This week, I have a couple different topics forefront in my mind: Beauty and Brains. The first, beauty, is an interesting switch from last week’s discussion of pregnancy weight gain. Although I can’t deny that my weight gain is on the high end of the spectrum, I also can’t deny that this pregnancy is the first time I actually feel like I know what people are talking about when they talk about the pregnancy “glow.”
On Sunday, my sister in law was in town and she wanted to take photos of my children – she’s a photographer in NYC. She got me in a couple shots, make up free and all, and she just kept remarking on how beautiful I looked. I had to admit when I saw the pictures, they weren’t half bad. And often when I accidentally catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror as I pass by or as I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, I have to do a double take, because I really like what I see. Pregnancy agrees with me this time around. So, that’s an interesting shift in my perception – that regardless of the number on the scale, I can still look and feel beautiful during pregnancy and hopefully this is something I will carry on into my life well beyond my delivery date.
The second thing I have to talk about is Pregnancy Brain. I have had a lot of experience with the way in which pregnancy causes me to be completely scatter-brained. I can remember putting milk cartons into the kitchen cabinets instead of the refrigerator, and …. well, I’m sure there are other examples but I can’t think of them because I have Pregnancy Brain! Maybe it’s because I have three other children, maybe it’s because I’m working 70 hours a week, maybe it’s just because I’m getting old and there’s a little senility mixed in there with the rest of what’s going on, but this Pregnancy Brain is out of control. As an example, let’s talk about my 4-year old daughter’s birthday party. Granted, there are EIGHT birthdays in September in my family. No, I’m not exaggerating, there are eight: my sister, my two brothers-in-law, my sister-in-law, my two nephews and my two daughters. So, there are a lot of moving parts in September, but I’ve never really had a hard time managing it all before. Well, for my four-year old’s birthday, I decided to do a Little Gym party, which generally is pretty straightforward. You call them up, you make the reservation, they take the deposit, you send them the addresses, they mail the invitations, done.
Well, first of all, somehow they didn’t take the deposit, so I almost lost the reservation. Then, because most of the children I wanted to invite on my daughter’s behalf were in her class at day care, I decided I would take care of the invitations myself. So, I had a little help from my sitter – we put the invitations together, and then after forgetting day after day after day, I finally remembered to put the invitations into their little lockers at school. Then, I realized at 3 am one morning, that I had forgotten to include RSVP information on the invitations. So, I then very cleverly (I thought) made up notes with just the RSVP information. Of course, I didn’t have a guest list so I had to try to conjure up the names from memory. Then, I get a call from the Little Gym reminding me about my party, including the date and the TIME, which turned out to be an HOUR AND A HALF later than what I had included on the invitation. So, I created another “Oops” flier for all the locker (feeling not nearly as clever as I had before), and now could not even slightly pretend that I could remember who had been invited, and who had received the first Oops message. The best I could do was field the e-mails and phone calls that came in, including those from the Little Gym asking if I had my final guest count yet. It has been a mess. Fortunately, Sunday will come and the party will have gone off, one way or another. And people are very tolerant of the way in which the brain functions, or perhaps malfunctions, during pregnancy, due to all the extra attention it’s giving to the little project going on down below.
So, that’s what I have going on this week: Beauty and Brains. Maybe next week will be Brawn, if I can ever get my larger-but-cuter butt back to the gym. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
On Pregnancy Weight Gain
I know, I know, we all get sick and tired of thinking about our weight, complaining about our weight, obsessing about our weight, and during pregnancy is the one time we won’t, don't, shouldn’t have to worry about it, right? WRONG. My sister Skyped me a couple nights ago to say that someone had told her that the average pregnant woman only needs an extra 200-300 calories a day, and did I know that? Well, when I didn’t Skype her back (I was asleep – it was well past my normal pregnancy bedtime of 8:30), she worried that I got so pissed at her raising the issue of how much I should eat during pregnancy that I’d decided not to ever speak to her again. Seriously. It is that big an issue for many of us.
I’m not going to lie – my pregnancy weight gain stories have been pretty melodramatic, from the pregnancy where I gained 25 pounds by my first 8-week appointment (pregnancy #1 – I gained 90 pounds in all), to the one where I gained a mere 40 pounds (I weighed myself daily and worked out 5 days a week). I have run the full spectrum between not giving a single rat’s patootie to being borderline obsessive compulsive.
