Pregnancy Week 31 Plan

You know how you calculate where you are in your pregnancy and then sometimes double check it? Well… It turns out, on my workout plan, I skipped week 7. So that made me wonder whether I was truly only 30 weeks pregnant and not 31. But then I check our ultrasound images, and based on that, I am 31 weeks and 5 days today. Well, it’s not an exact science, no matter what anyone says, but on one hand being only 30 weeks would give me more time to finish creating my prenatal course, on the other hand, being 31 weeks and 5 days means I’m that much closer to meeting Annabelle. 99% on the name. For now though, it’s 100% push time, and when Sophie came down with a fever, push time came early, my view at 6am last week:

Was it easy for you to pick a name for your child(ren)? Sophie’s name came so much easier, but we really struggled picking a second girl’s name. And for some reason, I sometimes have this feeling that Annabelle could be a boy. This pregnancy is just so different, in so many aspects, and anybody who sees my belly immediately says it’s a boy. I know, I know. The ultrasound said girl, but then again, it’s not like the ultrasound was never wrong – and you know how you start hearing those tales of people who were told it was going to be one and then turned out to be the other. My husband doesn’t want a 4D ultrasound, and I get it. But I so do. Haha.

So last week was tough. My husband was down with a stomach bug since Saturday the week before, and I could feel I was coming down with it. Neither of us had any energy, which is always bad, but especially when you have a toddler full of energy that wants to run around, ride her bike, play, and neither parent is in the shape to do it. We really felt so bad…. The worst day was Wednesday – my birthday. The stomach bug hit full on, which was really crappy (pun intended, and I apologize for my choice of words… kinda 😛 ) So I had to take meals easy that day, to keep my tummy safe… But that of course gave me an insane headache by 5:30pm, at which time I overate and was sick for the next 9 hours…. But at least I got to chat with my friend a bit in the middle of the night. 🙂

Then of course, Sophie came down with a fever, just for one night/day. I freaked out a bit, thinking it could be vaccine related. See, we’re in the catch-up phase (not to start a vaccine debate here, I believe in vaccination just not giving so many vaccines at a time so we’re a bit behind and have a new pediatrician), so by my own mistake I thought she got a 4th Polio (IPV) vaccine, so I frantically called her pedi’s office only to make them think I’m totally crazy. Haha. It happens, and I might just be a little bit in this pregnancy. But either way, Friday Sophie had a Celebration of Love Party where they exchanged cards and a ridiculous amount of candy and had a lunch party. It was the cutest thing. 

So back to last week: meals were not on track and I completed 2 out of the 5 planned workouts. #itsokay though. Being healthy is way more important and my body needed the rest. 

I finally feel a lot better though, I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to have the energy again to work out.

So with that, here’s my workout plan for this week:

And our meal plan for this week:

Until next week: stay active, eat well, and be happy. 🙂 

Week 1 Review

Week one of my Les Mills hybrid and getting back on track: done. Oh do I have a lot to tell you!!

The Workouts
Two words: simply amazing. In the Les Mills series (both Pump and Combat) music is awesome. Each segment in the routine goes as long as the song goes and it pushes you. You definitely get pumped up.
Pump workouts are barbell based, low weight, high rep. Which is new to me, I’ve only been doing high weight low rep routines for a while. So while I stayed with 5lbs on each end, I got really REALLY sore. Pump Challenge is about 25 minutes, and is pretty basic as fat as the exercises go (squats, lunges, tricep extensions, chest press) but the combination of counts makes your muscles burn up.
Combat workouts incorporate a lot of different martial arts: karate, taekwondo, boxing, kickboxing. It’s definitely a fighter’s workout (my favorite, Turbo workouts – Turbo Jam, Turbo Fire, Turbo Kick are dancy kickboxy routines) – these have no dance in them. It’s punches and kicks – the only thing missing is the sandbag. 😛

Note on calories burned: I track this because I love numbers. But it’s not a measure that’s 100% reliable, especially not in the case of weight lifting or yoga. The higher the heart rate, the more calories you burn (which is important if you, for example, take some supplement before your workout like I did, my heart rate normally starts around 98, the day I took the supplement, it started at 134 and stayed all the way through my workout near my max target rate – not a great thing for me, though I did burn more calories) and the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.
DAY 1: Pump Challenge (185cal) & Combat 30 (289cal)
DAY 2: HIIT Power (260cal) & Inner Warrior (111cal)
DAY 3: Pump Challenge (105cal – see the difference?) & Hard Core Abs (60cal)
DAY 4: Combat 45 (345cal)
DAY 5: HIIT Plyo (253cal) & Flow (116cal)
DAY 6: Lower Body Lean Out (232cal) & Core Attack (85cal)
DAY 7: Rest day!!! I don’t plan my rest days, but they are very important. The muscle fibers are broken during a workout and get a chance to rebuild and grow during rest. So I take rest days when I feel my body needs it (which doesn’t necessarily coincide with my level of soreness, though, if I can’t move, I’ll take a rest day, otherwise, cardio day follows weight training day)

