RULES:
1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here: GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Baby and ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5. Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.
My entry for week 15
1. Height: 5’11, weight: 136 lb
2. Your fitness challenge(s) for this week: Special exercises designed for pregnancy to increase flexibility (daily) + Kegels (twice daily). An hour of walking/running + 20 situps every hour of the day
3. Your health challenge(s) for this week: Continue eating whole grains, veggies and fruits only with a few servings of kefir and sardines daily (sardines are low in dioxins and mercury)
4. How well did it go:
Fitness: I wasn’t able to work out the whole week for for very good reasons. So i don’t feel too bad about it.
Water: Drinking 64 oz a day
Food: Still not eating any sweets for some reason. Even my granola cereal without any added sugar tastes too sweet. I have been going crazy when it comes to potato chips (kettle cooked salt and pepper only) and roasted potatoes. I’ve been good about not allowing too much of them. Also I’ve been entering all the food I eat into a tracking website and making sure that all my vitamins, minerals, omega 3s and protein were at 100% or above. And I can proudly say I’ve exceeded 100% on most nutrients (except for zinc) and protein.
5. Failures and slip-ups: I’d say kettle cooked potato chips. I tend to eat about a serving or two of them a day, which is fine since I don’t eat ANY sweets at all. Otherwise, no complaints.
7. Advice to fellow GET FIT members: Honestly, I think I’ve given everything I have for now.
8. Self Portrait: This week’s challenge was a STOP MOTION VIDEO and I had so much fun making it!
girl the video is very talented!! and very creative
awesome
really!!!!
that video was too too cool! Was that basically a bunch of rapid fire shots put together to create a movie? Love it! You are one talented gal!
Yup! That’s exactly it! I did a tutorial one week of Selfie Saturdays on that: http://selfiemagic.com/2011/05/stop-motion-video-selfie-saturdays-week-15/
Hi Elena,
My husband found your website when looking for how to eat healthy during pregnancy. I learned that I was pregnant on July 4th. I’m only at my 5th week and I’ve started to improve my diet. I’m as thin and tall as you but I’m not a vegetable eater, do you have tricks to still get nutrients without vegetables (I eat salad, avocado, carrots, peppers, rarely I eat eggplant, zuccchini, I hate anything bean like or from the cabbage family). So would you have any advice? Also, I’m trying to add lots of fiber through cereals and whole wheat bread but I think I’m far from the recommended 39g! any idea? Finally what is the website you’re using to track the amount of nutrients you eat.
Thanks a lot for all the info and for your funny and informative blog.
Ludivine, eating now a nectarine!
Hi, Ludivine! And huge congrats on your pregnancy! We’re only a month apart! 🙂
If you’re not a vegetable eater, it’ll be harder to get ALL the nutrients while eating super healthy. Fruit is great, and I suspect that if and when you get nausea, it’ll be your savior. You don’t have to love vegetables to eat well though. If you like salad, go for romaine lettuce which has the most nutrients, add some tomatoes to it, cucumbers, some scallions too, since they are high in nutrition as well. Avocado is great, too. I now make guacomole to put on whole grain brain to add some extra calories. I don’t like anything from cabbage family too and I hjave an aversion to beans right now. The best most nutritious fruit are bananas,papayas,melons,pineapple, honestly pretty much anything. If you eat lots of fruit, and all your grains are whole ( easy to do- buy only brown rice and whole grain everything) you’ll have no problems with fiber. Try to snack on fruits constantly. I make a cucumber and tomato salad that is really fresh and doesn’t feel like I’m eating veggies ( dice cukes,tomatoes,toss with oil, salt and pepper).
Otherwise, what do you normally eat in a day? I can try to help you make some changes.
It’s easier for me, because most of the stuff I eat are whole grains, fruits and veggies, and some dairy for protein.
If salads are your thing, look up different salad recipes. Just remember your tastes will change, one day you won’t be able to stand things you enjoyed before.
The website is http://nutritiondata.self.com/ Use the tracking section under MY ND to add everything you eat and track where you end up by the end of the day ( that’s what I do- really helps). Also just looking up foods that are high in possible nutrients you might be missing- it’s a great tool.
Again, congrats and here’s to a happy and healthy 9 months!
Hi Elena,
Thank you so much for your quick response. I forgot to mention that I HATE cucumber just the smell of it for 6 feet away makes me leave the area 🙂 fortunately I like fruits a lot I just tend to snack on biscuits and I’m trying to switch to fruits dry or fresh and nuts. For the salad I’m a arugula eater,romaine are kind of tough. I grow organically of course oakleaf salads and other small varieties. I’m waiting for my tomatoes and zucchinis to grow. I love fruit juice (make my own sometimes, with carrots it’s delicious!) but I’m concerned about the amount of sugar. Do you think it’s still ok to help getting my servings?
