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.