Babies, indeed!

Well this has created a whole new impetus for exercising: I'm pregnant again.  And the reality of starting a pregnancy a good 15 lbs heavier than I wish I were has made me realize I want to be serious about exercising WHILE pregnant, so it isn't quite so impossible afterwards.  Besides, I'm the queen of telling myself that I will get to it later, and it will be easier later, and really?  Who am I kidding?  Of COURSE it won't be easier to exercise when I have an infant to care for!

So.  On the advice of my chiropractor (a specialist in pregnancy, not to mention me, since she's cared for me through two pregnancies already!) here is what I'm doing:

1) Yoga twice a week.  GENTLY.  (That last bit is partly due to the car accident I was in a few weeks ago, which my body hasn't quite recovered from.)

2) Walking daily.  Right now I'm doing 30 minutes after breakfast and 30 minutes after dinner.  My goal is to work up to a mile in the morning and a mile at night, hopefully getting much faster so I'm not tied to the 30 minute mark.  I'd much rather run for 10 minutes than walk for 30, but I'll have to work up to that. :)

Emily's week 45

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Friday - nothing

I'm working with my teacher to figure out some ways to be more gentle on my wrist. It can be hard to find the line between being gentle and careful with my body, and being lazy.

Emily's week 43

Saturday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

I'm injured. My right wrist which had been sore for awhile, has become a wrist that will not take pressure of ANY SORT. Even shifting a manual transmission, or stirring a pot, or running a vacuum cleaner. So I'm backing off for a few days, icing it multiple times a day, and trying to think of ways to lower my stress level, since the weak points in my body tend to do this to me when I've been overstressed for too long. Prayers would be appreciated!

Emily's week 42

Saturday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - hatha yoga dvd (75 minutes)
Friday - No OM Zone yoga dvd (30 minutes)

I enjoyed some extended time with Thursday's dvd when my friend Pamela had my kids for a few hours. It requires focus and encourages relaxation between (and even during) poses. I didn't notice how hard it was until afterward when I wondered why I was so hungry and my muscles felt so wrung out. :)

Friday's dvd is pretty basic - fitness focused "yoga". I like it because the segments are 15 minutes (really!) and so it is much easier to convince myself to do one or two.

The past month or so has been pretty awful on a personal level, and I've fallen pretty far back into depression and eating for comfort. This week's workouts were an effort to start pulling myself out of that morass. I'm reminding myself that yoga is something I do for myself, and spending the boys' quiet time with a yoga dvd is a better use of my time than moping on the couch.

Emily's week 41

Saturday - hatha yoga (15 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 40

Saturday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Allison has me working HARD in yoga, and I'm loving it. I'm sore after every class (the good kind of sore) and I'm definitely getting stronger. Now if only the fat on top of the muscle would go away. ;)

Emily's week 39

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes) - with Jonathan!
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 38

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - evening walk with the family (45 minutes)
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Jonathan has been asking to come to yoga with me for quite some time now. Last Saturday I brought him to class with me...and he LOVED it. I was expecting him to get bored and we had brought a book for him to read in the lobby area if he got tired of the class. But he was completely engaged (and silent!) for the whole hour. When we were finished, he leaned over and whispered "Mommy, I really want to come back here again." Later he said that he liked working his muscles and then resting them at the end. Allison (my teacher) was incredibly impressed with Jonathan - she said she's never had a young child participate so well in an adult class. She invited him to come back anytime. :) So we'll see how long Jonathan enjoys it, but as long as he wants to, Saturday morning yoga will be a joint venture!

Oh, and I almost forgot! I can now do full yoga headstands without falling over. :) I've been working on this for some months now and am very pleased. Boy does it take a lot of core strength!

Emily's week 37

Saturday - horseback riding! (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing (sick)
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 36

Saturday - nothing (Gabe on ACR board retreat)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - vinyasa/hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing (Gabe at ACR board meeting)
Friday - 4 hour rock climbing trip!

Emily's week 35

Saturday - nothing (client appointment)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing (Gabe out with friends from work)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - AWESOME vinyasa/hatha yoga class!
Friday - nothing

I'm SO glad that I made it to yoga on Thursday, because it was amazing! There were only two of us there, and we're the ones who really like being challenged. So Allison created a totally different class than planned, on the fly, and it was incredible! We did a series of real (i.e. hard!) sun salutations, working on details like how to roll over our toes through the movement. We practiced crow, and dancer, and plow and shoulder stands and finished up with a full wheel pose. It was super hard and so much fun and I absolutely loved it. And the best part is that Allison told us afterward that she's been thinking about changing her Tuesday class to be more like what we had just done, because it is really what she prefers to be teaching and she wants to keep the younger crowd that has started to check out the studio. Yay!

Emily's week 33

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

I'm giving up some of my class time in the next few weeks so that Gabe can go out on Tuesday evenings. Next Tuesday is a dinner with some of his previous co-workers, and the following week is an Angels game with his new co-workers. And the Saturday after that he'll be on a church retreat, so no class then either.

All that to say that my class time is going to be seriously sparse for the rest of the month. Perhaps I'll get motivated to pull out some workout dvds? I got Bob Harper's Yoga for the Warrior from the library but the cover is so hardcore I'm pretty sure I won't like it! ;)

Emily's week 32

Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Friday - nothing

Twice this week, yay! And tomorrow I get to go again. :)

Emily's week 31

Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

I'm finding myself a bit frustrated with the last two weeks...it seems like getting to the studio is at the very, very bottom of the family priority list, and thus it is easy for it to get pre-empted for something else. And working out at home has been such an abysmal failure that I've simply given up...there are too many other things calling my name. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do about this, or even if there is anything to be done about it.

Emily's week 30

Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing (sick kids had to stay home from Awana with me)
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 29

Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 28

Saturday - nothing
Sunday - nothing
Monday - cross fit workout at Chalk Fitness
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 26

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - nothing

This week has been full of work (an interview, a prenatal, and a birth) AND I'm on my period...so I don't feel too bad about not working out. I rather expect next week to be the same, since I've got a prenatal and postpartum visit scheduled, and another client who will probably give birth. After all that I'll take a deep breath and get back into yoga. :)

Emily's week 25

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes), family hike (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - does housework count if it gets your heart-rate way up and throws your back out? ;)
Friday - nothing

Emily's week 24

Saturday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Sunday - nothing
Monday - nothing
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - hatha yoga (60 minutes)
Friday - nothing

I'm really glad to be back on track with my yoga classes. I missed them while I was on sick and on vacation!