Me
So... here's the "me" post for the week.
Where to start?
Well, I already talked a bit about my weekend away with my good friend Melissa. There's a lot I could say about that but I think I'll move on to a few other things that I've been wanting to mention. Let's leave that at this: it was amazing and came at a really good time, and I'm going to do it again (I've been urged by the hubby to do so!). The other thing that I will say briefly about it is that two nights of uninterrupted sleep was healing, in and of itself. I tend to be an anxious and depressed person when I'm not sleeping well. So for that reason alone I've been urged to get away from baby and sleep on regular occasions. :)
I'll include some pics of my beautiful girls here, just to give you something cute to look at while you read my rambling!
So. Exercise. Let's go with some updates there.
I mentioned back around Thanksgiving when I ran a 5K that I was taking a bit of a break and reining in the exercise a little. It just felt like my body needed it. I've been doing quite a bit of reading on the topic since then, and my research has only confirmed my suspicions that I was taking things too fast.
I'm about to share some things that might be TMI, so feel free to skip over!
Full disclosure: Throughout all four of my pregnancies I have suffered from sciatic nerve pain as well as symphysis pubis dysfunction (mostly according to Dr. Google, but my OB did confirm that, based on the pain I was describing, my self-diagnosis was probably accurate). It was never debilitating, but it grew worse with each pregnancy, until finally towards the end of my pregnancy with J I was no longer able to exercise comfortably. If I ran for more than 20 minutes I was in pretty excruciating pain for the rest of the day. I pushed through it a little bit (news flash: bad idea) because running was so helpful to me, mentally and emotionally.
In my first three pregnancies the pain pretty much resolved itself within a week or two of the baby being born. I still experienced a touch of sciatic pain on occasion, especially when I ran long distances, but it never lasted. Well, after J was born the pain stuck around. It wasn't as bad as during pregnancy, but it was noticeable, and definitely more present during and after exercise. I was feeling just enough pain to make me worried that I might do some permanent damage if I kept on exercising the way I was.
After reading a bit about diastasis recti on Healthy Habits Happy Moms, I checked myself (this was around three months postpartum) as instructed and discovered a small separation in my abdominal muscles. This explained a lot about the weakness I felt in my core and the pain in my lower abs and pelvis that I was still experiencing at that point.
So I took three weeks off from running, and then began the pelvic floor and core rehab exercises offered to HHHM members. I'm happy to say that my diastasis is now closed (just checked last night and the separation is gone!). I'm amazed that it only took a couple of weeks of doing those exercises! I cannot recommend them highly enough, for any woman of any age who has had a baby, or even anyone struggling with back or hip pain due to core weakness. They are really gentle but SUPER effective. It's mostly about re-aligning your posture and breathing, and re-training ALL the core muscles to work together. I've felt such a difference... I'm stronger in every activity from picking up my kiddos or carrying a laundry basket to walking and running.
The possibility still remains that, even after rehabilitating my core muscles, my pelvis might still just be out of alignment, and that might be at the root of the pain. If it continues after a few more months I might look into a chiropractor.
I have also ordered some supplements from Shaklee for both M and myself, and some kids vitamins for the girls. I've heard great things about Shaklee from many people, and I figured it couldn't hurt to try them out. It's been three days of taking a multivitamin, probiotic, and Omega-3 capsule, and I'm already feeling more energetic. I'm participating in a 5-day reset next week with a focus on whole foods, supplementing with Shaklee vitamins and the Life Shake. I'm happy to say that we've been doing much better with eating well in the past two weeks... I think my main challenge on this reset will be the fact that I can't have coffee. That really is my worst bad habit right now. I'm excited to cut back, though, if only for five days, because I have been wondering off and on whether the caffeine I regularly consume is affecting J (through the breastmilk). She is often tough to settle to sleep so I'm excited to see if there's any difference during the reset.
Anyway, are you bored yet??? :) Sorry for all the self-talk. I'm just excited about making some changes and seeing progress and results! I wanted to talk about baby J and sleep habits, and also a bit about where my head's at with homeschooling and the continuing adjustment to four kiddos... but for the sake of keeping this (sort of) short and getting it live on the blog, I'll save that for another "me" post later. Thanks for letting me chat with you!
Where to start?
