9 Months Later

This is crazy that it has been 9 months since our beautiful baby girl, Payton (AKA Roo), was born! She came out 6 pounds 3 ounces and 20 inches long... yep, she was a dink and felt like a puff of air. I'll spare you the details of delivery, let's just say that it wasn't a piece of cake, nor did I necessarily care for recovery! Nobody really gives you fair warning on the aftermath of birth, but you feel like crap and the pain pills made me sleepy. At the time I felt a bit hormonal, but looking back I was a hot mess. I remember bawling to my mom because my husband left me to go to a Bengal's game (we have season tickets and the poor guy would have missed a Steeler's game, ha!) and I felt so abandoned. This in itself is pretty funny, considering I had 24/7 help for the first 3 weeks. My mom, mother-in-law, sister, and sister-in-law were all amazing and there within a shout.

Ok, I digress, the bottomline is that life and emotions have gotten back to normal and I have the most amazing, incredible daughter to show for it! I LOVE being a mom, and this is somewhat humerous to my closest friends and family members who were worried I might not ever try for children. Everyone tells you when the child is your own, it is just different. This could not be more true and I not only love Payton with all of my heart, but I verge on the side of having a small obsession with her.

Enough with the sappy and let us chat about getting back into pre-pregnancy shape... has it happened yet? Hmmmm, this is definitely an area that worried me while I was still pregnant and definitely still worried me months later when I could not even get my jeans over my thighs (who walks out of the hospital in their normal clothes? This now blows my mind!). I would say my progression back to working out was slow and steady. I told myself that walking was enough for awhile because it was the only thing that felt good and was convenient. I tried to run in about 3-4 months and I would have to say that running was not fun until about 6-7 months. Now 9 months later I finished a mini-triathlon, run almost daily with Payton, and treat myself to a personal trainer once a week to get back into qweight lifting. Though my weight has come back to normal, I would have to say my body does not seem the same. Breastfeeding definitely takes a toll on ones perkyness, there still seems to be a bigger pooch around the mid section, and my confidence has taken a slight dip... I find myself seeking out more compliments from my husband, sometimes even asking a question wanting the correct answer or else...

I think pregnancy has given me a new understanding for my patients and clients journey of weight loss. I have always practiced what I preach, however I now find myself a bit more strict and needing to journal my exercise and food intake if I need to jump back on track. I find myself keeping accountable to clients and like I mentioned earlier, hiring a personal trainer to remind me the importance of cross training! It will be interesting to see with more hard work, if I can infact, get my body back by a year.

I plan to keep blogging, except now I have a new plan! I need to keep most food choices healthy and I find by trying new recipes and pre-planning for the week, this can be fun and easy. I am going to try to post my experiments with healthy foods, exercise, and continuing this healthy journy. Afterall, Payton will be eating real food soon, and I want her to see me in the kitchen preparing fun foods and understand the importance of eating healthy. Stay tuned!

Final Stretch

10 days and counting... well that's if I don't go past my due date! I can't believe we finally get to meet this precious little girl. In some ways it feels like I've been pregnant forever and then some days I feel like we were just celebrating the pink line. The last couple months have been chaotic with baby showers, work, and trying to prepare the house for an infant. I'm loving my final hours of sleep and "me" time, but I'm chomping at the bit to move forward and start my journey into true motherhood!

I feel it necessary to mention my current exercise and nutrition habits because they have changed somewhat dramatically from the first trimester of marathon training. I consider it a good week when I fit in 2-3 long walks (3-5 miles) and 1-2 days of lifting. My personal training clients have become my own trainers and I believe are the ONLY reason I am able to keep up the pace I have maintained throughout pregnancy! If I did not have the motivation to be there for someone else, I believe many workout days may have been skipped. I'm including a picture of one of my clients/friends who has kept up my 4 & 5 mile walks and the table is turning on who's pushing who:)


Nutrition is a little hit or miss. I can honestly say when I eat healthy, I feel great! On weekends where we have all day eating festivities, football, or too much T.V. time, I almost feel like I have a food hangover the next day. Do you think my body and baby are trying to tell me something?? I'm actually getting rewarded for doing the right thing and reprimanded for being bad! The weight has steadily increased and I am now weighing 27 pounds heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight. I have to admit, I'll be pretty excited if I can stay around a healthy 30 pound total weight gain. We will see what the next couple weeks will bring!

I plan to continue my thoughts after Roo is born and finally be able to announce a name! However, I want to say thank you for following my journey and supporting my husband and I in this exciting time! I feel blessed with my healthy pregnancy and honestly could not have done it without the help of family, friends and clients! I have had amazing support and it makes me so happy to be surrounded by such amazing people. THANKS TO ALL!

