12 Reasons to Exercise During Pregnancy

When I talked about getting back to a workout routine once I can do it without getting sick (all day sickness stinks!) people acted like I was a crazy person. I know that rest is a good thing during pregnancy but exercise is as well. Honestly, I think there should be a health balance of rest and exercise during a pregnancy. There are multiple benefits of staying active or getting active during your pregnancy. I am slowly getting back to more activity and it is going well. I think it may be about time to step it up a little bit.

Granted every person and pregnancy is different and I won’t tell you to go out and get moving without the supervision of you OB/GYN. They know what is best for you. I had to wait a while to get the okay to get started with working out again; in all reality during the period I had to wait (for medical reasons) I would not have been able to do anything. All daily activities were hard to do because I was so ill. Now most of my illness is in the evening through the night so during the day there is no reason I don’t try to move a little bit. Now you may be wondering what the benefits of a prenatal workout are so here are a few things I dug up and that my doctor told me.

• Improved posture: The extra weight you gain up front can cause you to have curvature in the spine and cause compression in your back increasing back pain and discomfort
• It can increase strength and stamina and that can help you through labor and delivery
• Enhancement of circulation and flexibility
• Reduced risk of gestational diabetes
• Just an all around feeling of well being
• Can help you sleep better at night
• Calcium absorption can increase
• Fewer varicose veins and stretch marks
• Less risk of abdominal separation
• Your body will bounce back quicker after you deliver
• Stress reduction
• Improved self image

Be sure to consult your physician before you start a workout regimen. Even if you have never worked out in your life starting during pregnancy is still okay for most people and a good idea!

First Round 1 Thursday Weigh in & Vacation Workout Plan

To commemorate the end of Week 1 of Round 2 of Les Mills Pump today I weigh and measure in. This week was a rough week so my workouts were not on PAR I missed a workout and two I only did my basic Pump portion. I did make up for it by doing a billion loads of wash and purging the house of a bunch of unneeded clothing so they could go to others who are in need. I have 4 bags ready to go and will have 4 more by tomorrow.

I leave for vacation on Sunday. Gozzer Ranch here we come My Mother in Law emailed me and had me send her my “diet” aka just how I eat now so I can’t call it a diet anymore, and is graciously providing me with the foods that I need. So food won’t be an issue, I am  glad not to have to worry about that. As far as workouts go, I think I will take my Jillian Michaels Yoga meltdown and Les Mills Pump Hard Core Abs just in case finding someone to watch Emma does not work out. I can lock my self in a bedroom and do those and Yoga Meltdown offers challenging body weight exercises. The boys will golf early mornings so my runs are out in the a.m. So after dark is when those will have to happen. Yes, I will have cocktails in me but it’s all good. It is a vacation right? I want to try to get three runs in while I am there, for 7 days I figure that will not be so bad. I will be gone 9 but will be in Idaho for 7. I plan to blog a little while I am there but am making no promises. I do not want to take my lap top and I am not sure how the internet on my phone will run. Last year I had voice service but no data there. It is fairly remote so I didn’t really expect it to have data.

So here is what you all came here for:

Drum-roll please…..

• Chest: 31.0 inches (- 0.5 inches)
• R Arm: 12 inches (- 0 inches)
• L  Arm: 12 inches (- 0 inches)
• Waist: 32 inches (- 0 inches)
• Hips: 41 inches (- 0 inches)
• R Thigh: 23.5 inches (- 0 inches)
• L Thigh: 23.5 inches (- 0 inches)
• Weight: 163 pounds (-2 pounds)
• Pant Size: 12
• BMI: 29.4% (- 0%)

Not to shabby!  Maybe this is marking the end of my plateau!

Benefits of Yoga

 

Today is Day 4 of Round 2 doing Les Mills Pump. On the agenda today is Flow. Flow is in a nutshell the LMP’s form of Yoga. To be quite frank when I first tried it I was not a fan. i found it to be monotonous and pointless. Honestly, I will chalk it up to my not being familiar with Yoga and my apprehensiveness to try something new. I was already new into the Pump portion to the workout and I think I overwhelmed myself. When Flow came back up on my LMP schedule I did try it again and more open-mindedly I should add. it wasn’t so bad and it was actually enjoyable. Today I have found other forms of Yoga I enjoy and have added more Yoga to my workout schedule. I enjoy the peace, the stretch and so many other things that it brings.

