ZONEd In. Day 4.

So far, I've lost 3.5 pounds. My goal isn't to lose weight, but to enhance my performance, especially when it comes to my marathon next weekend. I'm not skin and bone not am I hungry, so I'm not too worried about the weight coming off.

Breakfast: eggs in butter with cheese, watermelon, coffee w/ MCT oil

Snack: Arbonne protein with banana, coffee, and PB

Lunch: Burger with cheese, watermelon, and walnuts

Dinner: Steak, red potatoes w/cheese, and grilled romaine with Caesar dressing

Exercise: 

Death. aka, 5:30 am crossfit

ZONEd In. Day 3.

I'm really feeling the benefits of the Zone beginning today. My running was back on unlike it has been for the past few weeks of just stuffing my face with 4000-5000 calories of whatever was in front of me at the moment. I'm still sticking with the medium-frame female block chart, and was not hungry today. So, I'll keep with it for a bit.

Breakfast: Eggs with cheese in butter, mini blueberry muffin, watermelon

Snack: Arbonne protein with MCT oil and peppermint oil and coffee

Lunch: Burger with cheese and mushrooms and peppers

Snack: coffee with MCT oil and apple and turkey

Dinner: Tuna tataki and salmon roll

Exercise:

7:30 PM 5 x 1K repeats at 6:40 pace

ZONEd In. Day 2.

More excuses I come across often for not losing the weight is that they either have PCOS, Hypothyroidism, Chronic Fatigue, IBS, Anxiety, and/or Joint Inflammation. First of all, I have PCOS and Hypothyroid.... key there is balanced nutrition and a healthy exercise regimen. For the others, exercise and good nutrition will treat (maybe not totally cure) those conditions!

If you want to look up the zone blocks for yourself, check out https://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/cfjissue21_May04.pdf

Basically, you can look at your t-shirt size, and figure out what you are. Small shirt size on a female? Small female block chart. However, I am marathon training and breastfeeding, so I am going with medium.... and will probably up it to large female (even though I'm a size 0/2 almost 5'3) because no matter how much fat I add it's not keeping my stomach from feeling like it's going to implode.

Also, for supplements, I'm taking a prenatal, Vitamin D/Calcium/Magnesium, probiotics, and DHA.

Breakfast: eggs, banana, strawberries, bacon
Snack: Arbonne chocolate protein, spinach, almond milk, peanut butter
Lunch: rotisserie chicken, watermelon, kimchee
Snack: coffee with gelatin and MCT oil, mini blueberry muffin
Dinner: burger salad, peppers and mushrooms, sweet potato fries

Exercise:
3:00 PM Family bike ride
4:30 PM crossfit

ZONEd In

I am constantly trying to think of ways to get through to people about nutrition and how big of a role it has in EVERYTHING. I often have clients who will work out, but won't stick to a clean diet. Why put in all that hard work only to totally negate it with a bad diet? Why continue with a bad diet if you get sick often, or aren't thriving?

A thought occurred to me this morning, as I was driving home from my 5:30 crossfit class. I don't know anyone who wouldn't wake up and show up every morning to their job, if the only job they could ever have was at 5:30 AM. Well, you only get one body. Why not show up to whatever it is you would commit every time? Why let your own body down?

I get it. I have 3 kids, and don't use daycare. My husband deploys for half the year. I teach spin classes and am a personal trainer. I am finishing up my M.S. I don't hire anyone to do anything for me. I'm busy! However, I know that if I slip up on my nutrition, I'm only surviving, not thriving. And, there's no way I can train effectively on a bad diet. I also want to set a good example for my friends, family, and most importantly, my kids.

I've always been a fan of the zone diet, but I'm so precise with my macros that I never actually tried the simplicity of the Zone. At my crossfit certification workshop, I was challenged to stick with the Zone diet for an entire month before I knock the blocks. Now that my nursling 8 month old is eating more solid foods, I feel comfortable drastically switching up my diet without counting my macros on myfitnesspal. To hold myself accountable and for you to see how the zone works, I'm going to update this daily with what I ate and my training for the day. I'm eating 11 daily blocks. If I'm hungrier, I'll add extra fats.