Viva Las Vegas...No More?

Wow, where has the time gone?! I have just entered week 30 of this amazing journey and cannot wait to meet baby Roo in 10 short weeks (well, hopefully 10 weeks). My husband and I have been taking everyone's advice about enjoying our own time together before the baby comes and decided to run off to Vegas. I know, it's kind of strange place for a pregnant women to hang out, but I loved walking the strip, seeing shows, and hanging out by the pool! If you know me pretty well, you should expect that I did my fair share of gambling and napping! Bottom line the trip was amazing and my hubby and I cherished our alone time. (the picture you're looking at is our view out of our Ceaser Palace Hotel room... you will also see this view if you've watched "The Hangover", which I strongly recommend).


Next trip was off to Hilton Head with my family. My husband and I drove down with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, while my mom and her husband flew across country from Seattle. This vacation is what makes me pose the question... Viva Las Vegas no more? I say this with a huge smile and look forward to baby pools, naps, and early dinners, however life does change with baby's. I smiled at this turtle picture because it encomposed the difference between Vegas and Hilton Head. My husband and I truly look forward to our new life and addition to our family, and cannot wait to start making our own memories with Baby Roo!

I now find myself in Seattle visiting my mom... I know this is a lot of vacations...but the thing I'm loving most about pregnancy vacations is the "me" time! I've worked a normal work schedule all the way through pregnancy (which I am incredibly thankful) and find vacations a great time to catch up on my own exercise, healthy eating, and naps! As we speak, I am being a huge party pooper and stayed behind while the family took my nephew to a splash park. I'm sitting on my mom's porch, listening to wind chimes and thinking it doesn't get much better than this!

On all vacations, walks have been my best form of exercise and fitting in lifting when gyms are available. I've officially gained 20 pounds and comfort myself by allowing one pound a week for the next 10 weeks in order to stay around my 30 pound weight gain (which I thought was acceptable for me). I officially understand why gaining weight during pregnancy is hard, and my theory is because you never truly know if it's "real" weight or "baby" weight. I suppose the only real way to know is to wait until after the baby is born and see how much weight you're left with to take off.

Speaking of walks, I'm off to enjoy the beautiful Seattle scenery and say hello to my cows that live in a pasture by my mom's house:) If all goes well, I should have a few more thoughts to share before we meet Baby Roo!!

The Crazy Things We Do Pregnant

I always was told that you could not donate hair to charities (like “Lock’s of Love” or “Hair for Children”) if you had ever dyed your hair. I’m one who enjoys going dark in the winter months and have dyed my hair for fun since college, so I always excluded myself from the thought of donating hair. I forget how this came up, but one day I was talking to a friend who had donated hair and she informed me that the only hair they don’t except is bleached hair. Bleached hair is harder to blend into the wigs because it doesn't take the hair dye consistently. This got my wheels spinning and I always thought that one day I would like to donate.

A thought came to me when I started taking my prenatal vitamins, what better time to chop off all my hair, than when I’m taking vitamins acting like miracle grow! I ended up convincing my sister-in-law (blond) and her neighbor (brunette) to join me on this venture. We all let our hair grow for about 7 months and finally scheduled a day at the salon to face the scissors. My sister-in-law called that morning and we were both slightly freaking out… we of course both just had a previous week of good hair days. Ha.















We all followed through and got fun new hair cuts. My biggest worry as a pregnant women was envisioning myself with a growing stomach and shrinking head... thankfully, it turned out great. We put our hair into bags and I looked like a crazy women carrying the hair to another salon to mail out to “Hair for Children”. I thought if I got pulled over and someone checked my purse right now I would for sure be brought in for questioning.

If you have hair that grows out easily, I highly recommend donating! It was fun to do as a group and it felt good to follow through on something I’ve always thought about and praised others for chopping.

Games of the Psyche

Unbelievable!I feel great in my pregnancy, I'm fitting in workouts, eating healthy overall, and I just let a scale number completely throw me off my game! I'm sitting at the OB's office and I officially gained 12 pounds! I'm 21 weeks (~5 months) and the sensible part of my brain tells me I could be right on track. However, the emotional part of my Psyche is worrying... have my workouts decreased? Am I eating to much ice cream? Should I start a food and exercise journal?

