The former fatty pregnancy weight conundrum

Morning sickness – or rather, all day sickness – is alive and well in my household. It started on Monday (at exactly 6 weeks) and has progressively gotten worse since. I think I am starting to establish a pattern: Sick when I wake up, hold it together until I rush into my building at 6:30 where I promptly make a b-line to the bathroom. Barf. Feel crappy for an hour, but continue to eat everything I already packed for lunch because I’m so hungry. Start to feel better at 7:30 for an hour until the nausea kicks in again. Waver back and forth until lunch time, try to eat, barf again, feel pretty good until about 5:00, eat dinner, get sick again, and then feel fine the rest of the evening. I have tried eating small meals throughout the day. I have tried not eating. Nothing really seems to work…. I feel sick most of the time! What seems to sit well one day does not sit well the next day, and so on.

This is really not fun at the moment.

But you know, I am able to see the silver lining in it. I am not fatigued, which was one of my greatest fears with pregnancy. I feared I would be so tired that I couldn’t or wouldn’t have the energy to exercise. But I am fine as far as energy goes – in fact, I am sleeping so deeply at night with hardly waking up that I have more energy now than I did pre-pregnancy!

My intention today was to journal about the weight changes. I have actually lost weight this week – not intentionally, that’s for sure! I I would LOVE to keep some food down because I am freaking starving!! But I would be lying if I said there isn’t a small part of me that is relieved every time I step on the scale and realize that I haven’t packed on 10 pounds overnight as well. Because it is still hard to face weight gain after losing a lot of weight – even if it’s for a good reason.

I have written before about how, as a formerly obese person, I came to the realization that I would never have enough time as a thin person to enjoy being thin before giving my body over to house another human being for 9 months. Coming to accept that actually helped me be less resistant to the thought of gaining weight again after working so, so hard to take it off and keep it off. Sometimes just admitting you are having a hard time with something helps tremendously.

It’s just another one of those unknowns that bring up fear or anxiety. How much weight will I gain? Will I have a hard time getting it off? Am I doomed or destined to be overweight my whole life? I realize that I am getting ahead of myself, but at the same time, I think it’s good to be somewhat vigilant about these things, as well. Pregnancy isn’t really eating for two in the way that most people think it is. In fact, the first trimester, you only need about 100 calories more a day than you were previously eating. That’s like two handfuls of popcorn, which is not a whole lot! I have gone back and forth in the past 1.5 weeks since learning I was pregnant between “it’s ok, you’re pregnant, go ahead and eat it all and then some” to “good Lord woman, reel it in, would ya?!” I have read that it’s normal to gain between 3-5 pounds your first trimester. Listen, I could gain that in one weekend WITHOUT being pregnant! Personally I feel it’s more realistic to gain up to 10 lbs, but either way, I am thinking there are no hard and fast rules here. Everybody is different. As long as I am (trying) to eat enough for me and Baby Marathoner, and as long as I continue to exercise, I think the weight gain will all work out in the end the way it’s supposed to.

First ultrasound is scheduled for Monday – can’t wait!!

First appointment / 6 week stats

Good morning! We have our first doctor’s appointment today. I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen -  I think it will be just taking my history and doing a blood test/pee test. My sister in law goes to the same doctor and they got to see the heartbeat at 6 weeks, so we’ll see. I have to go three weeks in a row and don’t even see my OB/GYN until week 8. 

Anyway, thought I would give a quick update of what’s going on with my crazy body at 6 weeks:

Weight	138
Weight change	+ 2 lbs.
Symptoms	Boobs the size of cantaloupes, all day sickness, inability stay awake past 9:00 most nights and my face looks like I was teleported back to middle school.

I have been doing OK with exercise so far. I ran 8 miles on Saturday and 3 miles on Monday. It’s hard to gauge what is just me feeling tired/adjusting back to being in high altitude with running and what is attributed to pregnancy. But for the most part, as long as I eat small snacks every few hours, I feel ok. That’s been an adjustment itself – going from eating three meals a day to eating small snacks every 2-3 hours. I go from food sounding totally gross to totally awesome. And I hate eggs at the moment – which is a shame, because I love eggs usually and they’re such a great source of protein and calories!

