I hope to educate, inspire and empower you to connect with your body and find food and fitness freedom. Here on the blog I share all of my top tips on movement, nutrition, mindset and motherhood.
Holistic Health Coach helping women reclaim their wellbeing.
First of all, if you are reading this – thank you for being on this journey with me!
Pregnancy and motherhood have been one of the most profound experiences of my life. I feel that I have grown into the person I was meant to be when I became a mother. It has opened my eyes to what is really important in life and helped me to prioritize those things. So the fact that you are here reading this truly means the world to me.
My hope in sharing my experience is to make other mothers feel seen, understood, and not so alone.
Pregnancy is such an exciting and special time. However, I want to make sure that I don’t gloss over the challenging and extremely hard parts as well. I believe they aren’t talked about enough!
If you are wondering if you can work out and continue barre classes while pregnant, Yes! It is totally safe and actually encouraged to stay active during your pregnancy if it is safe for you to do so. However, during my first trimester, I honestly wasn’t able to continue my daily workout routine. Even 20 minutes of yoga or barre would often make me feel like I was lightheaded and like I could barely stand up. This time around I am also chasing a very active 14-month-old around every day, which keeps me moving a lot. What I did end up doing during my first trimester was taking lots of walks and 10-15 minute gentle workouts or yoga. I really tried to listen to my body and not force myself to work out. If I did force myself, I ended up depleting my energy instead of creating more.
I think that rest is just as important to talk about here as exercise. During the first trimester, I gave myself unconditional permission to rest whenever I got the chance. For me, this looked like lying down when my son took his naps. Sometimes this meant that we would wake up for the day at 5:00 am, and I would be back to sleep for a nap at 7:30/8:00 am. I was so exhausted that I would fall asleep immediately, often taking two naps a day and going to bed around 8:00 pm.
One of the first things people will ask you when you tell them you’re pregnant is if you know what gender you’re having. I am guilty of doing this too, I can’t help myself but ask! My husband and I decided to found out our baby’s gender for this pregnancy (we didn’t the first time) and I am so glad that we did. We opted to find out at 10 weeks with the optional genetic labs that were drawn. While on a family vacation five days later, I got an email that said our results were ready. I will write a separate blog post about the gender reveal!
Similar to my first pregnancy, I started to have morning sickness (aka all-day nausea) around week seven. I am writing this at week fifteen and still experiencing some nausea on and off.
I still am not really craving chocolate, sweets, or ice cream. None of these foods sounded appetizing to me during the first trimester. I was also repulsed by green salads, fresh vegetables, and coffee (which are some of my favorite foods!) and I instead craved bagels with cream cheese, lemonade, and tart popsicles.
A few things that helped my nausea:
Staying hydrated – Ensuring that I am drinking enough water, especially during these past hot summer months. Did you know that your blood volumes increase by about 20% during pregnancy (woah!) and it is just super important to prevent dehydration. One time that I learned is to try and hydrate in between meals. Drinking a lot of water during a meal tended to exacerbate my nausea so spacing it helped was helpful.
Taking prenatal vitamins + supplements – this time around I discovered prenatal gummy vitamins and am obsessed! I used to take the large pills but swallowing them with water made me nauseous, so I gave gummy vitamins a try and am never going back!
Journaling – I am obsessed with Promptly Journals and purchased one for this baby right away! You won’t believe how fast time flies by and how soon you forget the little things about pregnancy and motherhood. I make sure to carve out time to journal and jot a few things down as often as I can, but ideally several times a week. They are cherished entries that I know I will look back on and pass onto my children someday.