First Trimester of my Sixth Pregnancy

Baby Six is now the size of an olive. He has a heartbeat and is making me sick. Don't hate, but I never throw up with my pregnancies. The nausea and dizziness is something to be reckoned with, though. Every time I'm laid out in the bed the other kids get nervous. They willingly bring me crusts of bread when requested and offer to rub my back (no, don't touch me).

I no longer want salad, which has been my go-to for healthy food for the last six months. I want lots of meat and cereal, not together.

There have already been so many times in the last few weeks when I've asked myself why I planned on bothering to eat healthfully and workout every morning during this pregnancy. I picture how rotten life can seem when I'm pregnant and imagine adding sweaty workouts and green food. Right now that sounds like the worst things I can think of.

Really though, pregnancy is nothing compared with the first three months postpartum. Running around with kids and schedules and housework with no sleep and an infant hooked up to you pretending like you didn't just have your undercarriage blown open. That is the hardest part of pregnancy for me, the fourth trimester, as they call it. In that memory is where I get my answer.  That is why I am going to go the extra mile during the first three trimesters, to be stronger and faster and more capable when everyone needs me most.

I picture myself in a hospital room after delivery feeling burnt out. In the past, I've been there and remember thinking, "I wonder how long they'll let me stay." The prospect of the impending adjustments at home was so daunting. I want  to be as ready as I can to take life on after the new baby arrives. There are plenty of studies that show that mothers who stay active and nourish themselves well during pregnancy recover more quickly. I've seen other moms do it and I plan to do it, all in the name of giving my family the very best of myself. Losing the fat quickly and beating baby blues postpartum doesn't hurt either…

Pregnancy is so temporary. I've got this.
 

Four Secrets To The Fit Life

My alarm goes off at 6 am most mornings. I answer the call to sweat and strain because I must. The call is from my deep self and I cannot resist. Fitness has become a part of me. It has become my tool, my door, my lifeline.

Since my adolescence I've been swimming upwards trying constantly to break the surface of my own sea of self deprecation. I'd look in the mirror at the cellulite and see weakness, at the stretch marks and see failure.

But in the past few years I have started to see the light. It started with running. First, I struggled to reach a pre-determined three mile mark. Then I signed up for a 10k (about 6 miles). I trained for it, ran it, and fell in love.  I'm in love with movement, with action, with completing my tasks, with working, sweating, and with victory.

Fitness has been my vessel and has shown me my own strength and given me faith in my own abilities. I move iron now, and sprint, and jump, and struggle. I pull and push. I believe that a strong character is the golden ticket to building a strong body and living a fit life.

Struggle is the secret to tasting the divine in ourselves and in God. We come to a fuller understanding of ourselves when we strive for perfection. We break our muscles and our personal records and our best time, in order to recover and rise up to the next level. Without struggle our spirits stagnate. With prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, our great effort can take us to incredible heights. Don't be afraid to strive for perfection.

Prudence: If you are prudent will be able to judge an action or workout properly regarding intensity, timing and the amount of rest needed in order to improve and to move forward. You will learn, you will never stop learning.

Justice: If you are just you will judge fairly yourself and others, giving yourself credit when it is due and seeing room for improvement without despairing. Justice enables us to prioritize the elements in our lives. It allows us to love our spouses and children in a fair, well ordered, and beautiful way and keeps us from putting ourselves first in our relationships. It teaches us about self-sacrifice, the greatest love of all.

Temperance: being temperate brings balance to your diet and your training. You learn to say "no" to yourself and to others. When you practice temperance in yourself, overindulgence in unhealthy food and over training cease to become a problem.

Fortitude: Fortitude is courage. It's the ability to stand up in the face of adversity, fear, uncertainty, and intimidation. It is endurance in hardship; the will to keep going because you must. Without fortitude your life will be languid, bitter and empty.

You hear people say that pain is good. I say struggle is good. It is nature's secret way of raising us up to be better than our old selves.

Each morning I rise to chase the pain, to combat the weakness, the sadness, and the foolishness in myself. I look at myself in the mirror. I see lines, marks, and signs of my struggles and I am proud and determind. No one can know my journey like I do. I ask myself each morning, "What are you going to do to strengthen and build your body and your mind today?"

My fit lifestyle is my divine struggle to bring my will into submission in order to bring myself to life.