Check This Out!!!!

Hey everyone! Yes, its been a week or so since I updated. I swear I can't wait for school to be done for me in another week and I'll have SO MUCH MORE TIME available to dedicate both to keeping this blog updated and being better with regular videos for my Youtube Channel. Anyways, I thought I would keep this entry pretty short as I don't have a lot of news to share or any particular important thoughts at the moment.  So, here it goes:

I am currently 13wks along. I can't believe it, but in less than another week I will be in the second trimester already! I was reading and it said that technically the second trimester starts at week 14! I didn't realize that. (Remember...its been 2.5 years, almost 3 years, since I've even thought about weeks and trimesters and so on). So, I started to think....what did I look like when I was pregnant the first time at this point? Luckily, I had a picture of me at exactly 13wks during my pregnancy with Jeremiah and I just took a photo the other day of my at exactly 13wks with THIS pregnancy. So, here's a nice little side-by-side comparison for you.

So there it is! Just as the caption on the photo instructs you, do you see a difference? Well, maybe its just me, but I sure do! I see a much more protruding stomach THEN rather than NOW. And just for clarification, the picture of me in the pink is NOW, the one next to it is THEN. (lol) So after seeing this picture, I felt much more reassured that I'm doing pretty well with weight gain for now. Then I thought...well how different do I look NOW as compared to the beginning of this pregnancy at 8wks? So, here's a comparison of that!

Now, I am VERY ENCOURAGED by THIS picture. I mean, I do notice slight differences.  Namely, my tummy is sticking out just a bit more, but that is to be expected because the baby has now moved from my pelvis area to my stomach area...so it sticks out a bit more. But I feel like everything else has stayed pretty much the same (maybe my booty is getting a bit rounder though....uh oh! lol)

Anyways, thats what I wanted to share with you all today.  I'm really feeling pretty good about how I'm doing with the pregnancy thus far. I mean, I don't work out nearly as much or as hard as I used to...but the point is, I'm still working out and trying to be as active as possible when I'm feeling up to the task.  And even though I've had some junk food cravings that I gave into...I seem to be doing well with weight gain. Plus, it helps that the junk food cravings are pretty much over and I'm more or less back to my normal healthy eating...with the occasional treat here or there. But I think thats okay. ;)

So, maybe this wasn't as short as I set out for it to be originally, but thank you for reading!

Pregnant Work Outs...

I just got back from the gym...well, about an hour or so ago.....and I felt compelled to write about it.


Because of my busy schedule lately with my Internship for school and Rob being out of town for practically the past month, I've definitely had a lot of obstacles in the way of my working out and being active. Not to mention the nausea wasn't helping to make me feel much like working out either. But recently, I've had more and more time and ability to get back to the gym and do something a few days a week, and let me tell you, it has been GREAT! And this leads me to what I want to talk about. I'm so happy that I made a lifestyle change within myself before getting pregnant again.


I cannot even describe to you all how ridiculously lazy and unhealthy I used to be before I got pregnant for the first time. I was eating fast food, take-out or restaurant foods on a regular basis. I NEVER worked out...in fact the phrase " I'm going to the gym" was something I actually LAUGHED AT! I remember looking at people jogging outside and thinking, "God, they are soooo weird. Crazy workout fanatics." LOL And now, LOOK AT ME!


I.AM.ONE.OF.THOSE.FANATICS!!!!!!! - Well, sort of...not completely. LOL


My life now, as compared to then, is completely different. Now, if I go more than a couple days without getting a good workout session in, I feel disgusting and my body literally begins to itch with the need for a run, or something equally as physically exerting. Also, the thought of some foods that I used to eat on such a regular basis, now makes me cringe to think about (and thats not the pregnancy nausea talking). I used to LOVE McDonald's breakfast and would eat it at least 3 times a week, if not more. Now? I wouldn't even DREAM of eating that crap that much. I still admit that McDonald's does have some yummy breakfast goodies that I will still indulge in from time to time...but....3 times a week or more? Never again. Thats for sure.


I have been realizing more and more lately that I have really done something great for myself, my health and for my family by changing the way I think about food and exercise. I'm not going to claim that my family and I are super 100% all healthy or anything like that, but the point is, we are AWARE of healthy foods and the importance of eating them more often than eating junk. And we are AWARE of the benefits and importance of working out and being active.


I really don't think there is a better gift out there that I could have given myself than the gift of Change.

Relationships...

Recently, I've been sitting back and reflecting on my relationship....my marriage to be exact. Don't worry, this is a good thing. I sat back and had some realizations of how thankful I should be for the person I have as my partner and for the life that we've created for ourselves thus far. This ties into pregnancy because I started thinking about how happy I am to be adding to our family and how creating a human being is such an amazing act of mutual love. Its really something very important and should not be taken lightly.

