Weeks 18-21

Halfway there! Go in next week to see the baby again and look for a little somethin' somethin' so mommy and daddy can know what gender they're having!

I'm starting to feel pretty big now and beginning to find a bit more physical limitations. All ab work is no longer done laying down, my uterus cramps when met with any sort of jumping (four wheeling on our set net site is NOT a good thing!), and I have extreme cramping pain after using the restroom; it makes me not want to go! I still stick with Insanity Max for my workouts with some added stretching because after lots of research, the modified Insanityax exercises are actually great for pregnancy. I don't mosify all exercises; I listen to my body and if ANY ounce of pain or discomfort is present I modify.

The hubby didn't want me to be on a boat this summer so I was mrs.cook for our fish site. This meant a LOT of being around the kitchen which meant a LOT of snacking on fish site food (I.e: carbs). I've gained a few non-baby pounds...looking forward to living at home and cleaning up my diet! I have not craved food or anything, I just have always struggled hanging around kitchens :)

Some fun, present pregnancy side effects are:

Abnormal hair growth on belly (yuck!)

Acne

PUPPP (bumps and rashes on skin...some itchy!)

Water intake with your blender/shakeology bottle!

I bought one of these blender bottles, only to find out that they have something similar with beachbody (go to shakeology www.beachbodycoach.com/donicanash). 

Water intake is a HUGE deal, pregnant or not pregnant. I tried doing the huge water jugs so I had my day's worth of water with me at all times, but it was so big to carry around and a bit overwhelming. I've been using my blender bottle for my Shakeology and results and recovery formula, and end up using it for water as well. I found that my water intake comes much more naturally when I have to refill my water! 

To get your water intake in, follow this plan.

1 water upon waking up (in blender bottle)

1 Shakeology

1 results and recovery formula or water during workout

1 bottle in between breakfast and lunch

1 bottle after dinner

Depending on how much you fill the bottle, it will be about 20 ounces each bottle. 

Total water intake for the day: 120 ounces.   

Now, this is more than your "8 cups of water each day", but for an active person (which you should be!) your body needs more water than that. The high end of water intake is about 1 ounce per body pound. The low end range is half that amount. So as an active person, find what seems comfortable for you to drink, whether that is filling your bottle up 15 ounces each time or eliminating one of the bottles in your day. You will feel a huge difference once you keep up your water intake! As a pregnant woman, you almost can't get enough water! 

Pregnancy weeks 15-17 1/2

Pregnancy weeks 15-17

You can see the difference!

As you can tell, week 17 is when I really started to show! I stepped on the scale this morning and was shocked to see I have gained 11 pounds! This is such a weird thing to get used to. That scale is NOT going to go down for another 5-6 months! It's a little bit nerve-wracking and takes a lot of reassurance to know that this is NORMAL. If you're adding the weight of a uterus big enough to hold a baby, of course weight is going to be gained. The scale no longer matters anymore. 

I have been eating normal and doing my workouts, modified still. I found out that my initial blood tests showed that I was low in iron, and I was shocked because I like to consider myself a very healthy, moderate person. I began to look at labels on food to find foods high in iron, and turns out that WHITE BREAD has the highest amount of iron in it! Being that I was gluten free up until getting pregnant, this low iron level makes sense. So, for all you avoiding wheat, remember to be eating other foods high in iron! 

We weren't able to see the baby's gender at our last ultrasound, being that it was sitting with criss-crossed legs... Come on baby! Open up for mama! We are going to wait another month until our next appointment to take a look. I expect things to finally start to feel real once I'm able to start imagining a little boy or girl! 

All in all, things seem to be going well. My sharp pains from the uterus stretching are still in full force, and I have found myself with random bouts of nausea early in the morning that wakes me up. But other than that, I'm feeling great! And I'm feeling like I need to capitalize on this energy while I have it.

That's it in the Nash world, can't wait to update with the baby gender :)

Pregnancy: Cardio Core

My favorite style of exercise is, and always be, interval training. With a bunch of opinions about exercise during pregnancy, I find that I'm more comfortable just staying on the safe side of things. I do believe there is too muc judgement towards women who maintain their fitness regimen, but I'm one to easily crack to such outside pressure :/  Therefore, I take it a lot easier. I take time to do a gradual warmup so my heart rate slowly grows; same goes for a cool down. I also don't push myself like I normally would. My heart rate doesn't get as high, and instead of trying to max out, I just try to endure through and not take any breaks. This might mean I'm not pushing as hard, but I still get a good sweat.


So during insanity max, I don't max out. I also modify a lot, and when fishing season is over I'll post a pregnancy modified insanity workout! But here is a short interval workout I've done during this pregnancy:


Warmup and stretch 5-10 min

20 second on, 10 second rest. Repeat each round 3x

Round 1-
Push-up punch (or modified on the knees)
Knee up punch
Squat to backwards lunge (squat down, backwards lunge)

Round 2-
Frog jumps (or wide squat if not comfortable with the jump)
Wide push-ups (on the knees for modification)
Squat kicks (squat down, kick one leg up

Round 3-
Squat stance air punches
Lunge kick /left side(step back to lunge, bring back leg forward to a kick)
Lunge kick/right side

Modified push-up punch

Knee up punches (alternating sides)

Weeks 14&15

Getting close to halfway! And close to finding out the gender!!! My uterus popped out, but I don't notice a significant belly growth. I found that at the beginning of week 15, my nausea came back! I was being awoken by bouts of morning sickness and this was an unpleasant surprise. I also have bad, sharp cramping pains and those are SUPER...

What I have discovered is that I really CANT run while pregnant unless it's ONLY on an incline. I don't know how people do it! My uterus gets super sharp pains and can't handle it. So I've stuck with my Beachbody programs with some modifications. I've found that it's just really important to listen to what YOUR body is saying.

Again, Shakeology is a pregnant lady's BEST FRIEND. This, and water :) I've found it really hard to get my nutrition in, especially when I'm nauseous! All I want is bread and carbs to settle my stomach, and this makes my gut feel gross; so Shakeology is my saving grace! My stomach also eats itself out if I get hungry, to the point where I feel like there is permanent damage to my gut when I don't have a snack....


Now here are a few pregnancy progression photos :) I found that you can suck in your uterus so it just looks like you have a little fat pooch, I'm interested in what everyone else does for their photos?! Suck in? Let it hang? Give it a little push out? So I started taking a picture of flexing my abs and then relaxing. The 13& 14 week photos are of my relaxed belly. My uterus looks like it's dropped or something from week 13 to 14.