Well, I already talked a bit about my weekend away with my good friend Melissa. There's a lot I could say about that but I think I'll move on to a few other things that I've been wanting to mention. Let's leave that at this: it was amazing and came at a really good time, and I'm going to do it again (I've been urged by the hubby to do so!). The other thing that I will say briefly about it is that two nights of uninterrupted sleep was healing, in and of itself. I tend to be an anxious and depressed person when I'm not sleeping well. So for that reason alone I've been urged to get away from baby and sleep on regular occasions. :)
I'll include some pics of my beautiful girls here, just to give you something cute to look at while you read my rambling!
So. Exercise. Let's go with some updates there.
I mentioned back around Thanksgiving when I ran a 5K that I was taking a bit of a break and reining in the exercise a little. It just felt like my body needed it. I've been doing quite a bit of reading on the topic since then, and my research has only confirmed my suspicions that I was taking things too fast.
I'm about to share some things that might be TMI, so feel free to skip over!
Full disclosure: Throughout all four of my pregnancies I have suffered from sciatic nerve pain as well as symphysis pubis dysfunction (mostly according to Dr. Google, but my OB did confirm that, based on the pain I was describing, my self-diagnosis was probably accurate). It was never debilitating, but it grew worse with each pregnancy, until finally towards the end of my pregnancy with J I was no longer able to exercise comfortably. If I ran for more than 20 minutes I was in pretty excruciating pain for the rest of the day. I pushed through it a little bit (news flash: bad idea) because running was so helpful to me, mentally and emotionally.
In my first three pregnancies the pain pretty much resolved itself within a week or two of the baby being born. I still experienced a touch of sciatic pain on occasion, especially when I ran long distances, but it never lasted. Well, after J was born the pain stuck around. It wasn't as bad as during pregnancy, but it was noticeable, and definitely more present during and after exercise. I was feeling just enough pain to make me worried that I might do some permanent damage if I kept on exercising the way I was.
After reading a bit about diastasis recti on Healthy Habits Happy Moms, I checked myself (this was around three months postpartum) as instructed and discovered a small separation in my abdominal muscles. This explained a lot about the weakness I felt in my core and the pain in my lower abs and pelvis that I was still experiencing at that point.
So I took three weeks off from running, and then began the pelvic floor and core rehab exercises offered to HHHM members. I'm happy to say that my diastasis is now closed (just checked last night and the separation is gone!). I'm amazed that it only took a couple of weeks of doing those exercises! I cannot recommend them highly enough, for any woman of any age who has had a baby, or even anyone struggling with back or hip pain due to core weakness. They are really gentle but SUPER effective. It's mostly about re-aligning your posture and breathing, and re-training ALL the core muscles to work together. I've felt such a difference... I'm stronger in every activity from picking up my kiddos or carrying a laundry basket to walking and running.
The possibility still remains that, even after rehabilitating my core muscles, my pelvis might still just be out of alignment, and that might be at the root of the pain. If it continues after a few more months I might look into a chiropractor.
I have also ordered some supplements from Shaklee for both M and myself, and some kids vitamins for the girls. I've heard great things about Shaklee from many people, and I figured it couldn't hurt to try them out. It's been three days of taking a multivitamin, probiotic, and Omega-3 capsule, and I'm already feeling more energetic. I'm participating in a 5-day reset next week with a focus on whole foods, supplementing with Shaklee vitamins and the Life Shake. I'm happy to say that we've been doing much better with eating well in the past two weeks... I think my main challenge on this reset will be the fact that I can't have coffee. That really is my worst bad habit right now. I'm excited to cut back, though, if only for five days, because I have been wondering off and on whether the caffeine I regularly consume is affecting J (through the breastmilk). She is often tough to settle to sleep so I'm excited to see if there's any difference during the reset.
(I got some new running shoes too... that definitely helps with feeling less pain on impact!)
Anyway, are you bored yet??? :) Sorry for all the self-talk. I'm just excited about making some changes and seeing progress and results! I wanted to talk about baby J and sleep habits, and also a bit about where my head's at with homeschooling and the continuing adjustment to four kiddos... but for the sake of keeping this (sort of) short and getting it live on the blog, I'll save that for another "me" post later. Thanks for letting me chat with you!
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