Recovery

How do you judge recovery? It seems that everyone has a different standard when it comes to recovering from giving birth. In the workplace they say it takes 6 weeks to "recover". Many people may say when a woman gets back to her pre-pregnancy weight or size clothing she is "recovered". For me I have been judging my recovering on my performance in the gym. I have run into a bit of a problem with doing that though, my first week back before my shingles were in full force, I could squat and lift more weight than I can nearly 5 weeks post pregnancy. So does that mean that I was recovered the first week and now that I am working out regularly I am just digressing? I don't think so. I think there is so much more that goes on when you have a baby and figuring out how to return to my "old self" is still a work in progress. There are so many other factors that play into how we feel on a daily basis. So let me start with a few of the obvious ones that are affecting me and maybe some of you, even if you have never gone through pregnancy.

Sleep! In our country today, sleep is not regarding as something of high importance. People that work really hard and run on less than 8 hrs (sometimes just 4 or 5) are regarded as hard working and it is highly commendable. Although most of those people will say they don't "need" more sleep than that, I would question their belief. How different would they feel if they did get 8 hours? How much more productive would they be and how would their energy levels change? From personal experience right now I usually get to sleep from 8:30 p.m. to midnight, I'm up for an hour feeding and pumping, sleep again from 1 a.m. to about 3 a.m., up again feeding and pumping, and then some light sleep on the couch until about 5 a.m when I get up for the day. I know this is temporary as having a one month old baby requires me to do this, but I can tell you after doing it for the past month, my energy levels and strength definitely feel like they are decreasing by the day. So if you are feeling like you lack the necessary energy to perform your best, evaluate your sleep schedule. I'm hoping mine will greatly improve in the next month with any luck from my baby girl.

Nutrition! This plays a huge role in your daily health. I am constantly evaluating what I am eating and how it is affecting my baby (since I am breast feeding) as well as me. Right now with the amount that I am working out I need at least 2700 Calories to support my activity level as well as nursing. This can actually be quite a task to get this many Calories in a day so the main thing I need to do is prepare. I do this on Sundays by making about 4 lbs of meat that I put in the refrigerator to have as lunch and in between meals along with veggies, a little fruit, and high quality fats. I have cut out all sugar except for what I get from a limited amount of fruit in a day. So far, coming off of sugar (even though I wasn't a huge sugar person, I did indulge in dark chocolate and paleo treats more than I should) has made my body feel much cleaner, but I do still have cravings and at times feel low on energy. I know this is only temporary as after about 2 weeks of no sugar usually I start to feel much better. Whether you are trying to lose weight or just get stronger and be healthy, nutrition is one of the most important things to emphasize. I credit that with my fitness routine to getting back to my pre-pregnancy size quickly.

Exercise! I have a lot of people ask me how I lost the baby weight so fast. Let me tell you it isn't what you do after you have the baby that is most important, it is what you do before you get pregnant and while you are pregnant that is most important. I say before you get pregnant because if you haven't been active before, during a pregnancy is not the time to get in shape, but you can maintain most of your fitness during your pregnancy if you were in good shape prior.

The workouts in the past few weeks have been really tough for me. I have high expectations of my performance and am not even coming close to meeting them. Although my cardio has been steadily improving the high skill exercises that have always been tough for me haven't got any easier. The most frustrating of all is my squat and deadlift strength is about 10-20% off of how much I was doing even during pregnancy. I know in due time these will come back but it is really hard to put my pride aside and scale to the weights I need to right now. It is funny because as a coach I tell people all the time to scale, scale, scale but when it comes to scaling myself, I have a hard time doing it even though I know it is the right thing to do. In the long run I think this experience will make me not only a better athlete, but also a better coach.

Coming Back

I knew it would be difficult to come back to Crossfit after having a baby, however this past week has proven to be even harder than I thought. My shingles episode definitely set me back more than the pregnancy. My shingles followed my sciatic nerve so I had a rash and pain from my lower back all the way down my left leg. I have been back at it for a week now and have not felt very good about my performance. My cardio, which was usually a strength of mine, has been very poor, and I feel weaker than I did while I was pregnant.

Last Saturday I jumped right back in and think it might have been a little too much because come Monday I couldn't even do basic things in the workout because my abs were so sore. I haven't done much direct ab work as I am trying to avoid it so that they heal with as little separation as possible but even things like front squats and legless rope climbs have proven to be taxing on my very weak abdominal area.