It’s been raining on and off for the past few days, which I’ll take over snow any day, but it’s also been kind of chilly. I’d love to get outside and run, and hopefully I will on Wednesday and Thursday before my half marathon on Sunday. Looking forward to it, but not looking forward to getting up at 5:00 and right now, the forecast is for rain and cool temps. Yuck!

Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

Workout plan for the next few weeks

Thanks everyone for the kind words and congrats! I am still feeling pretty great and went for a short run on both Monday and Tuesday nights. I started thinking about what I would like my workout plan to be for the rest of the first trimester (another 7-8 weeks) and think I have come up with something that seems feasible. Doesn’t matter which days I do it, but my plan is to run 3 miles three times a week, and do a Jillian video (strength training and flexibility) once a week. I do have those two half marathons, which will certainly account for major exercise, but I am just going to take it easy and slow.  I may even try to convince hubby to sign up for the second one and do a run/walk with me.

I never got to blog about running on vacation. I managed two 3 mile runs and one 9 mile run at sea level. My goodness, running at sea level is so awesome! I’ve never really run long distances before when in Oklahoma, so it was so great to get out and run in 75 degree weather with mild humidity and gentle breezes. The town where my parents live have this great 3-mile paved loop with slight rolling hills which is where I ended up doing my 9 mile run. I can’t believe that we don’t have anything similar to that where I live – or if we do, I sure haven’t discovered it yet!

Anyway…just one pic of me from the trip. We visited a really neat car history museum, and I’m posing in front of my dream car (Camaro SS!)

A new beginning

I created this blog about 1.5 weeks ago, intending on starting it when I got back from a 10-day vacation. It would be about how I was preparing myself for pregnancy if and when the time came, and how that fit into being a formerly overweight person. If you knew me from my old blog, Adios, Fat Pants, you know that the husband and I decided to start trying for a baby this year. I went off the pill in March after nearly 6 years on it, unsure of what would happen but generally feeling pretty good about things. I was even tentatively planning on training for a full marathon in September.
Well, it looks like that preparation is going to happen a lot sooner than I anticipated…
I had been off the pill about 4 weeks by the time we went on vacation. I took a pregnancy test the morning before we left, and it was negative. I figured as much, and planned on having a few drinks while vacationing. The whole week I felt like I was about to start my period, but it never came. I figured my body was still trying to work things out and didn’t think much of it. I was 99% sure I wasn’t pregnant, but towards the end of vacation, I started feeling really sad and anxious about life in general. Very moody and on our last night of the trip, mentioned to my husband that I was feeling really sad that my childhood was over. We’d visited my parents and spent about 4 days where I grew up, and it brought back a lot of memories of being younger. I felt like I was for some reason saying goodbye to being a kid. I was also a little down because I felt like my eating was a little out of control and was feeling fat (!), despite running a 9 mile run and two 3-mile runs, plus lots of walking while on vacation.
I was a week late, and figured I would take another pregnancy test when we got home from our trip. It was positive… VERY positive. Didn’t take long for that second line to show up!
I am pregnant! I still can’t believe it happened this quickly for us. I am in shock – it feels surreal, exciting, terrifying – like one big rollercoaster all at the same time!
So this blog will be about my pregnancy to start out – and how I am going to survive it as a former obese person. I have been reading a wonderful book called Exercising Through Your Pregnancy, which details the many, many benefits of regular exercise while pregnant.
Um, guess what? I also have not one, but TWO half marathons in May! I plan on running the first one – it is all downhill and I plan on taking it easy. The second will just depend on how I’m feeling. I’m not afraid to run or exercise. I have plenty of workout videos that I still plan on doing throughout – did you hear me, Jillian Michaels??
I will be carefully monitoring my calories – when I visited the doctor for a physical in March, we discussed me being at a higher risk for gestational diabetes given my family history and my own history of being obese. I will discuss more with my doctor at my first appointment next week, but I do have a general number in mind as far as what should be ideal. Not placing limits on myself of course, but I don’t want to gain 80 lbs and be back to where I started, either. I’m not sure anyone will really get this unless you’ve been significantly overweight.
On  that note, I celebrated my one year anniversary of maintaining my weight loss. Here it goes in the other direction for the next 9 months!
PS – if we are friends on Facebook, please don’t say anything just yet! We are waiting a bit to announce it to everyone. :)