Last time I checked, we moms begin worrying the moment we pee on the stick. Is it really two lines? Is the second line too faint to really count? Will I miscarry? Should I have the amnio? Should I tell my boss? Will my husband still find me attractive? Will he mind if I don’t want sex? Will I be a good mom? Do we have enough money saved? Enough stuff for the nursery? Did I pick the right nanny/day care? Should I stay home with my kids? Will they welcome me back into the workforce if I take time off to be a mom? Will my kids resent me if I don’t? And on and on and on…So, do the doctors really have to add this little nugget into the mix, something over which many of us have so little control, especially when more than half of us are puking our guts up and just happy to eat whatever we can keep down and the rest of us are wishing we would puke already because we just spend the entire day feeling like we’re going to and eating is the only thing that seems to take away the nausea?
What I have come to believe is that as mothers, whether seasoned or first-time newbies, we have enough to worry about without adding some arbitrary guidelines about something we may have little control over into the mix.
Let’s take the 200-300 calories guideline, for example. I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m in my normal every day mode, I’m generally pretty diligent about how I’m eating and exercising. That means, I’m dieting. Pretty much all the time. OK, that’s not for everyone, I know. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I’m just being honest. So, what I want to know is, when they say 200-300 extra calories, one would assume that’s on top of the regular maintenance caloric range of 2000 calories a day, not the Liimu-I’ve-been-dieting-since-I-was-9 caloric range of 1500-1600 calories a day. So, that means that by their standards I should be averaging between 2200-2300 calories a day. That’s significantly more than I’m used to, and about where I’ve been landing (at least since we entered the 2nd trimester and I stopped feeling like Sigourney Weaver in alien, except in my case the alien was going to gnaw it’s way through to the outside of my stomach, rather than popping out in a dramatic, scary burst).
And how about the guidelines around weight gain? I just read something today that said I should have gained about 5 pounds by now. Hopefully, they mean give or take 15 pounds. Seriously, though, I read a post on one of the pregnancy boards by a woman who weighed less than 110 pounds pre-pregnancy and when she went to her doctor for her 12-week checkup she had gained 6 pounds. He completely chastised her, saying for her entire pregnancy she should only gain 23 pounds. Where the hell did he get THAT arbitrary number? Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels like there should be a prerequisite for OB/GYNs to make commentary on the weight gain of their patients, unless they’ve been pregnant themselves or have seen their wives through at least three pregnancies. Otherwise, it should be like in the doctor’s office. You can not say anything derogatory or stress-inducing about the pregnant woman’s weight without a qualified nurse in the room, and by qualified, I mean she’s had a baby.
I’ve had three children, and have gained 90 pounds, 40 pounds and 65 pounds with them, in that order. Ironically, my first child just turned 8 years old and is nearly 5 feet tall and wears women’s size 8 shoes. She gets her incredible height from her dad and she’s not the slightest bit overweight. As for my second daughter, the nearly 7-year old with whom I gained the “ideal” amount of weight? A peanut. She’s in the 25th percentile and is barely an inch taller than her not-quite-4 year old sister. Not sure if there’s a correlation there, but I certainly intend to keep my eye on it. If this baby is tall enough to qualify for the NBA by the time he starts high school, I’ll get my answer.
And by the way, when I got pregnant with this child, I was within 5 pounds of my pre-first pregnancy weight, just like my mommy friends who gained 20-25 pounds with their pregnancies. My body knows what to do. It’s proven that time and time again. I’ve never had gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia or any other weight-related issues with my pregnancies and my children are happy and healthy.
Last time I checked, that was really what matters the most.
I’m not going to lie – my pregnancy weight gain stories have been pretty melodramatic, from the pregnancy where I gained 25 pounds by my first 8-week appointment (pregnancy #1 – I gained 90 pounds in all), to the one where I gained a mere 40 pounds (I weighed myself daily and worked out 5 days a week). I have run the full spectrum between not giving a single rat’s patootie to being borderline obsessive compulsive.
Last time I checked, we moms begin worrying the moment we pee on the stick. Is it really two lines? Is the second line too faint to really count? Will I miscarry? Should I have the amnio? Should I tell my boss? Will my husband still find me attractive? Will he mind if I don’t want sex? Will I be a good mom? Do we have enough money saved? Enough stuff for the nursery? Did I pick the right nanny/day care? Should I stay home with my kids? Will they welcome me back into the workforce if I take time off to be a mom? Will my kids resent me if I don’t? And on and on and on…So, do the doctors really have to add this little nugget into the mix, something over which many of us have so little control, especially when more than half of us are puking our guts up and just happy to eat whatever we can keep down and the rest of us are wishing we would puke already because we just spend the entire day feeling like we’re going to and eating is the only thing that seems to take away the nausea?