Day 1:

Breakfast: eggs in butter, strawberries, banana, coffee with coconut oil
Snack: Arbonne protein shake with spinach and almond milk and PB
Lunch: Ribs and brussel sprouts
Snack: Pastrami, banana with peanut butter
Dinner: Smoked chicken, sauteed veggies, and bacon wrapped pepper

Not pictured: turkey and banana with peanut butter snack... mad rush out the door!

Workouts: 5:30 am: crossfit   8:15 am: run with the kids   4:30 pm: spin class

Why did I have kids?

“Making the decision to have a child- it is momentous.  It is to decide to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone

I never wanted kids. I didn’t even want to get married… I didn’t want any kind of commitment to anyone other than myself.  Seriously, I couldn’t even commit myself to God, yet I considered myself Christian.. I didn’t consider myself selfish, and looking back, I don’t think that I was. It’s not selfish to not want commitment. But then I met a guy who I pretty much fell in love with the day I met him. He turned my life around. I call him my “coming-to-Jesus Person”. I feel like many of us have that one person in our life. He didn’t change me, and he never tried to. He was simply God’s way of changing my path to better myself and show me where my gifts truly lie. I’m a gifted person, and I know that. I can speak several languages, I’m fearless, I have held a job since I was 16. I’ve traveled the world alone, without any doubts. I am an athlete. I am incredibly physically strong.

I met my husband, built up an incredible faith I never knew possible, and I just had this overwhelming desire to have children. I wanted kids who could be just like the man I married. I wanted to raise awesome people. I know I’m not the only one, but I want to have kids most importantly as a chance to raise people to be better than myself. I have found that this is the gift with which God entrusted me. I’m not a wonderful mom, but I have endless love for my kids, and it turns out I do have some patience into which I’ve never before tapped. Raising kids is pure joy for me. Never before in my life have I ever laughed so much and so hard. They’ve taught me forgiveness, faith, grace, patience, understanding… they’ve taught me everything that has made me a better person.

Fast forward to 3 children later. People who have only one child always wonder aloud to me how you can possibly love more than one child as much as you love just one. I think that once you have several children, you learn what true love really is capable of. Love doesn’t divide, it only multiplies. I love each child so differently, but I adore each one more than I thought I could love anyone or anything. They are my heart and soul. I could lose everything in the world, but being able to hold them would keep a smile on my face and joy in my heart.

Lately, I’ve found myself crying on a daily basis. I think it’s hitting me that these babies grow up. Days go by so quickly and before you know it, April 2012 becomes March 2016. My oldest has always been so advanced and simply grew up too fast for me to be able to savor his baby-hood. Kai’s a genius, energetic beyond words, and can bring tears of laughter to your face in the same breath as eyes full of rage. Without thinking too much about it, I wanted another kids simply because I wasn’t going to have just one. That second baby…. Luca is so different from any child or person I’ve ever known other than my husband. He’s not overly advanced like his older sibling (but he definitely has his wits), and has the sweetest demeanor. He is by far the easiest most loveable child I could ever dream up. He’s been so baby-like for the past 19 months that I’ve really been able to cherish him. Then my baby Gaelan came along. Ever since Gaelan arrived, I’ve cried everyday looking at Luca. I keep wondering why the heck I’m suddenly so nostalgic when it comes to Luca. I don’t look at Kai and cry or Gaelan and cry. I look at Luca and am scared to death of his growing up. I want him to be a baby forever. That’s totally silly though, because I just had a baby, so it’s not like I’m not going to have a baby once Luca matures. It hit me, that I see Luca in all his loving nature, and now have Gaelan to compare to Kai, and see how crazy fast a newborn can become a 3 year old. Between that and having the feeling that Gaelan is going to grow up just as fast as Kai without stopping at toddlerhood, I can’t contain my…. I don’t even know what to call it.

