Loving Month #4

My first 2 pregnancies were very uneventful and I'm grateful for that. I never felt poorly or really all that uncomfortable but I also never felt great. The past three days have been the best I think I have felt in ages. I went swimming this morning, although for some reason I still had to fight with myself to get out of bed. I didn't get to the pool until 6am instead of the usual 5am, so I cut the workout short and did 40 minutes instead of an hour. I lost track of my workout distance, I think it was somewhere around 1800 yards. It was my first time using my new Speedo swim paddles and it was quite a workout. At first I had trouble keeping my thumbs pointed down as the paddles went into the water, so a couple times I made quite a splash as the paddles slapped down flat on the water surface. I finally got the mechanics down and it was quite a shoulder workout, that's for sure. I don't usually take many breaks while swimming but I did notice that I needed a few more breaks today as I got short of breath more quickly than usual. I think that's what makes swimming so difficult for people that take it up later in life, if you're not used to the breathing pattern I think it's hard to adjust to not being able to take a breath any time you want. You can't really breathe harder, either, you've only got the time it takes to complete the stroke before your face is back in the water. Overall, it was a decent workout.

Yesterday and today I had to sit through 2-hour meetings at work. Yesterday's meeting was after lunch and I had eaten pasta. I thought for sure I was going to be fighting to stay awake for the meetings but surprisingly I stayed awake the whole time! Yesterday afternoon wasn't a fight at all, this morning was a bit tougher but I just kept taking sips of my water and that kept me up. This energy is a sharp contrast to a few weeks ago when I could barely stay awake sitting at my desk. I think the hardest part of the first trimester for me was the complete exhaustion, all the time. The nausea was annoying, the getting sick was awful, but those were more temporary than the exhaustion. It's likely I'll never be pregnant again, and I will NOT miss going through the first trimester after this time around.

Third day of food tracking, today I was a little high on calories- 1925 or so. I had some extra cheese with dinner and some butter on my wheat bread. Small indulgences, but I've got to keep them in check otherwise it will add up. Tomorrow's cardio interval class, always a good workout. I'm going to try to get in a 1-mile run before class. I hope to keep up the running a few weeks more at least, I know it's going to get more uncomfortable as critter gets bigger and my center of gravity gets thrown off. A mile's no big deal, I realize, but it's better than nothing.