What I have come to believe is that as mothers, whether seasoned or first-time newbies, we have enough to worry about without adding some arbitrary guidelines about something we may have little control over into the mix.
Let’s take the 200-300 calories guideline, for example. I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m in my normal every day mode, I’m generally pretty diligent about how I’m eating and exercising. That means, I’m dieting. Pretty much all the time. OK, that’s not for everyone, I know. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I’m just being honest. So, what I want to know is, when they say 200-300 extra calories, one would assume that’s on top of the regular maintenance caloric range of 2000 calories a day, not the Liimu-I’ve-been-dieting-since-I-was-9 caloric range of 1500-1600 calories a day. So, that means that by their standards I should be averaging between 2200-2300 calories a day. That’s significantly more than I’m used to, and about where I’ve been landing (at least since we entered the 2nd trimester and I stopped feeling like Sigourney Weaver in alien, except in my case the alien was going to gnaw it’s way through to the outside of my stomach, rather than popping out in a dramatic, scary burst).
And how about the guidelines around weight gain? I just read something today that said I should have gained about 5 pounds by now. Hopefully, they mean give or take 15 pounds. Seriously, though, I read a post on one of the pregnancy boards by a woman who weighed less than 110 pounds pre-pregnancy and when she went to her doctor for her 12-week checkup she had gained 6 pounds. He completely chastised her, saying for her entire pregnancy she should only gain 23 pounds. Where the hell did he get THAT arbitrary number? Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels like there should be a prerequisite for OB/GYNs to make commentary on the weight gain of their patients, unless they’ve been pregnant themselves or have seen their wives through at least three pregnancies. Otherwise, it should be like in the doctor’s office. You can not say anything derogatory or stress-inducing about the pregnant woman’s weight without a qualified nurse in the room, and by qualified, I mean she’s had a baby.
I’ve had three children, and have gained 90 pounds, 40 pounds and 65 pounds with them, in that order. Ironically, my first child just turned 8 years old and is nearly 5 feet tall and wears women’s size 8 shoes. She gets her incredible height from her dad and she’s not the slightest bit overweight. As for my second daughter, the nearly 7-year old with whom I gained the “ideal” amount of weight? A peanut. She’s in the 25th percentile and is barely an inch taller than her not-quite-4 year old sister. Not sure if there’s a correlation there, but I certainly intend to keep my eye on it. If this baby is tall enough to qualify for the NBA by the time he starts high school, I’ll get my answer.
And by the way, when I got pregnant with this child, I was within 5 pounds of my pre-first pregnancy weight, just like my mommy friends who gained 20-25 pounds with their pregnancies. My body knows what to do. It’s proven that time and time again. I’ve never had gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia or any other weight-related issues with my pregnancies and my children are happy and healthy.
Last time I checked, that was really what matters the most.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Why I've been so quiet...
I'm PREGNANT! Yep, that's right. Totally out of the blue, but we are thrilled. So, for those of you who don't already know, that's why I haven't been blogging lately. Also, there's the fact that my weight is sky rocketing so that wouldn't be very motivating to those of you trying to slim down. (I always gain a ton with my pregnancies.) Here's the good news:
- You can follow my pregnancy on my other blog, Motherhood Later than Sooner. I will be chronicling my pregnancy every week on Thursday.
- When the baby comes, you will have to come back over here to watch me get back in shape!!! I will share with you all the nitty gritty, including surgery should it prove necessary.
See you in March!!
- You can follow my pregnancy on my other blog, Motherhood Later than Sooner. I will be chronicling my pregnancy every week on Thursday.
- When the baby comes, you will have to come back over here to watch me get back in shape!!! I will share with you all the nitty gritty, including surgery should it prove necessary.
See you in March!!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Wow...who knew?
OK, so I must admit...I didn't even know you guys were paying attention to whether I was blogging regularly or not. Apparently you are! Yesterday, I got a phone call from a friend who said, "What's going on with the blog? I need your motivation!" And then today, a comment from my bilingual friend (sorry - I had to make an executive decision only to post the comments you provide in English...hope you don't mind) that my post updates are missed.
Well, I'm still here! I've been pretty busy. June - December is the busiest time of year for me, and this year is certainly no different. To make matters even more interesting, my current client requires an awful lot of face time, which is not my usual M.O. My workouts have dwindled and yes, my internet time is nowhere near where it was.