A few of the benefits of Yoga:

• Improve mental health: Yoga practice is calming. Regular yoga practice can reduce or eliminate the root of anxiety disorders and aid in controlling or decreasing depression and can lead to a more peaceful state helping you gain confidence, mental well-being and the ability to stay calm in more stressful situations.
• Helps prevent diabetes: All types of exercise including yoga help to stabilize blood glucose. This is important in the prevention and control of diabetes

• Prevent bone loss and osteoporosis: The low impact Yoga postures can be effective for post-menopausal women and older men in preserving and building bone density.

• Backache relief and backache healing: I know I have already talked about this in a previous post, But this is one of the best things for my back issues. Yoga goes right to the physical cause of your backache helping you to recognize areas of chronic tension Overall fitness and muscle tone is essential to your spines health. The more aerobic forms of yoga provide your spine oxygen and helps to create flexible hamstrings and hip flexors in hand freeing-up your lower back.
• Arthritis Prevention: The best preventions and/or relievers of arthritis are motion and exercise. Engaging all of your muscle groups in a yoga practice strengthens bone and improves your coordination and balance. Yoga is a low-impact form of exercise and yoga postures can improve muscle strength, joint flexibility, endurance, as well as range of motion.
• Detoxification: Many Yoga postures massage the internal organs, this provides a natural form of cleansing which rids the body of toxins.
• Gained flexibility: Few fitness regimens concentrate as much on flexibility as yoga does. In fact nearly every single movement in yoga can increase your flexibility

 There are many other benefits of practicing Yoga also. I suppose I will save those for a later time. I still have house-guests to attend to and my Yoga to get in today, as well as a run after everyone has settled down for the evening. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Sources:

http://www.mayoclinic.com

http://www.droz.com

http://www.webmd.com

 

LMP Round 2 Phase 1 Schedule

As you all know I have started Round 2 of Les Mills Pump. There is no hybrid Schedule out there that I have found that incorporated Running as well as the Les Mills Pump Ultimate Cross Training workout plans. Using the Round One Phase One Schedule I added the Running, UCT workouts, The Yoga I like to do on rest days to reset myself as well as a couple other things that I just plain enjoy doing. I kept the weight training segment part of the schedule exactly the same as it was before and just switched out the walking days with other things and added runs and other workouts seeing I am at a higher fitness level now and can push myself harder than I could when I started Round 1.  Just to keep myself accountable here is my Round 2 Phase 1 schedule.

PHASE 1: TE WERO: The Challenge

 

Today is Day two, So….. it is time for me to get my Yoga in and I will run later this evening once it starts to cool down. I have found that I really like running and walking outdoors at night. It is serene. Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend. I have a weekend of house guests again so it should be fun!! I am glad they don’t think it is rude when I disappear on them to work out. I have even gotten some of them to work out with me!

Ohh Yeah!

Back on the Wagon

That is where I am, after a good portion of this week leaving me feeling guilty (and fat) I am digging out my sneakers and hopping back on the fitness train. All my meals were to par and today’s workout I made sure I pushed hard. I plan on hitting it once more to make up for not working out yesterday. The entire day and night I spent at a friends Bachelorette party, so I didn’t make time. Tisk, Tisk. Anyhow, no more of that. The house is coming back together, school and sports are ending so I am looking forward to upping my workouts and getting ready for The Color Run. My tulle came yesterday so I can start with the tutu’s and I am starting C25K over (well, in the middle) so I can do my best for the race. Even if I can’t run the entire 3.1 I plan on running as much of it if I can. But am hoping I can run it.

Now, I must be off to put together a book shelf, get the kid ready for bed and do some Les Mills Pump Revolution. See you tomorrow after my morning activities are finished!

