Learning to trust the Process

Not necessarily because I want to, but because I have to!

The moment I found out that I was expecting our third was an interesting moment in my life. I had a lot of conflicting thoughts and many worries. To a certain extent, I still do but I am so very happy about this baby on his/her way.

One of the issues I thought about was my fitness, training, and admittedly, my weight.

Without a doubt, a healthy pregnancy involves weight gain and even though I understand that from an intellectual point of view, it is very difficult to let go of the emotional angst that comes with the weight gain. I can see that I am putting on weight in a healthy way but I'm still nervous about putting it on. How difficult will it be to lose the weight? How long will it take? I know that if worse comes to worst, I can always go back to Weight Watchers, which is how I successfully lost weight last time. But I eat a paleo diet now and it was difficult for me to reconcile paleo (high fat) to Weight Watchers. I mean, how can I really trust that my paleo diet will ensure that I lose the weight? I always hear that it's difficult to overeat fat and protein but let me tell you, it just is not the truth for me. I love to eat. A lot. I will continue to eat after I am full just because the food tastes good. I have not yet gotten to a point where I can trust myself to eat and then stop when I am full. There is a whole list of foods that I totally avoid because I know once I start, I won't or can't stop until the entire bag is gone. I have absolutely no self-control around those foods. So yeah, I'm nervous. Weight Watchers worked so well for me because it imposed limits on how much I could eat. I wouldn't eat the whole bag because that would be well over 3/4ths of my daily allowance. I am a stickler for the rules and guidelines and if they are in place, I seem to function better. Eating paleo and trying to lose weight is like jumping out of a plane but this time without a parachute. Just hoping I eventually land. I'm just not sure about it. I do know that this pregnancy has involved me eating a lot more sweets (in the form of fruit) than I usually do. I've also been eating honey pretty liberally (one of the few sweeteners allowed on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet). It's obvious to me that to lose weight, I will need to cut those out or at least significantly reduce how much of it I have. But how soon can I do that while nursing? The bottom line is that I do not trust myself. I do not know exactly what my body needs to be healthy. I am learning what my body doesn't need but I honestly do not know what it does need. Also, I think sugar is addictive so can a craving for something sweet really be trusted? But there is nothing left to do but to trust the process. Continue to eat nourishing foods. Get good sleep. Relax. Move. And I hope that will do the trick.

And then there's my weight training and fitness. I had planned to stay active throughout my pregnancy and, for the most part, I am. However, I have had to slow down significantly and although I know I should be relaxing and enjoying not pushing as much, the truth is I love to push. I love to set personal records. I do not like taking it easy. But I really have no choice in the matter. Running is really uncomfortable. Most of the movements I used to do for my high intensity interval training are a no-go too. I run out of breath easily. Heck, even walking 15 minutes to the gym feels like I have *worked*. I definitely have had to drop the weights that I use and on certain lifts (most recently vertical push and pull exercises) I feel too much strain so I refuse to do them. I'm worried about losing some of the gains I've made. When I finished Power Training for Strength, I was deadifting at a maximum 170 pounds. When I started lifting weight, I could only deadlift about 80 pounds. I mean, I have been seeing some really great gains with consistency and discipline and I worry about how much of those gains I will lose. When will I actually get my life back together after the baby is born to start seriously lifting again? I just have to accept that my body is already doing a great deal of work by growing a baby and realize that backing off is not defeat or a sign of weakness. And I also have to be grateful that I am having a low-risk pregnancy which means that even though I'm not as active as I'd want to be, I can be active.

There are many questions in my mind but I am trying to relax despite my concerns. I am regularly practicing yoga (accepting that most of my yoga DVDs are no longer suitable and I need to stick to prenatal ones). And I've finally incorporated a meditation practice into my life that relaxes me and helps me be more patient and understanding. I have been working with Shimoff's book Happy for No Reason. I've been keeping a gratitude journal every day, no exception. I write down three or more things for which I am grateful. And surprisingly, even on days that I don't think I have much to be grateful for, I come up with things. Usually far more than 3 things. So if nothing else, not being able to do fitness related things has given me time to do more meditative, healing things. Spiritual fitness, I suppose one could say. And that is a wonderful gift that this baby is giving me. Another thing for which to be grateful.