle of the night feeling him hiccup or squirm back and forth, contorting my belly in such funny shapes.  I love to just sit with my belly out on the couch after dinner and watch him kick and bring knees/hands/elbows/buns across my belly.  Last night I had both cats curled up on my legs and squeezed in close against my warm belly.  It was so cute to have all my little ones sharing my lap :)

Home-cooked Dinners

Dinner is the one weekday meal my husband and I share, so it means a lot to me to have something nourishing and satisfying late in the day.  Our go-tos for protein have been:

•  Slow cooker carnitas with sour cream 

• Meaty veggie-laden tomato sauce using jarred tomatoes (no more cans for me due to BPA concerns) and slow cooking a big batch with grassfed beef, zucchini, and mushrooms for at least 4hrs on Low

• Grassfed beef burgers with cheese and sometimes bacon 

• Chicken soup using slow cooker chicken bone broth and roasted chicken

• Grassfed beef marinated in wheat-free Tamari sauce 
• Roasted chicken 

For carb, I make dinner my veggie meal.  Usually I'll have cut veggies like yellow peppers, baby carrots, and cucumbers.  They are terrific scoops for tomato sauce and little boats for carnitas.  Meats are also great wrapped in steamed collards (just trim out the woody part of the stem, keeping the leaf intact as much as possible, and steam for less than a minute until pliable).  They are durable, tasty wraps that trump lettuce for wrap-ability.  I sometimes switch out the veggies with corn chips when I am feeling naughty but that saltiness usually makes me guzzle water all night, so I am up even more often.  No es bueno.

For another change, I'll roast/broil up some delicata squash into chips--just thinly slice, toss in oil, and eat seeds and all (thanks to my friends Sonny and Jill for starting the delicata squash craze!).  My husband enjoys salsa, roasted cauliflower, and acorn squash more than I do, so he subs those for the cut veggies that aren't his favorite.  We also have steamed artichokes on occasion, which we both love: just trim, season with salt, pepper, and olive oil and steam above an inch of water, lemon juice and garlic cloves for 45min or until the outer leaves fall off with the lightest touch.  Serve with or without melted grassed butter.  Yum!

And I often have a dessert of cut figs--such a delicious new favorite!  I cannot believe I just had my first raw figs this year--wish I had found this delight earlier :)  And another new dessert treat: celery with almond butter.  I have been craving fat a bit more lately, so this is a satisfying splurge.

I know I could be all crazy and change up the meal plan more often, but really I love what I am eating and haven't tired of it yet.  It is nourishing and homemade and just makes me feel SO much better than any meal I have out at a restaurant that I instantly regret that night with crappy sleep and the next day with a carb hangover.  Real food makes a noticeable difference and will help me thrive instead of just survive the last weeks of my pregnancy :)