Can’t wait for things to go back to normal

Things around here have so busy between the kids stuff, the yard, painting, new flooring, volunteering and my back going out.  The good news is the carpet is in and I absolutely love it, today is the last day of swim, my back is better, one more week of school and there are only a few baseball games left. The bad news is I have to bathing suit shop today and now that my back is feeling better (just a little sore) it is raining and I have plants that still need to be planted. I am sure the rain will keep them alive. So all in all my complaints are no big deal, minus the bathing suit. UGH. I went and tried on about 15 the other day. Still really unhappy with my legs, but I know that will change in due time. It is kind of weird that I am more upset about them now than last summer when I was wearing a 18 and not a 12 like this year? Maybe it is that they are lumpy now? The lumps are terrible. Another thing I know will change in time but I would really like for it to change now!

I have a bachelorette pool party to attend tomorrow, it is supposed to be cold and there is a 50% chance of rain. Let’s hope that the Weather Channel is wrong about this one. There is always a good chance that it is just for the fact that this is Michigan and the weather loves to be erratic. 90 degrees and clear one day 58 and rain the next then maybe some snow. Either way the weather goes I am sure we will make the best of it. Still buying the dreaded bathing suit just in case and I get to find a fun bachelorette gift to buy and very, very inappropriate card. Good thing that there are plenty of naughty” stores in this small town.

A noose: how I feel about the measuring tape after this week.

Along the subject of diet and exercise, this week I feel really guilty about. I had one day where I ate the worst dinner ever, hotdogs and chips (crisps for my UK friends). Granted that day I could barely stand and we had to eat. I decided on the one thing I could make in five minutes so I could sit back down. I really regret that decision even though I do know that I didn’t have many options giving my physical state. Along the subject of my water intake lets just say that I really should be ashamed. And calorie consumption even with the bad for me meal was way, way to low. I didn’t eat much at all through the week. All in all I was not on my best behavior and slipped into some bad habits I used to have. I got exercise in but I didn’t want to push it so I only did what I had to and modified like crazy in order to not hurt my back more. Thank goodness there were no weight training days on the LMP UCT schedule. I don’t want to miss and have to start over. Also, the getting back to running thing didn’t happen. Between getting what I could in with my back out and having no choice but to move furniture so the carpet could come out I just couldn’t swing it. I have no problem pushing myself outside me comfort zone but not to the point that I will cause injury. Hopefully I don’t see a bigger number when I get on the scale and bust out the measuring tape on Tuesday’s weigh and measure in! I am so paranoid!

Well, I don’t think I really have much more to ramble on about right now so I will bid you all adieu. Happy Friday!

I’ll be posting before and after pics of my new flooring soon!

Stretching to Relieve Back Pain

I threw my back out last night doing pretty much nothing. Oh the joys of Fybromyalgia! So today I am going to talk about stretching to relieve back pain. Even with a chronic pain disease I have found that stretching can make quite a  difference in pain levels. Plus stretching daily can help lengthen and strengthen your back muscles, improve posture and make it less likely to injure yourself in the first place.

I know what you are thinking, my back hurts no way do I want to exercise, stretch or even move. Everyone knows that exercise is important for our overall health but people sometimes forget the importance of stretching. The back and spine are made up of muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments, it is made to bend, twist, and carry quite a bit of our body weight. Stretching on a regular basis helps reduce stress on joints, improves blood flow and adds flexibility. Also, stretching before exercise helps prep your muscles for activity and reduces the risk of injury.

Not everyone hurts their back during exercise or vigorous activity. I know this and I have hurt mine doing what? I have no idea, I was standing in the Little League Concession Stand volunteering, at that time I was bagging popcorn. Popcorn is not heavy, neither are teenie popcorn bags or the scoop I was using. It just happened. Maybe there was a moment where I twisted strange or maybe it is because I am a cripple. Either way, it hurts and it is improving because of stretching it out.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while you are stretching:

• Start at the top, if you stretch  your neck then work your way down you use already stretched muscles in the rest of your stretching routine.
• Don’t stretch until you are in pain, go slow and only until you feel a bit on tension.
• Be sure to stand steady, no bouncing around. Think strength in stillness.
• Hold in your stretch for 10 to 20 seconds and do not forget to breathe! Be sure to inhale before the stretch and exhale during.
• Small sets of 3 is enough, do not over do it! You can always add more as you are more flexible.