The other thing I have mentally struggled with is my endurance. After spending that past 9 months slowing down or quitting when I feel like my heart rate is getting high or that voice pops in my head saying slow down and actually listening to it, I now have to retrain to push through those times. This week we had an endurance WOD on 9/11 that instead of pushing through, I wussed out and slowed down. I was working out on my own at the time so I have decided that I must workout with a class so I push myself harder.

The other thing is I have a fear of failure and I faced that today. Before I was pregnant I could do ring muscle ups fairly consistently. Although I could not string multiples together, I could successfully do one at a time. I have been afraid to even try until today they were programmed in our WOD. My fears came true and I was unable to do one. I now have a goal that in addition to our programmed workouts, every day I am going to work on handstands (walks, HSPU, and free standing) as well as muscle ups so that I can be proficient at both.

On a positive note, my body has bounced back fairly quickly. Much quicker than with my first and I fully attribute that to crossfit through pregnancy. I am fluctuating between 5-7 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight of 128 lbs, which isn't too bad after just a couple of weeks. My stomach is also beginning to shrink down so I think in a month or so, I will be close to being back to normal. We are starting a lifestyle challenge Monday so today I tested my body fat in the BodPod. I was at 19% so although most of my goals are all performance related I hope that after 8 weeks I am around 16% as I think I will feel better with my body weight movements at that percentage as well as be stronger in my weightlifting. In order to get there I need to be sure I am eating plenty of Calories but they need to be largely fat and protein calories and the carbs will come from veggies, a little fruit, and limited amount of sweet potatoes. My goal is to be completely free of the "sugar" cravings in 4 weeks, which means no more chocolate chips or paleo treats (at least for the next month:) .

Here are a few progress pics

2 Weeks Post Partum

3 Weeks Post Partum

I love these two so much!

Shingles are for Old People....

Nearly every case of shingles that I have ever heard of is related to someone over the age of 50. I had assumed that it is something that only affects this age group, until Monday. 

While I was in the hospital after delivering my little girl I started to feel pain in my hip that radiated down my leg. I brushed it off as the beds in the hospital were really uncomfortable and let's face it, your hips undergo quite a feat to deliver a baby. When I returned home the first 3 nights at home I had really strong hip pain so I would lather my hip in deep blue and take some advil and sleep as much as I could (which wasn't very much). During the day, the pain felt more manageable, I was even able to get workouts in with little or no pain, but at night it would just flare up. After the third day home I decided to call the chiropractor thinking maybe my hips just needed to be adjusted after the birth. He could not get me in for 2 more days and by the time I showed up for my appointment the pain was gone, but I had a rash on my lower back and a little on my hip. Could I possibly be breaking out because of all of the deep blue I used? I have used a lot of deep blue in the past and never had a problem, but I didn't know what else it could be from. This was on Friday before the long labor day weekend. 

Saturday, I noticed the rash spreading further down my leg and thought I would call for an appointment on Tuesday. By Monday the rash was growing increasingly uncomfortable, blistering in some spots and it just kept spreading further down my leg. It now covered my lower back, left hip and left leg down to about mid calf. I was getting worried that it would be something I could spread to my girls and husband. I googled to see what it could be and the only thing that really came up for postpartum rashes was PUPPPS but my symptoms were not consistent with this. PUPPPS starts on the stomach and usually starts while you are pregnant. I had no rash on my stomach. By Monday evening nothing was giving me relief. I was using my oils and the rash just seemed to get worse so I decided to go to urgent care. The doctor there told me I had shingles! I asked what caused it and she said any stressor can cause it. Since I have had the chicken pox, the virus lays dormant in your nerves and a stressor (in my case child birth) can make it flare up. She said because I was young the course may only last a week or two as opposed to over a year that it affects some elderly people. For me a week or two felt like an eternity because of how uncomfortable the rash is. At least my hip pain had gone away, or so I thought....

Monday night was one of the worse nights of my life. The hip pain came back ten fold and the rash felt like someone was sticking a million pins in my leg. Nothing was giving me relief. I don't like to take medication anyway and now that I am breastfeeding I really don't like to however in this situation the doctor assured me the antiviral was completely safe and I could also take zyrtec for relief for the rash. I am taking the antiviral as it is supposed to shorten the course but after one zyrtec, I felt no relief and will not take any more of that. I have also been supplementing with my oils, topically putting on a mixture of Maleluca, Lavendar, and Euculyptus mixed with coconut oil. I also internally take a mixture of Melissa (an antiviral), Maleluca, On Guard, Oregano, and Lemon. Even thought it has only been a day and a half since I went in, it feels like an eternity. I know it is in the healing process because my rash is blistering but I would do about anything for some relief at this point. 