I decided to write about this today because I preach the dangers of the scale on a daily basis and now I'm experiencing the mental games. What do I mean? I believe everyone has one of two reactions to weighing themselves, motivating or hazardous. I, for example, react completely wrong to weight gain. Instead of watching what I eat and exercising more, seeing a higher number starts to shut me down. I feel overwhelmed, I eat poorly and find more excuses NOT to exercise. I do understand that other individuals get motivated by weighing themselves, but if you're anything like me, the scale is not a good accountability system.

What's my plan? I talked myself through all of the things I'm doing right and got a silly number out of my head. I also decided to start journaling if I start to feel unaware or out of control with my body. I truly understand the importance of a healthy pregnancy, which means WEIGHT GAIN, but I also don't have to watch the number creep up on a weekly basis!

It's a...

What a fantastic week! My husband and I had been anticipating week 20 for months. Week 20 is the golden time when you can choose to find out the sex of your baby-to-be. I have learned that this is a big debate for a lot of couples and that people have strong opinions on finding out:) For me, getting to find out the sex of the baby has been my own little (half way through the pregnancy) treat. I also feel that it's given my husband and I the opportunity to feel a little more connected to baby Roo. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why couples choose to wait. It is one of the best surprises that life has to offer (I just chose to get my surprise a little early).


My husband and I had fun with the finding out process. We decided to have the ultra sound technician write the sex of the baby on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope to be opened in the comfort of our own home. We practically skipped out of our appointment with huge grins! The ultra sound was amazing seeing pictures of little feet, hands, a healthy looking brain and heart beat!! We arrived home and had to wait for a contractor to stop by and then we hit the porch with a non-alcoholic glass of wine:) We chatted and enjoyed the suspense for a few minutes longer and then decided to look in the envelope. We counted to 3 and saw... "I'm a Girl!". We both had tears in our eyes and jumped around hugging and feeling elated about our baby GIRL!

My husband was cute and told his co-workers that he'd wear pink or blue, I was kind of surprised that he followed through, but he did! It's fun to see Nick so excited and I just think he'll be the greatest dad. My biggest worry is that my poor daughter will have a hard time finding her perfect husband because her dad will leave some pretty big shoes to fill! Ok, done bragging about my husband. ha! Start thinking pink and stay tuned for the baby room and house projects!

Roller Skate Lately?

Have you roller skated lately? Well, no, either have I. One of our best friends recently had an 80’s roller skating party for his 30th birthday. After much debate, I decided it wasn’t the smartest decision to roller skate pregnant and I ended up just hanging out on the parameter. I am talking about this situation, because after I became pregnant, it feels like there are constant events that I cannot participate in. I’ve realized how much my life has changed for these 9 months and will continue to change forever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic to be pregnant and change is to be expected, however I don’t want every new mom to believe there should never be any rough times.


We had a ski trip planned in February and I had actually spoke with my doctor about skiing. He walked me through the risks, but left it up to me to make the final decision to ski or not to ski… bottom line, what can you sleep with if something were to happen. I actually went out to Colorado believing I was going to ski until the very morning everyone was suiting up for the day. I was having second thoughts and ended up calling my dear friend and coauthor, Sommer, to ask her advice about skiing. She brought up the risk of exercising in high altitudes and when asked to say yes or no, she hesitantly said no (of course looking out for my best interest, however not wanting to disappoint me). I knew this was the correct answer and said many thanks and hung up the phone. At this point I’d finally admitted to myself I was not going to be skiing, rather hanging out in the cabin by myself… yes, and promptly started crying. Don’t feel sorry for me, I ended up having one of the most relaxed and greatest vacations ever, I just needed a moment to re-adjust.


If you have been following my journey, you would have seen that I was supposed to run a half marathon in March. This too needed adjustments and I’d call my 13 miles more of a shuffle. I ran with my friends the first three miles and then waved goodbye wishing them luck. I proceeded to shuffle through the course and talk on my cell phone in my more lonely moments, ha! My personal training clients are constantly warning me about picking up their weights (this aspect, I feel confident in my boundaries), and I golfed last weekend and had a friend scare me because her doctor advised against it.

Am I intentionally pushing my limits? NO. I’m just learning the ropes and trying to maintain certain aspects of my life to stay sane. I’m liking (maybe at moments, loving) pregnancy, but also thinks it’s important for women to know that it will be a journey and a huge learning experience. My advice is to enjoy these moments to relax, not drink (yes, this can actually be seen as a positive), start new hobbies, and just enjoy the process. I do realize that one crazy day when the baby is actually here I’ll miss being stuck in a cabin by myself with all the free time in the world to read!! If you are a mom, you are most likely shaking your head and smirking to yourself, knowing what’s to come.