The First Trimester a.k.a Is It Normal To Puke Out Your Nose?

Well, the secret is out! I’m expecting a baby and I am thrilled to share the journey with you! It is the first baby for Neil and I, and I am honored to be documenting the experience with you fine folk. You can keep coming back here for the rest of the year (and more, I’m sure!) to find all of my informative articles on the key things going on in my fit pregnancy and how I am approaching my training, nutrition and supplements—along with everything else I’m learning along the way.

I’m already 15 weeks – so let’s get caught up!

The First Trimester

Not much to report here. I didn’t discover I was pregnant until 6 weeks in, but it seems like as soon as we found out it was like – BAM – and the “morning sickness” kicked in. I put “morning sickness” in quotes because that term – for me – is a complete and utter deception! I was nauseous from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until I tried to fall asleep at night.

With this nausea, came major food aversions to what seemed like pretty much everything and a serious lack of motivation and energy to get to the gym. I really struggled with this since I went from a protein junkie eating planned and pre-prepared meals every three hours, intense weight room workouts 5-6 days per week and various photo shoots and fitness events per year to a sick and exhausted couch potato. Mmmm…potato chips sounded good!

My Instantaneous Tendencies

It doesn’t help that you don’t see your doctor until eight weeks, so I had absolutely no clue what I was supposed to be or not be doing for the next three weeks (besides what I could find on the internet). My only inclination was to stop taking ALL supplements: the obvious ones like ON Gold Standard pre-workout and my creatine, along with the questionable ones like ON 100% Gold Standard Wwhey and casein protein powder, branch chain amino acids (BCAA’s) and fish oils. I was only taking a prenatal (which I was horribly sick from – I’ll explain later). I even cut out coffee cold turkey. Talk about miserable!! No wonder I couldn’t get the energy for a workout. I have depended on pre-workout and coffee for the past five years! Plus, I was worried that my workouts weren’t good for the baby.

Luckily, our doctor is 100% on board with me still working out as I was, getting back to my protein powder, fish oils (so important!) and allowing 1 cup of coffee per day. Yay!!

My Head Space So Far?

My mind has been racing lately as I am sure most pregnant women can relate to. I experienced the greatest loss of my entire life this past summer; after carrying for 12 weeks I had a miscarriage. I felt depressed, confused and above all else angry. I witnessed many of my good friends give birth during the weeks and months following and with each birth I felt a piece of my heart turn to stone. I was caught up in stereotypical depression nostalgia and the thought of having a baby of my own completely left my mind. I put in into the category of things I can dream about but likely never achieve i.e. work as a princess at Disney World. I had given up. Work was providing a lot of stress at this time as we transitioned through staff and new policies and procedures. I became a robot because if I could maintain not feeling I couldn’t feel any worse. Then when I finally got pregnant I was so conflicted. On one hand I wanted to shout it from the roof top, yet on the other my heart still hung so heavy for other women who were in the same head space as I was this past summer, unable to conceive.

So although I was very sick throughout my entire first trimester I am full to the brim with gratitude to have made it this far.

My Training So Far

You can always count on me to be completely honest with you about my fit pregnancy experience. So, there is no way I am going to lie and tell you my workouts have been awesome, and I’ve been training 5-6 days per week. The truth is, I’m tired. Really, really tired. During the first trimester, I would go to the gym (getting up and going there was and still is the hardest part!) and do my best. My strength was pretty much non-existent, but I tried. During pregnancy, a woman’s body produces a hormone named Relaxin, which, in preparation for childbirth, relaxes the ligaments in the pelvis and softens and widens the cervix. Unfortunately, this hormone does not target just the pelvis – it relaxes the ligaments throughout our entire body, forcing us to be VERY careful when lifting moderate to heavy and deep stretching.

I can definitely feel the weakening of my ligaments, especially in my knees – they feel weak and hurt a bit during squats. My yoga practice is still strong, but I can’t push as hard in the postures or go as deep in the stretches. I still love hot yoga occasionally, but I am careful not to overheat (I’ve stepped outside a few times to cool off and always go early to grab the spot by the door, window or fan) or overstretch.

I’m actually enjoying the caution I’ve had to take during lifting. I’ve always been a crusader for perfect FORM over how heavy you can lift, so dropping the weight and spending each workout perfecting my form to the fullest has been really enjoyable.

It is really nice to have a break from muscle gaining to focus on maintaining the muscle I have and working on form. I’ve been lifting about three times per week and doing yoga also three times per week. I did more steady-state cardio during the first trimester (before I saw my doctor, when I was worried about lifting) but now focus on the weight room and stretching.