Yesterday I called my pediatrician to ask about my girls risk. He said my newborn is protected with my antibodies and breast feeding is the best thing I can do to prevent her from getting anything. My other daughter is not though. She has not been vaccinated for chicken pox so it is very likely she is going to get chicken pox since shingles is derived from the same virus and the virus can be transmitted through touching the rash or through the air. At least she will have immunity after she gets it, but I hope it doesn't put her down too much. Her symptoms will be consistent with the chicken pox, not shingles, so at least she will not have to deal with the pain I am experiencing. Any amount of sickness is difficult to see in your kids so I just pray hers is as mild as possible.

I am one of those people that is always looking for the cause for something. I don't just like to treat symptoms and I feel like there should always be a definite cause.  It bothers me that the only answer is the stress of giving birth. I wonder, could it be from the epidural? After all epidurals are in the nerve just like this is. Doctors say no, but I just don't understand how someone as healthy as I am can get this? Could it be from the exercise I did the week after? Doctors say no, and the hip pain I experienced began before I stepped foot in the gym so this was not the cause either. I will never know why I got it and I just hope it goes away soon. In regards to Crossfit, I will not be doing anything until this heals up. As much as I wish I could, the pain is too great even for me to think about getting a workout in right now.

I will spare you the photos this week because the are really disgusting. But here is a cute one of my little one's first Gopher game with her daddy:)

Birth Story Part 2- Recovery Begins

Time seems to go by so fast when you have a newborn. She is now over a week old and still doing great. She sleeps a lot and (knock on wood) has been a really good baby. I think maybe God thinks we paid our dues with my first, haha!

One thing I can say about my pregnancy and post pregnancy this time compared to last time is my recovery has been 10 times better. I feel like it is further confirmation for me that by staying active and continuing a healthy lifestyle makes all the difference in the world. It wasn't that I was inactive my first time around but I was much more regular with my exercise and kept the intensity higher than last time too. I definitely didn't eat as well with my first pregnancy (don't get me wrong, I cheated plenty this time) but overall ate much healthier. 

While I was in the hospital the nurse asked me if I was a runner. I laughed and said I would not describe myself as a runner but I will do up to a mile when I have to! She said she thought I was because my resting heart rate was so low, it is 48. It really proved to me that the high intensity crossfit workouts have put me in the best shape of my life. 

Now for the recovery. 

I don't know what it is with me but I was once again looking forward to dropping 10 or 15 lbs in the hospital. I hear of so many women that do this, but with my first I retained so much water that I gained 5 lbs after I gave birth and this time I lost a whole 2 lbs in the hospital. A mixture of the petocin and epidural make me retain water so I once again left the hospital with nearly all the weight I had gained, yet to lose. It didn't take long though and in the first few days I had lost about half of the weight and as I write now, I only have 5 lbs and a belly left to lose.

I had planned to take about 2 weeks away from working out before returning to the gym, however that didn't happen. I really felt good in the days after so at day 5 I decided to go in and row. I go crazy sitting at home and since my little girl has been pretty easy so far, I brought her in, set her next to my rower and got a good sweat on. It really felt good. 

I decided to do a WOD the next day which showed just how far out of cardio shape I have gotten. Being pregnant I did not push myself into that high HR zone so I have lost a lot of my metcon. I really don't feel like I can run yet as even a light jog doesn't feel good in some areas yet, if you know what I mean. Returning to my fitness regimen is hard and only going to get harder as I can do more things. There are times where I feel that people judge me for returning so quickly, however I am a true believer everyone's journey through pregnancy and postpartum is different. No one should feel bad for taking a couple of months post to recover and I shouldn't feel bad for jumping in when I felt good enough to. 

I don't think I will be doing much direct abdominal work for at least 6 weeks because of my abdominal separation (although surprisingly it has already shrunk from 2 fingertips down to 1 fingertip width). Running might take me another week or 2 before I feel up to it and getting inverted might also take a couple more weeks. The good news is, with Crossfit there are so many things I need to get better at, I have plenty I can do now to keep me busy until I am ready to get fully back into it.

I have gone back and forth on whether to show any post pregnancy photos but I think it is important that people know realistically how pregnancy and birth changes our bodies. I know with hard work I will be able to get most of my figure back, but there are things that will always be a little different. 

2 days post birth

One week post birth