Raising children is difficult. It’s so difficult when they are all 18 months apart. Besides their learning to play nicely with one another, which can be a wreck some days, I’m trying to work, train for events, and take classes. However, I’m squeezing all the joy out of every moment with these babies that I know far too well don’t stay babies. I’m saying this, and my oldest is only 3. Given, he’s 3 going on 16, but my point is that if I’m going through this now who knows how sad I’ll be when they’re all out of the house. How do moms do this? Why do we put ourselves through this? After all hard labors and births, losses, lack of sleep, and difficulty with breastfeeding, and all the fears that can come with having children…. It has to be some kind of addiction to love. Someone has told me having more than two kids is pointless. It certainly wasn’t a woman who told me that. Why did I want more than two? Because with each child you see different gifts, different characteristics, different wonders they add to life. It’s hard to just stop when you’re so curious as to what gifts the next child could bring that you could miss out on. A friend of mine who has three actually put that into words for me one day, and it’s exactly what I’d been thinking all along. Bright eyes filled with love and promise… I just can’t get enough.

A Sprinkle of Lessons Followed by a Downpour of Blessings: Infertility, Loss, and Overwhelming Love

I've been through a lot. Each of us have our struggles, and not all of us talk about them openly. There are several people out there who have been through far more than I, and I struggle through each storm understanding that. It helps me march on.

For two years, the husband and I tried for a baby. It seemed that people who didn't seem to even want a child could just snap their fingers and get pregnant anytime they wanted. In silence, I was wondering what was wrong with me, or why I was being punished. I stopped serving at the church nursery because I would be so envious that everyone else could have their babies and I couldn't have one myself. I blocked people on Facebook every time they announced a pregnancy because I was sick of hearing about it. It didn't make sense why something so natural was not happening for us. I went to the doctor, and found out it was the years of undiagnosed Celiac on top of PCOS that was keeping me from ovulating. I started medication- Metformin.

Then I had my moment. I had a positive pregnancy test. It was the single most exciting event in my entire life. I was going to have a baby. Or so I thought. At nearly 2 months pregnant, we had just told my in-laws and my parents. The very next day, I woke up covered in blood and in excruciating pain. The baby was gone.

A couple of months later, I had my next positive test. The thing about having lost one baby, on top of all the other things, is that your excitement for your following pregnancies are always muted. I was happy I had a positive, but I couldn't get excited about it. I did everything I could... maintained a very low sugar diet, didn't participate in high intensity exercise, and tried to be as healthy as possible. 18 weeks along, again I started bleeding. I remember my thought not even being devastation. I remember looking at Jake and saying, "this is it." Thankfully, it stopped, and Kai was fine.

My water broke at 41 weeks along. Not informed as I thought I was, I had an "emergency c-section" 25 hours after my water broke. That experience led me to have postpartum psychosis. It doesn't look anything like postpartum depression, so no one questioned how I was. I looked fine. On the inside, I was constantly fearing for Kai's life, jumping at every cry and having nightmares about him being ripped out of me. I cried in desperation anytime I would shower. Breastfeeding was another nightmare. No one ever says anything about the role Celiac plays in breastfeeding. No one mentions how low your fat content is unless you stuff yourself with a very high fat diet. Everyone simply makes fun of you for wanting to lose weight so quickly and not worrying enough about how healthy the baby is.

I followed my low sugar, whole foods diet, and took metformin when I got pregnant with Luca. Again, I couldn't get too excited. The pregnancy seemed too easy, until I found that no care provider would attend my birth and would only give me a c-section. At 28 weeks along, I found a wonderful midwife who shouldn't have attended my birth according to laws, but did because she believed I was right. She understood that I had the right to give birth and she wanted to be there to be my support. Luca finally came at 42 weeks + 5 days. He was wonderful and we all bonded in the vicinity of our own home. No one took him from me... In fact, no one held him other than me for the first few days when I finally realized I was hogging him. But, that was my first chance at holding MY baby I ever got. I took full advantage. At 15 months old, he is still MY baby and I know it has to do with his birth. And breastfeeding... he was tongue and lip-tied. I still managed to nurse him until he was 8 months old when regardless of my diet, my milk just couldn't maintain the fat. But that was a total success for me. I was happy. I am happy.

Then I got pregnant again. All these pregnancies... you would think I'm way more fertile than I say I ever was. Well, that's partially true. I have actually become what I would call an expert when it comes to fertility in women with PCOS and/or Celiac. I was on my way to an acupuncture treatment for fertility when I got my positive pregnancy test. I had been following a totally alkaline diet, low sugar, high in healthy fats, exercising normally, and taking my metformin, vitex, and dong quai. I was doing everything right. It just took a while, but then again, not really since I had just stopped breastfeeding. Maybe I could have gotten pregnant sooner?!