Personally I stretch daily, more than once in the instance that I am stiff or sore. Today there will be a few sessions of stretches going on to get this pain worked out of my back. You do not have to do it daily but I really would recommend doing it a few times a week (personal opinion, I am not a doctor.)

Here is the routine I use. I do believe that I first found it on http://www.webmd.com. I do not have a link to their direct article, but the routine is now in my memory.

Neck Stretch

• Stand with your feet flat , knees bent just a little bit.
• Tilt your head slowly forward, bringing your chin toward your chest.
• Turn your head to the left until your chin is lined up with your shoulder.
• Do this again on your right side
• Tilt your head to the left so your ear is to your left shoulder.
• Do this again but on your right side.

Shoulder Rolls 

• Stand with your feet flat on the floor, knees bent a little bit.
• Roll your shoulders forward 10 times starting with small circles.
• Roll your shoulders 10 more times in large circles.
• Roll your shoulders backwards 10 times starting with small circles.
• Roll your shoulders backwards 10 times using large circles.

Hamstring Stretch

• Lie down and bend your knees.
• Grab one leg around the thigh and slowly bring it toward your chest.
• Pull until you fee a light stretch.
• Hold for 10 to 20 seconds.
• Repeat with you other leg.

Hamstring Stretches 2

• Stand with one leg out in front of you, straightened and put your leg on a table or chair, I use the stairs.
• Bend the leg you are standing on until you feel a little stretch under the thigh of the raised leg. Hold for 10 to 20 seconds.
• Repeat with your other leg.

I also like to do Sun Salutations for a sore back. Here is a video for you to check out that will show you how to do a Yoga Sun Salutation:

On today’s workout menu I have Les Mills Pump Step as well as getting back on the horse with my running. I know I may not have the best run (I usually kind of stink at it anyhow) but I am going to get out there and do what I can. Hope you all have a fit and healthy day! Time for me to go stretch out this sore back and work on getting my workouts in.

Week One of Les Mills Pump Ultimate Cross Training Completed

So, I have made it through the first week of LMP Ultimate cross training. On my last post I reviewed LMP Step. Throughout the week I have also done LMP Sports Attack, it is a high energy cardio workout that incorporates various sports moves including track, football, boxing and basket ball. It is fairly close to a basic aerobic workout but if you really get into it and push hard you get a great workout and work up an amazing sweat. I burned a lot of calories and was drenched after the short 30 minute session and my legs were sore like crazy for the remainder of the day and the following day. LMP Combat was a 45 minute workout. It was a challenge for me. It is based on Martial Arts inspired moves, quite a bit like Kenpo. It drained all my energy in that 45 minutes and there were literally little puddles of sweat on the floor when I was done. my heart rate was up after the “cool down” as they tried to call it so i had to follow it with yoga just to get back to a lower HR.

I know that I have not blogged in a week. Life was crazy this past week, tons of landscaping was done, I got some cardio in uprooting trees (on my own, just me and a shovel), weeding, planting, mowing all that fun stuff. I hosted a jewelry party so one day was shopping and prep, the day of the jewelry party turned into a bonfire and more drinks. Tons of fun! of course the kid had sports, we attended a BBQ for Memorial Day and of course there was the everyday stuff too. I still got my LMP workouts in though.

Now, I will admit that I have not run in a week. Not good. So tomorrow I start back up and I am sure my lack of pushing myself to do it is going to show. Thank goodness there is time to get ready for The Color Run and I didn’t totally screw myself. So I call do-over!