My Nutrition So Far

I’ll begin by saying that in November of 2013, I started working with a prep coach for the first time in my professional career. From when I first started training for competitions in 2008 until then, I had done all of my nutrition on my own – and am very competent when it comes to my own body and how to “diet” in a healthy, fed and happy way. But I wanted to try a nutritionist (and needed one that allows me to choose my own foods and use my expertise) so I went with the very best and hired Patricia Pain (she’s amazing). As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I let her know we’d be taking a break from working together. She immediately responded that NOW is the best time ever to continue working together.

Until then, I always had her keep my macronutrients set so that I stayed in photo shoot shape year-round. Being pregnant, she could now adjust everything to allow me to “reverse diet” out of photo shoot shape, adding calories, carbohydrates and fats (I always kept protein high so that would stay where it was) along the way, feeding me, my baby and my metabolism. This will set me up perfectly for getting back into shape the right way after the baby is born. I’ve written several articles and blogs on this topic—if you start your diet already in a calorie deficit, you will end up damaging your metabolism and depriving your body. Where do you end up if you start a 10-week diet only eating 1300 calories per day? At 800 calories per day plus cardio? AWFUL. But if you start a 10-week diet eating 2800 calories per day, you end up photo shoot or stage ready at 2300 calories per day. AWESOME!

What About All Those Food Aversions?

Let me tell you…it is HARD to get your protein requirements in when most meat sounds horrible. And when only carbs and fats sound good, it’s hard not to blow past your daily goals for each of those. Besides the 100 frozen chicken burritos I ate in the first trimester just to get by (now I can’t stand the sight of them), below is a list of some of my favorite pregnancy foods that are daily staples for me – all focused on protein, carbs, fats and fiber.

And, I have decided to cut myself some slack and not worry about keeping my sugar super low (in photo shoot prep, my goal was always under 50g per day). I try to track all of my food daily, as I see no reason to let go of the awesome habits I’ve developed over the years. I plan to track my macros throughout my pregnancy so that getting back in shape is that much easier – cutting myself some slack here and there for restaurant meals and yummy desserts. I’m pregnant! And loving the process.

Keep checking back to the blog, my next articles will have samples of the workouts I’ve been doing, recipes, supplements and more fit pregnancy fun.

Protein

• Greek yogurt
• 100% Gold Standard Whey & Casein
• Eggs (whole eggs & pasteurized liquid egg whites for shakes, etc.)
• Really finely chopped or shredded chicken or turkey mixed into a meal (taco, burrito, bowl, etc)
• Salmon
• Hummus

Carbohydrates

• Quinoa
• Brown rice
• Sweet Potato/Yam
• Whole wheat bread
• Cream of Wheat
• Whole wheat pasta
• Udon noodles
• Whole grain tortillas
• Cheerios
• Udi’s Simple Granola
• Van’s gluten free blueberry frozen waffles

Fats

• Baking from Kneaded Gluten Free Bake Shop
• Peanut, almond, coconut butters
• Cheese, cheese and more cheese (I try to stick to Parmesan and Mozzerella)
• Avocado
• Ghee

Vegetables

Not many sound good – 15 weeks in I still cannot sit down to a plate of vegetables that I’ve cooked on my own (having them served to me is a different story…so weird!). So, I have a Power Juicer and Vita-Mix permanently on my kitchen counter for juicing. Here’s a list of my stocked vegetables (I add fruits, liquid egg whites and sometimes protein powder to my juice):

• Carrots
• Kale
• Spinach
• Tomato
• Ginger
• Cucumber

Fruits

• Apples
• Bananas
• Clementines
• Grapefruit
• Mixed berries
• Lemon

Focus on fiber

A lot of these things are in the categories above, but I wanted to call them out here as being very high in fiber and great choices!

• Chia seed
• Flax seed
• Wheat bran
• Avocado
• Green vegetables
• Apples
• Berries
• All-Bran cereal
• Bran Buds cereal
• Black beans
• Hummus
• Quinoa
• Brown Rice
• Sweet Potato

My miscellaneous favorites

• Raw agave nectar
• Dried banana chips
• Justin’s peanut butter cups
• Almond Dream chocolate ice cream
• Stacy’s Simply Naked pita chips
• Pickles (so cliché!)

Stay tuned for more pregnancy updates over the next 6 months.

With Love From the Trench Kitchen,

xoxoErika♥