Other things are going on that I'm not quite ready to share at this hyper-public level. I will tell you that I've been posting weekly to another blog, Motherhood Later, so keep in mind that you can always get my regular updates there (though not necessarily fitness-related).
Thanks for the shout-outs, everyone. Talk to you soon!
Well, I'm still here! I've been pretty busy. June - December is the busiest time of year for me, and this year is certainly no different. To make matters even more interesting, my current client requires an awful lot of face time, which is not my usual M.O. My workouts have dwindled and yes, my internet time is nowhere near where it was.
Other things are going on that I'm not quite ready to share at this hyper-public level. I will tell you that I've been posting weekly to another blog, Motherhood Later, so keep in mind that you can always get my regular updates there (though not necessarily fitness-related).
Thanks for the shout-outs, everyone. Talk to you soon!
Friday, July 9, 2010
Better Late Than Never
OK, I will NOT be that person who blogs once a month or once every quarter. I wanna know what's going on with you guys, and I'm sure you're all DYING to know what's going on with me, right? Right. S
It's 11 PM and my daughter has an 8 am swim meet, but I am going to get this updated, come Hell or high (and early) water. It has been a full and productive week (I started a new project which requires I go onsite (gasp!) and that has really taken some adjusting. I love it, though, and I also love that once I pack my food, that pretty much takes the guesswork out of my diet. The scale loves that, too. I am pretty much at my all-time low weight today, despite the onset of the weekend AND my TOM. :)
I have truly been enjoying the intuitive fitness way of doing things lately. I have been doing whatever workouts I feel inclined to do - sometimes a DB workout, sometimes running with a friend, sometimes a hike with my sis, sometimes one of her crazy boot camp-style workouts, sometimes a kickboxing class at the gym, sometimes I just chill out and take a day off. (Yeah, you heard me right. I take a REST day. Sometimes TWO in one WEEK! Wait, get this...sometimes TWO IN A ROW!) I've been enjoying summer fruit, and lots of it. I even had a bite of my daughter's hot dog the other day. I am accountable for every morsel that goes in my mouth and I'm still fairly anal about avoiding dairy, thanks to what I learned about the havoc it wreaks on my skin, but otherwise, I am really getting quite good at...
GIVING MYSELF A BREAK.
That is not to say that I don't still work my BUTT off (literally) at the gym. Most days, I am DRENCHED in sweat following my workouts. (Partly that's because it has been over a hundred freaking degrees nearly every day since the start of summer, but still.) Training for the half marathon begins in earnest on Monday, so that will only improve my fitness. In addition, I have been doing WW online and LOVING it. It's sort of like a game to me, and it's a game that makes me want to eat less and workout more. A good combination. I'm never starving, though, and I still try to get mostly whole, non-processed foods.
For the first time in a long time, I can really see my way clear to achieving my goals, and returning to the weight I was on my wedding day, maybe even what I weighed before I quit smoking. How's THAT for an accomplishment?
And it only took me 15 years to do it. Better late than never.
It's 11 PM and my daughter has an 8 am swim meet, but I am going to get this updated, come Hell or high (and early) water. It has been a full and productive week (I started a new project which requires I go onsite (gasp!) and that has really taken some adjusting. I love it, though, and I also love that once I pack my food, that pretty much takes the guesswork out of my diet. The scale loves that, too. I am pretty much at my all-time low weight today, despite the onset of the weekend AND my TOM. :)
I have truly been enjoying the intuitive fitness way of doing things lately. I have been doing whatever workouts I feel inclined to do - sometimes a DB workout, sometimes running with a friend, sometimes a hike with my sis, sometimes one of her crazy boot camp-style workouts, sometimes a kickboxing class at the gym, sometimes I just chill out and take a day off. (Yeah, you heard me right. I take a REST day. Sometimes TWO in one WEEK! Wait, get this...sometimes TWO IN A ROW!) I've been enjoying summer fruit, and lots of it. I even had a bite of my daughter's hot dog the other day. I am accountable for every morsel that goes in my mouth and I'm still fairly anal about avoiding dairy, thanks to what I learned about the havoc it wreaks on my skin, but otherwise, I am really getting quite good at...
GIVING MYSELF A BREAK.