I think I should first give a few of you readers an insight to my relationship and its beginnings. First of all, Rob and I met......on MySpace. Yes, I said it. MySpace. Even now, it makes me laugh. He openly admits that he was bored and just looking for someone to "have a good time with" (go ahead and fill in the blanks there). He stumbled across my profile as someone in the same town he was in and he says he thought I looked kind of sexy and cute in my picture, so he was naturally interested. He sent me a private message and we began talking. I saw his picture(s) and was also instantly attracted, but I was more scared of meeting someone from the internet. I was scared and thought that most people on the internet were weirdos and it would be a bad idea to meet these people in a real life situation. But eventually, he wore me down and I relented into a meeting. From there, the rest is history. We only dated for 6months before he asked me to marry him and we both agree that we just sort of "knew" that we were right for eachother. March of 2013 will mark 5 years of marriage. I still can't believe that I've been married for that long.

Why can I not believe it? Well, here's something else about me that you may not have known: For as long as I can remember, I have always claimed that I would never get married and that I would never have children. And of course, I'm the first among my siblings to do both. The funny thing is, having a husband and creating a family was never something that I thought was particularly important to me. I had big dreams of becoming a writer/journalist and living in a city like New York or Chicago and tackling the world on my own. Never once, in all of my daydreams did I ever picture myself with a man or with children.

To think about that now, I think....how empty my life would have been.

I have to say that I really never understood what unconditional love really was, until I met my son for the first time. I never understood that level of emotion before. That feeling that you would do ANYTHING for this tiny person. You really WOULD take a bullet for them, throw yourself in front of a car, protect them in any way possible. And its so much more than that. Rob and I have talked about this before and we both feel the same way. The way we love our son (and this next child) is so much more intense than the way we love eachother. Sometimes, I wonder to myself if this is a bad thing. But, in my opinion....I don't think its bad at all. In fact, I think its just the two of us being completely open and honest with eachother about how we feel. Don't get me wrong, I love Rob more than any other man in my life....but the love I have for Jeremiah is on a completely different level for me, and the same goes for Rob conversely. And I'm okay with that.

So, I guess I'm writing all of this because, as I said in the beginning, I've really been thinking about how thankful I am to have all this love in my life. There are many people in this world who are not so blessed. And for all his faults, I desperately love the man who gave me these blessings. I love the man who chose me. I love the man who provides for our family day in and day out. I love the man. Period. I think all too often, a lot of us lose sight of what we have in our partners. I mean, sure they get annoying. Sure, they don't always do what we ask them to. And sure, they aren't always the best listeners. But its important to remember that we have our faults too. I'm sure that living with me and dealing with me on a daily basis is no walk in the park. But I respect and love and honor the man that has vowed to continue living with me, loving me, and yes, dealing with me, til death do us part.

*I guess this one didn't have much to do with Pregnancy tonight, but I felt compelled to speak on it, since all these things have been in my mind for the past couple of days. *

Not so glamorous....

Its days like these that are particularly not so glamorous in the life of a pregnant woman. I haven't showered in more days than I care to admit, I'm growing little fuzzies where there normally aren't any, my breath is kickin, my head is pounding, my energy is at an all time low and to top it all off, I felt like I was going to vomit for much of the day today. In short, I spent the ENTIRE DAY laying on the couch, only choosing to get up to make Jeremiah his breakfast, lunch and dinner, with snacks in between. Lucky for me, my sweet little boy passed out on the couch close to 7pm and has stayed asleep (its now 9:45pm and I've moved him to his room for the night). Lets hope he sleeps at least until 7am, but I won't hold my breath.

Yes, as I said, this is not such a glamorous day for pregnancy. Then again, when exactly IS there a "glamorous day" for pregnancy? Which leads me to my topic for tonight. The opinion that I'm about to share with those of you that read this, could get me into a lot of trouble with the "Pregnant Community". But if you know me at all - and some of you do - then you would know that I tend to tell it like it is. I rarely sugar coat things and I pride myself on being appropriately blunt. With all that being said, here I go:

Okay, I would seriously like to question these women who make the following ridiculous claims:

"Being pregnant is the BEST time in a woman's life!"

OR

"Pregnancy is so beautiful."

OR

"I loved EVERYTHING about being pregnant!"

Wow. I mean, really? What are these chicks smokin' and WHO are they trying to sell it to? This is a realization I came to when I was pregnant with my first child (Jeremiah). Up until this pregnancy I thought that maybe my first pregnancy was so un-enjoyable because I was so heavy and unhealthy throughout. But, thats definitely not the case with this pregnancy and I still feel as equally shitty as I did the first one.

