I'm baaaaack. It's been a silent couple of months, but not for lack of activity over here. Now that I'm basically "out of the closet," so to speak, I feel like I can write more freely. Which doesn't really make sense, since I haven't told actually told anyone about this blog yet! What can I say, it must be a mental thing and I'm strange. Anyway, as of today, I'm 13 weeks and 3 days along, and thankfully most of my morning sickness and general malaise has disappeared. At least during the morning hours, which is when I mostly work out, so that's working in my favor. I do tend to feel like a truck has hit me by 7 pm, but considering I was still feeling like crap 24/7 at this point during my last pregnancy, I'm not complaining.
So what has been on the exercise agenda lately? Mostly a mixture of cardio/strength classes (3-4 times a week), small group personal training sessions (a mixture of weight lifting and "functional awareness" type stuff, 1-2 times a week), and boxing with my husband on Saturdays (we have a trainer for that). Sadly, running is just not doing it for me right now. At the risk of oversharing, I feel like some internal bits are shaking and shifting around too much to get into a comfortable groove. It's also still hot as hell here, which makes it uncomfortable for anyone to run, let alone the pregnant of us. I hope that we get some cooler temps soon, since I always get a little burst of running motivation in the fall. Maybe a chill in the air will help me get my running mojo back.
Something I've been noticing more lately is that there is such a wide range of activities and exercises that are considered acceptable v. unacceptable for pregnant women, based on who you speak to and what you read. For example, one of the instructors at my gym is pregnant, and she regularly does exercises that I always thought were off-limits at her stage in the game (3rd trimester), such as crunch/twist-centered ab exercises, deep squats, laying directly on her belly, etc. I follow a lot of fitness-inspired pages on Instagram, and have seen some pregnant Crossfitters doing some questionable things (deep squats with heavy weight, hand stands, toes to bar.) I know a lot of Crossfit moves can be done safely during pregnancy, but some of these photos looked intense! And frankly, painful. I'll be honest, though, I love to see a strong, fit pregnant lady getting her workout on. Ultimately, it's up to each woman to make the best decision for her baby's well-being, it's just interesting to see the differences in how we choose to do it.
What do you think? Did you take down the intensity significantly while pregnant, or did you follow a fairly intense workout program? Would you do the same again?