So here is my progress for week one of LMP UCT and the first 98 days in general of Les Mills Pump:

• Chest: 32 inches (-0 inches)
• R Arm: 12 inches (-0 inches)
• L  Arm: 12 inches (-0 inches)
• Waist: 32 inches (-0 inches)
• Hips: 41 inches (-0 inches)
• R Thigh: 23.5 inches (-0 inches)
• L Thigh: 23.5 inches (-0 inches)
• Weight: 167 pounds (-1 pound)
• Pant Size: 12
• BMI: 29.5% (-0 %)

Day 1 of LMP Ultimate Cross Training

29 Days to Go!

So yes, today was day 1 of 30 days of Les Mills Pump Ultimate Cross Training.  On the schedule today was Step. I did not watch the video ahead of time so I was not sure what exactly to expect. Honestly I figured it would be a basic step routine. It was more than that for sure! Step of course began with a warm up, I found that it went through enough of the movements that would be used throughout the DVD to learn proper steps and form while moving through the rest of the workout. The entire thing was pretty intense. My legs are still on fire and I was sweating for over an hour after I finished. Even the cool down was crazy! i had to do a round of yoga afterwards to get my heart rate down and to stretch out my legs, and they are still on fire!! All in all I can not wait until I do it again and to try Combat and Sports Attack! Tomorrow is Flow and I will add some light cardio and maybe some abs on the balance ball or Hard Core Abs (we will see). To sum it up, I had to push to get through it, I wanted to quit at times but I didn’t. Getting through made me feel accomplished and I can see Step making a huge change in my legs and butt.

I want to thank all of you for all your kind words, words of encouragement and complements. It made me feel a little less embarrassed about the pictures. I am too shy about some things. Especially my body so it was nerve-wracking for me to do. Everyone made it easier for me and I love you all for that. Today the Les Mills Pump Facebook Page put up the  link to my blog (I posted it yesterday, they re-posted) My blog has had major traffic from that. So now I feel the whole world has seen them so I am over it. LOL!As far as weigh and measure in I did not do one today I am just using my end results from my LMP 90 day challenge it was yesterday so I figure what is the point in a remeasure the next day. I will start posting results each Tuesday again starting next week.
So here is where I stand right now:

• Chest: 32 inches
• R Arm: 12 inches
• L  Arm: 12 inches
• Waist: 32 inches
• Hips: 41 inches
• R Thigh: 23.5 inches
• L Thigh: 23.5 inches
• Weight: 168 pounds
• Pant Size: 12
• BMI: 29.5%

No more pictures until the 30 days is over!

I made it through..alive

The 90 day mark has passed. This means I have completed Round One of Les Mills Pump. I know I have been whining about the embarrassment of before and after pictures, and I decided I may as well do it. My pictures are terrible. with my lack of camera (Canon customer service is still on my hit list) they are taken with a phone by a six-year-old. So ya.. bad pics. I was kind of bummed that my 90 days hit when they did. I have some major monthly bloatage going on and it shows. But, oh well, I can’t control nature. Maybe I will redo pics in a few days.

This is where I started at Day 1:

• Chest: 38 inches
• R Arm: 12 inches
• L Arm: 12 inches
• Waist: 43 inches
• Hips: 45 inches
• R Thigh: 29 inches
• L Thigh: 29.5 inches
• Weight: 179 pounds
• Pant Size: 16
• BMI: 52%

This is where I am at today:

• Chest: 32 inches
• R Arm: 12 inches
• L  Arm: 12 inches
• Waist: 32 inches
• Hips: 41 inches
• R Thigh: 23.5 inches
• L Thigh: 23.5 inches
• Weight: 168 pounds
• Pant Size: 12
• BMI: 29.5%

So if we do the math this is my loss:

• Chest:  -6 inches
• R Arm:  -0 inches
• L  Arm:  -0 inches
• Waist:  -11 inches
• Hips:  -4 inches
• R Thigh: -5.5 inches
• L Thigh:  -6 inches
• Weight:  -11 lbs
• Pant Size: -2 sizes
• BMI: – 22.5%

That is a total of  32.5  inches, 11 pounds, 2 pant sizes and 22.5% body fat lost.

After

Before

Tomorrow I start Les Mills Pump Ultimate Cross Training.  It is a 30 day workout schedule. Still debating on what is after that, either a Pump/Turbo Jam hybrid or a Pump/Insanity hybrid. We  will see. I have 30 days to figure that out.