I switched to whole grain pasta but I haven’t tried brown rice yet. I don’t eat much bread but I’m trying to get a few slices a day of whole grains ones
For what I eat:
morning: one drinkable danactiv, my prenatal vitamins with 200 mcg DHA and 800 of folic acid, a glass of milk or chocolate almond milk that has more calcium and cereals. I’m trying different brand high in fiber. I think I should add a fruit like a banana maybe
Lunch: the rest of my diner from the day before arugula with something else: tomatoes, cheese (pasteurized), dried cranberries, avocado, shrimp (I defrost myself in the fridge overnight), croutons (homemade), oranges, lemons…. I have a an orange juice and a yogurt with fruits. I’ve been trying to get a fruit at 10 Am and around 4PM.
Diner: I love cooking (it’s in my genes I’m French!) so it changes everyday. We eat often chicken and fish we are not really into red meat, I like it but we don’t eat it often so I guess iron could be lacking at some point. I just discovered some cereals with bananas that covers 90% of iron needs. I finish with a yogurt or applesauce. I need more milk I think also.
Weirdly enough I do not forget my little ball of chocolate 🙂 I read some studies that said that eating dark chocolate on your last trimester resulted in much smiling and happier baby! I use this as an excuse now 😀
Seriously, I can eat whatever I want and do not gain wait which sometimes makes my friend a bit heinous.
I’m very good at pastries (french most of the times) that I cook frequently. Let me tell you that you do not want to know the amount of sugar and butter. At least I could get my calories from that but it’s not ultra healthy. I never buy storemade as I think they should be banned from calling that a cake!
Even though your diet as too be rich in nutrients etc for your baby and you I’m also paying more attention to what i put on my body. I discovered that most of make up and cream (even baby ones) contain parabens (methyl, ethyl, propyl or all of them!) that are terrible for you. Deodorants also contain aluminum chlorhydrate and some mineral make up bismuth oxichloride a high sensitizer agent. I’m trying to switch to natural recipes using oils when I can (coconut, abricot… cocoa butter). I have some books and creams to recommend if you’re interested.
Being pregnant is such a beautiful journey but also eye opener!
For workouts what do you do? I haven’t read a lot yet on your blog as I discovered it yesterday. I do pilates, yoga and zumba
I’ll have a look at your link to help with my diet
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience with all the moms to be we are!
HAve a great week end
Fruit juices are fine as long as they don’t have added sugar. Drink as much as you want. Sugar in fruit is complex sugar so it takes time to break down and doesn’t spike your blood sugar level like other sweet things would ( which is why you’re supposed to avoid it). Plus it has a ton of fiber so that slows down sugar absorption as well.
Try to limit pastries though- butter and sugar isn’t the best right now. Butter has a lot of dioxins and trans fats.
Otherwise it sounds like your food intake is good. Add some fruit as snacks and you’ll be good. It’s better if you drink actual milk of course than chocolate almond milk. I personally try to stay away from enriched products because you don’t have as much control over the amount of the added vitamins and fat soluble ones have a toxicity level. So your best best is eat all natural things and then supplement based on what you didn’t receive that day. If you can’t track food daily, then just doing a practice run and seeing what’s usually missing and supplement that would be a good idea.
If you’re taking standard prenatals then of course stay away from any supplementation and enriched cereals and products.
Especially don’t supplement vit E- it’s been found to cause heart defects ( google it)
As far as skin care, it’s really tricky because besides parabens and phthalates, there’s a host of all kinds if other teratogens. I did a TON of research for my personal care routine. I use teratogens screened line of products, plus I screen them myself against herbs that are harmful. There are links if you’d like at the top of the page, called pregnancy resources.
Plus goodguide.com was helpful.
As far as work out, I was following some exercises in fit pregnancy book until I got sick, now we just walk, but I plan on getting back there when I get better.
Indeed the video is really cool. How do you do it?
I tried to do my self portrait and it was fun, all the good pictures are blur!
For this week challenge; I’m 5’10, 133 lbs
I plan on going doing pilates twice, yoga once or twice, zumba once and the new rhythm and groove once. I may tried piyo (pilates+yoga) and start prenatal videos. I have a selection if anyone is interested.
For diet: drink more water and milk, eat more fruits and veggies. Stick to high fiber food (cereals, bread)
Good luck to everybody for they own challenge!
You need to set your shutter speed to a faster setting so that you wouldn’t get motion blur. And probably up the iso too