It’s A Boy!

I am thrilled to share with you that Chris and I are expecting our first baby and IT’S A BOY!

I’m six months pregnant and due on May 2nd and all ultrasounds and blood tests show he’s healthy across the board.

We chose to keep him under wraps for the first few critical months as was advised by my doctor and then to reveal our surprise with close friends in person before sharing our miracle publicly.

All along, any time a client, friend or blog reader would broach the subject of why I’d been writing a bit less about training and racing, I’ve been chalking it up to being in the launch phase of the bone broth business, which was absolutely the truth.   

Yet there was one other very important reason for toning the training and competition down just a tad (ok more than a tad : ).  

I had one more very important consideration to keep in mind with every workout I embarked upon, every meal I prepared and every activity I chose to add to the schedule.

Admittedly, even despite the wealth of information I’ve gathered over the past decades from formal education, my work with Dr Cordain and with clients globally, I still wasn’t 100% convinced I knew for sure what the heck I was doing.

Perhaps I should have known better than to do any online searching and fortunately, I stopped myself before I got too far down what can end up being a rat hole of advice, suffice it to say that I found the information of what someone in my unique demographic should do, or not do when expecting a baby.

• Pregnant endurance athlete.
• “Older” pregnant woman (I’m 44).
• Pregnant Woman who has been following an authentic Paleo (with a bit of keto mixed in) for nearly 15 years.
• “Underweight” (aka low body fat) pregnant woman

Doctor’s suggestion on exercise?

“You can workout, sure!  You can do light walking”.   Huh?

Doctor’s suggestion on food?

Silly at best, some of my favorites which include:

• Be sure to get at least three dairy servings per day, and keep it low fat, to ensure ample calcium intake
• Avoid high fat foods such as organ meats and animal fat.

And that’s only the beginning!

While I did adhere to the light walking for the first few days after finding out, I soon realized that I knew my body enough to trust it would, just as the sayings go, tell me everything I needed to know.

So with what my body is cueing me, along with a few pieces of sage advice from trusted mentors and experts in the field who I found through referrals, I quickly began to develop my own guidelines, which I will be sharing with you.

Over the next four months as I enter my third trimester, I’ll be posting regularly about things I’ve learned and continue to learn, as part of the continued theme of the Paleoista blog:  to educate on the importance of eating food and moving.

One essential disclaimer I must state:  nothing on this series of blog posts is intended to be medical advice.  I am far from a pregnancy expert; rather, it’s my goal simply to share what I am learning with the intention that other women out there who may be in the same conundrum feel perhaps a bit more inclined to trust their own bodies and to seek other medial council if what they’re being told by their Western docs just doesn’t sound right.

I continue to exercise each day; it’s just different:

• I’ve put cycling outside on hold for now.   Indoors on the trainer, sitting upright for a shorter period of time suits me just fine.
• I’m still doing yoga three times per week, and it’s still level 3 flow, it’s just with modifications. I shared very early on with my teacher so he could advise on what poses are a bad idea, such as no twisting.  
• Running?    Admittedly, I feel a bit clunky when I run, so now it’s more of a wog on the treadmill, but hubbie and I are also spending more time on the trails hiking with our current kids (the four legged duo of Preston + Pele).
• Swimming?  No brainer.   Also shared the news with my swim coach fairly early on, mostly so he’d know the reason I’m averaging closer to a 1:35 / 100 instead of my  normal speed is not through lack of focus and presence- I simply have to slow down since my lungs feel squashed!
• On a funny note:  getting winded going upstairs is a new thing, but in all honestly, it’s all good, it’s all fun and it’s part of this beautiful part of like that I am thrilled beyond words that we decided to embark upon.

Be sure to stay tuned for my next preggie post in which I spoke with my mentor directly, Dr. Cordain, to ask him my top five most pressing food related questions on whether or not I’d need to change anything about what and how I was eating.

Also, reach out!  

What would you like to know about your pregnancy as it relates to food and moving?

Thank you for reading and thank you for being a part of this miraculous time of our lives.