That is not to say that I don't still work my BUTT off (literally) at the gym. Most days, I am DRENCHED in sweat following my workouts. (Partly that's because it has been over a hundred freaking degrees nearly every day since the start of summer, but still.) Training for the half marathon begins in earnest on Monday, so that will only improve my fitness. In addition, I have been doing WW online and LOVING it. It's sort of like a game to me, and it's a game that makes me want to eat less and workout more. A good combination. I'm never starving, though, and I still try to get mostly whole, non-processed foods.
For the first time in a long time, I can really see my way clear to achieving my goals, and returning to the weight I was on my wedding day, maybe even what I weighed before I quit smoking. How's THAT for an accomplishment?
And it only took me 15 years to do it. Better late than never.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
My Independence Day
Happy 4th of July everyone!For many people, the 4th of July is about laying by the pool, or about hopping from cookout to cookout, eating tons of hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salad, chips and that cake that's iced to look like an American Flag. Hell, I have to admit that I looked forward to the cookouts and the pigouts more years than I care to admit.
This year, the 4th of July is not about eating (for once). It's about freedom. Freedom from compulsive eating AND from compulsive dieting. It's about freedom from addiction of all kinds. It's about freedom from poverty (I start a fabulous new project on Tuesday - YEAH!). It's about freedom from illness - dramatic, life-threatening illness, like the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever that my 6 year old faced last year, and from mundane health issues like acne or achy joints. This July 4th, everyone is healthy and happy (and two of my daughters are even swimming, unassisted). It's about freedom from self-pity or martyrdom, freedom from being overwhelmed. Freedom!!!
I woke up this morning without my alarm, as I do every morning, and turned on a mindful meditation MP3 to start my day off right (thanks, Tony D for that...I still do it daily). Then, I got up and made my coffee, read my meditation books and wrote a couple pages in my journal. Ate a yummy vitatop muffin on my way to the trails, and then ran a quick and totally fun 5 miles with one of my dearest friends before the heat became unbearable. Came home and made a yummy protein-rich breakfast, and got the girls together to watch the July 4 relay races. It was hot, kinda boring, and then not one, but two of my three daughters had to pee. We went to the pool to use the bathroom - locked. The community hall, locked. The library, of course, locked. I looked at my girls and said, "You know what? This isn't flowing. Let's go home." "Are you mad?" they asked. "Nope, not mad. Just going with the flow."
Home we came, where they are playing learning games on the computers and in their new workbooks, while I catch up on the blogs, which are long overdue for an update.
I am so grateful to be free today. Not just free in the sense of living in a free country, though of course, I am also grateful for that. But for so many years, I was a prisoner in my MIND, which is so full of shoulds and should nots, I could never hear what I wanted to do in any given moment. Today, I am free to live each moment committed to health, sanity, and joy. And I truly, TRULY thank God for that.
Freedom and love to you all!
Love, Liimu
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Has it really been nearly a month since I last confessed?
Wow, I cannot believe that it's been that long since I last posted an update.
Things have been really great. I celebrated my birthday on May 22 and had many of my friends and family around to help me celebrate my transition into a whole new decade. I kicked off the day with a live performance at a festival to promote drug and alcohol awareness. Totally fun.
Since then, I've been having a LOT of fun with my girls. I've lost my accountability partner, but I've managed to stay on track by myself (and with the support of my friends and family). I haven't talked to T in awhile. We're supposed to talk tomorrow, and we have a lot to talk about, not the least of which being the fact that I'm going to have to go it alone for awhile.
I've stayed fairly steady, which is amazing considering the fact that I spent ten days in Italy and had a huge birthday celebration. I'm headed to Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday for my sister's 50th birthday celebration and I'm so confident that I'm going to be able to have a successful, healthy vacation. What a miracle.
Anyway, that's it for now. I'll check in again soon!
Things have been really great. I celebrated my birthday on May 22 and had many of my friends and family around to help me celebrate my transition into a whole new decade. I kicked off the day with a live performance at a festival to promote drug and alcohol awareness. Totally fun.
Since then, I've been having a LOT of fun with my girls. I've lost my accountability partner, but I've managed to stay on track by myself (and with the support of my friends and family). I haven't talked to T in awhile. We're supposed to talk tomorrow, and we have a lot to talk about, not the least of which being the fact that I'm going to have to go it alone for awhile.
I've stayed fairly steady, which is amazing considering the fact that I spent ten days in Italy and had a huge birthday celebration. I'm headed to Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday for my sister's 50th birthday celebration and I'm so confident that I'm going to be able to have a successful, healthy vacation. What a miracle.
Anyway, that's it for now. I'll check in again soon!
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