So lets break down these false claims, shall we? The first one, "Being pregnant is the BEST time in a woman's life!" Hmmmm, well okay ladies I'll hand it to on this one, but only partially. I do agree that it is a pretty cool time in a woman's life, but ONLY because you are actually creating life and thats a pretty empowering and important thing in itself. I have to say that in some ways, I do feel sorry for men because they will never get to know what this feels like. To literally feel the creation of a tiny human being within your womb....its very powerful and something I am glad I have now got to experience 2 times in my young life. BUT, lets move on to what is NOT the best part of pregnancy. I mean, getting pregnant is basically like being handed a huge list of things you can't do anymore. Ladies, do you like to smoke cigarettes? Well, too bad. Now you have to give that up (although you probably should anyhow). And going out for drinks? Nope, not on your list of things to do anymore, unless you're one of the lucky women you actually like dry, red, wine, then go ahead....but only ONE GLASS per day, not your normal bottle when you're out with the girls. Really, the list goes on and on.

Second claim: "Pregnancy is so beautiful". Again, I will admit that the creation of life is a beautiful thing, but pregnancy in and of itself, is nothing to be seen as beautiful. Is it beautiful when your stomach starts to resemble a Texas Road Map of stretch marks? No. Is it beautiful when you're yacking up your food morning, noon and night? Nope. And is it really considered beautiful when you take a dump in front of people you don't even know? Nope, it surely is not. And for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, do some research and you will find that with child birth, its fairly common for a woman to have a bowel movement while delivering because of pushing so hard. I mean, NO. NOT BEAUTIFUL AT ALL!!!!

Lastly, and quite possibly my favorite one of all: "I loved EVERYTHING about being pregnant!" Let me just answer this by saying, YOU'RE A F*CKING LIAR!!!!

Do you love having uncontrollable gas?

Do you love getting heartburn that radiates to your knees, at a moment's notice?

Do you love throwing up and feeling nauseous for days on end?

Do you love having your feet, face and fingers swell up like balloons?

Do you like NOT being able to tie your own shoes?

Do you like the feeling of being out of breath because the baby is taking up your lung capacity?

Do you like the feeling of sore breasts? So sore to the point of rendering you to tears?

If you answered No to the above, don't worry....you're normal. IF you answered yes, then congrats to you. Yes, you WILL love everything about being pregnant. And trust me, there's even more than what I listed above, I haven't even scratched the surface.

So, thats my entry for today. I guess its fitting because I feeling like absolute crap and I guess I'm entitled to a little bit of a Pregnant Rant.

Thanks for reading.

I feel fat!

Yes, I said it. I feel fat! Well I know, I know...I'm not fat, I'm pregnant....but that still doesn't stop myself from feeling like I'm just getting bigger and bigger. And today's doctor's appointment didn't help any. Well, I guess it kind of did help in a way...but....well you be the judge.

So, I get in the examination room and in comes the doctor (a cute 15minutes later....I hate waiting). He asks me the usual round of embarassing questions: "Any nipple discoloration?" "What color is your pee?" "Are you having regular bowel movements?" ya know....the usual...then he says, "Okay, lay back, its time to give the belly a feel, see how things are going."
Now, this part normally doesn't bother me too much because its not as invasive as the pelvic exam. All this part entails is you laying back on the table, unbuttoning your pants or pulling them down just a bit and the doctor just pushes lightly on your stomach to see how it is developing and to determine the placement of the baby.

Well, I lay back and I forgot to unbutton my pants. The doc says, "Whoops. You have to unbotton those for me first." So I do and of course the first thing he notices is the line imprinted on my stomach from the slight tightness of the jeans (skinny jeans) I was wearing. So he says, "Yep. Its now time for you to go get yourself some maternity pants." He pushed on my stomach a bit and then I could feel that the baby has now moved up a bit higher than my pelvis and the band of my pants was tight and digging in a bit to right where the belly is now forming. I immediately thought (and said out loud) "Oh no! Am I getting that fat already?" But this is why I say, maybe the appointment helped a bit, because the good ole doc said,

" You're not getting fat, you're getting more pregnant. Its perfectly natural. Most women will start to show a bit by the 3rd month and you're only 2 weeks away. You are just showing a bit early, and thats also normal for different women. I know you women get all bent out of shape when you have to relent and buy the pregnant pants, but the thing is, they are necessary. Its not good to have that pressure on the stomach from pants that are too tight."

I sat there and thought....okay...he's right. He also went on to say that I could buy the "Belly Band" which is a piece of cloth that goes over your unbuttoned pants so that the zipper can't be seen and that will allow you to wear your regular pants longer, he also said I could just use the old fashion trick of using a rubber band on the button of my jeans or a hair band.