NutritionMy nutrition is far from perfect. On better days, I add my meals to MyFitnessPal (add me as a friend: MomOfBalance) to see how many calories I consumed; but, more reliable is my picture food diary (https://www.evernote.com/pub/apple21hun/momofbalancefooddiary) where I, for the most part, add pictures/notes on my meals and workouts. Although, there are times when I can’t (like at a birthday party, I felt it would have been rude to go around taking pictures 😛 ) In general, I try to eat around 1,900 calories with at least 90g of protein. Counting calories is fun, important if you’ve never done it to make sure you get enough of all the major nutrient groups and you don’t over/underdo any of the three (fat, protein, and carbs).

As the weeks go on, I will be adding more details, and promise my next posts won’t be this long. 😛

Plan for Success

I have the best results when I plan. I plan my workouts (which is easy, I have ones that come with a workout calendar) and I plan our meals. The latter is harder, especially now, that I have to consider my little angel, who doesn’t eat everything just yet. But anyways. This is just a quick note to share with you my planning process, in hopes that it will help you, give you ideas, or maybe you can share yours with me too. It’s a work in progress, I keep tweaking it and making improvements.

I have an excel workbook with different tabs (soups, breakfasts, pasta, fish, etc) where I have hundreds of recipes from my favorite cookbooks (most came with my workouts, but some I absolutely love: Color Me Vegan, Karma Chow, Skinny Bitch, Supermarket Vegetarian) and cooking magazines (such as Eating Well, Vegetarian Times). On weekends, I sit down, and plan a few weeks ahead. At that point, it’s a simple “cut&paste”. Creating the workbook is a different story, very time consuming but really worth it. The result is attached. What do you think?

Clearly, plans change, so I have empty spots. And I don’t plan for weekends, because… Plans change. So any leftovers I use over the weekend.

Staying On Track….

The month of December has always been hard on me for several reasons.

My love for chocolate (and my addiction to chocolate) kicks in. It all starts with a Christmas countdown with my advent calendar. I usually am pretty bad about taking it day by day. Which is funny, because the more you get to know me, the more you’ll realize how dedicated and strong willed I am. But all that seems to be gone when chocolate shows up in my life, and well, it did. You, as my reader, will witness me taking it day by day. I promise. And since a public declaration is something to be taken seriously, I shall do that. So here’s today’s picture of my advent calendar:

While in the U.S. candy canes are a staple on Christmas trees, in Hungary, we have “szaloncukor” that we hang on the tree. It’s these little chocolate bonbons filled with all kinds of yummies. My favorite one, pictured below, is the Milka brand filled with yogurt. That might sound off to you if you haven’t tried it yet, but trust me, it is delicious. So my mom sends us a package filled with szaloncukor every year and my struggle is not being able to just have one.

I bake. I bake this bread that’s more on the sweet side and we have that with smoked salmon, cheese, and lots of veggies. And this year at Thanksgiving, it turned out amazing. Every time it gets better, but this year, it was absolutely perfect. (If you’d like the recipe, I’d be more than happy to share, just comment on this post).

I bake a traditional holiday pastry (no picture yet, but I promise to post it once I make it).

So I control the one thing that has become part of my life so much, that it’s non-negotiable. My workouts. And it’s been harder because Sophie stopped taking a nap in the morning and she doesn’t want to stay in her swing anymore (I don’t blame her, it’s small and who wants to be laying down for an hour after just waking up when they’re not sleepy). Anyways. She wants to be around me. She pushes down on my when I’m doing a push-up, plays with my hair when I’m doing a sit-up, is under my feet when I try to jump. But we make it work. I practice patience and push through my workout. Which right now is Insanity. Insanity is not my style really, but the workouts are shorter and need no equipment. So I do it. Started yesterday and oh was everything hurting this morning or what. But I don’t care. I don’t care, because taking that 40 minutes for myself and my workouts makes me happier, more balanced, more patient. Forget about the scale and the looks (which are nice perks) but being fit is not about numbers on a scale or sizes of pants. It’s about feeling strong, feeling accomplished, and now, being an example. Sophie has watched me work out since she’s been three months old. She starts swinging her arms, moving her feet faster when the DVD starts up. And for that, I am staying on track. (Proof is below, it’s not a pretty picture of me, but you know how the saying goes, if you look good after your workout, you did not push hard enough).