I understand infertility and how it feels to be that woman. I understand loss and how it feels to be that woman. I understand the hurt when I see everyone else getting pregnant and holding their children. However, I also understand how much excitement I have been denied in the process. I experience joy daily that I could never put into words. I love my children more than I ever thought possible. My children taught me what love truly means. They made me realize how much more I love my husband. They're amazing, and I will never ever suppress that joy. I deserve this joy, and this is my time to shine. I didn't just "fall pregnant". I worked hard. I gained weight ( I found that 17% body fat would never let me get pregnant, but at 19% percent I ovulated). I ate a very low sugar, low refined-foods diet. I took metformin (low dose), and vitex. I made sure my diet was around 90% alkaline. I eat very healthy throughout my pregnancies regardless of my unhealthy cravings. Some of us do have to work... but with all that effort and prayer, things will happen. I'd love to have another baby after this, but if I can't after all of my trying, I will adopt. Things don't always happen the way we plan, but they do happen the way they should. And we deserve to persevere as well as dance in our happiness. God gives us what may seem to be too much at the time, but he knows how much we can handle.

What Kind of Accomplishment is "Being a Mom"???

There is a thought among the ignorant, that being a mother is not an accomplishment. I know I have touched on this before, but now that I am a mom of two, going on three little ones, I can’t help but to shine some light on the topic again.

A person who isn’t around a mother being a mother, seeing all she does throughout a single day, can easily think that being a mother is not an accomplishment. Simply having a mother doesn’t mean you understand what went into raising you. I think the two people who appreciate me the most are my mother and my husband. They know what I sacrifice, and they know how hard I work to do what is most important to me.

It not only takes a LOT to keep a child alive, well-fed, healthy, happy, and teach them to use the potty, sleep, meet their milestones, tame their tempers, teach them to read, and keep them active. You must also teach yourself patience, NONE of which I had before kids.

And before all of that, there is the simple act of giving birth. If you haven’t been through it, you have no idea how hard it is for a woman to give birth the way she should in this country we call free. Doctors and MEDwives all but put a gun to your head and tell you to be induced and have a c-section. Then there are the insurance companies and hospital lawyers (who are mostly men) who load those guns. So if you give birth naturally in this world without pumping yourself and your baby full of chemicals and radiation, you accomplished something HUGE.

Now after giving birth, there’s feeding the kid. Breastfeeding is incredibly hard, especially when you don’t have the best support system. My husband was great support, but he didn’t know a single thing about how nutrition plays into nursing, especially when one has Celiac Disease. Heck, not even Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultants (ICBLCs) knew anything that could help me. And if you want to use formula, it’s nearly impossible to find a formula on the market that is actually good for that baby. So, you do some research and do a concoction of your own, a mixture of goat’s milk, coconut milk, oils, molasses, probiotics, and vitamins, and doctors look at you like you don’t know what you’re talking about, when they’re the ones who have had ONE basic nutrition class throughout their entire medical education.

Now, there are people who say you can’t accomplish anything else once you have kids. Your body is ruined, you are bogged down with babies, and you don’t have time unless you put them in daycare. Sure, I guess that’s true if you just give up, and use your kids as excuses. Your kids aren’t excuses, however. Your kids can be the best motivation one can possibly have. After my first, I competed in bodybuilding 8 months after birth. I was the leanest I had ever been in my life. While pregnant with my second, I started on my M.S. in Holistic Nutrition. After giving birth to my second at home because I was finally enlightened, I competed in my first Crossfit competition 3 months postpartum. I competed again at 6 months postpartum. I am now 5 months pregnant with my third, and I am 4 classes away from obtaining my Master’s Degree. With two kids and one on the way, not only have I accomplished being a decent mother raising sweet, smart kids, I am also continuing to achieve successes in my professional and personal life. I am currently training for a half ironman that will happen around two months after giving birth. My goal is to beat my time from 6 years ago. As for my marriage… I now love my husband more than the day I married him 6 years ago. I have a job that I absolutely LOVE where I help make people feel great and only during the hours I want to be available. I am a Mom. I am living the dream.