After hearing all of this, I realized the man was right. I need to suck it up and start wearing the proper pregnancy clothes. Sometimes its difficult for me to come to this understanding because its a hard thing to swallow that I'm not like the "tiny girls" .....as much as I would like to be. For better or worse, I am my mother's daughter. I'm pretty tall, wider built with broad shoulders, and wide set hips, and a "bubble butt" (or ghetto booty as I like to call it haha). I am a woman who gains weight easily, and I'm a woman who shows her pregnant belly very early on. I'm not the tiny girl who can wear her regular jeans throughout her entire pregnancy. Nope, thats not me. I am me, and I need to learn to just accept that.

What goes along with this "I feel fat" feeling is this unshakeable feeling that I'm going to find myself back in the same weight gain situation I was in when I was pregnant with my first child. I don't know why, but there's this voice in the back of my head kind of saying that I'm going to get huge again no matter what I do. Now, I know that I'm doing everything I can in order to NOT let that happen: I'm working out, drinking my water, eating healthy foods, etc; but this voice is unrelenting and its just constantly causing this nagging feeling that again, I will fail and I'll have another 2 years of hard weight loss work ahead of me just to get back to pre-pregnancy weight.

This voice? I believe its the voice of self doubt and negativity. Its the voice that I've tried so hard to overcome for a while now. Its a voice that I thought I had stifled when I was getting down to my lower weight, but now that I see the scale creep up and up at each doctor's visit, that voice has come back with a vengance.

I'm guessing that the only thing I can do is more of the same. Keep working out as much as I'm comfortable with, keep eating healthier foods and cut out fast foods (which I have had a bit of lately....thats not good), and keep drinking my water. With all three of those things, I should be able to keep my weight gain to a minimum. My goal for my next doctor's appointment (which is set for May 4th, about a month away) is to be either the same weight, or slightly less. Maybe 5lbs less if I can swing it? We'll see. Lucky for me, the doctor said again today that losing weight (5-10lbs) is perfectly fine for me to do at this stage of the pregnancy. So, thats where my new goals are.

Been a long time, eh?

Yes, yet again, I'm coming back to this blog having had a rather lengthy gap in time since my last entry. But a lot has happened as many of you may know (some of you may not). As you might notice by the change in title, I'M PREGNANT!!! Yep. Thats for sure. Baby #2 is on the way and I couldn't be happier. Some of you that follow my YT videos may know that conceiving my second child has been a goal of mine for a while now, so I'm more than happy to have acheived that and I am now actively switching gears and looking forward to a healthy and happy pregnancy.

First of all, I have to be very honest here and admit that I am not starting this pregnancy at the weight I had originally hoped to. Initially, I had hoped to get down to a weight around 150 or lower before getting pregnant, however I've found myself at about 180 in the beginning stages of my pregnancy. Before getting "knocked up" (haha) the lowest recorded weight I hit was 167. The holidays were a definite killer on my health. I happened to gain about 10 pounds and even after the holidays when I started back at my healthy eating and working out routines, something just wasn't "there" anymore and the weight refused to budge. In fact, I began to gain a bit here and there. Thus, I am now at about 180.

I'm a little annoyed because my first OB GYN visit has be weighed in at 185, which is totally inaccurate because it was taken right after I had eaten a HUGE lunch of a sub sandwich, potato salad and lots of water. Plus, they don't allow you to take off extra clothing at the doctor's office (for obvious reasons) so some of that weight was from my jeans, sweater, and so on. I'm not trying to make any excuses, I'm just trying to be as accurate as possible. So the very next day after my first appoinment, I got up in the morning and weighed myself with no clothes on to get a true weight. It was 180. Thats what I'm going with.

After talking with my doctor, we have both agreed that I should stick with a 25-30lb weight gain for this pregnancy but no more than that. In fact, my doctor has actually encouraged me to keep exercising as much as I currently am and he even said that its okay for me to LOSE weight in the first and second trimesters! (That really shocked me!) But for now, I'm being realistic and saying that my goal is not to lose, but more so to just maintain the 180-190 weight range for as long as possible. I have given myself a weight limit of 215lbs for the entire pregnancy. Many of you might be thinking "WHOA! THATS A LOT!" But what you may not know is that I got all the way up to almost 270lbs before I gave birth to my first son, so a mere 215lbs is a whole lot better than that!

Anyway, the purpose of this initial blog is to kind of intro the new concept that I am now pregnant and instead of focusing on "weight loss" as I've been doing with this blog since the beginning of its creation, I will now be focusing on my pregnancy and being healthy. I may at times babble on about the woes and wonders of pregnancy, so if this is not what you care to read, then you may want to ignore my blog postings from here on out. But if you're interested, I hope you'll follow along.

I intend on making making periodic comparisons, by way of pictures, of this pregnancy as compared to my previous (very unhealthy) pregnancy 2.5 years ago.

Well, thanks for reading this far, and I hope you'll keep reading on in the future! Thanks to everyone who follows this blog for your continued support and interest.