We are happy to congratulate Anastasia Arseneva, the author of the blog "Zdorovo", on the birth of her second daughter Anechka! All pregnancy Anastasia led an active lifestyle, participated in conferences, organized brunches and did not forget about yoga for expectant mothers! Today, under the rubric of Guest post, she will talk about her findings and share her experience of Conscious Pregnancy!
A healthy lifestyle requires effort. Sometimes considerable, after all it is necessary to fight for it not so much with external circumstances, how many with itself. But when it becomes a solid good habit, it is no longer difficult to maintain it.
Over the past 3 years, my lifestyle has changed a lot. Before going on maternity leave, I played sports and avoided fast food. It seemed to me that it is quite enough for health. But, being on maternity leave, I found time to strongly reconsider many habits and now I can confidently say that I am proud of my achievements.
Especially with regard to a conscious approach to their health. It was thanks to him that I did not repeat three big mistakes while waiting for the second child.
Mistake # 1: Eating a lot of homemade pastries
When I first went on maternity leave, I finally had free time. And I spent most of it on my pastry hobby. I tried new recipes, made multi-layered cakes, made pralines out of all kinds of nuts, and used a ton of powdered sugar and almonds on macaroni cakes that I never got right.
Since we're not buying industrial sweets, I thought, we need to learn the recipes for baking, which will be possible for a nursing mother. And besides, I reassured myself, pregnant women need to eat for two, yet so they say. And excess weight will go away after delivery when I breastfeed all my friends so it was... (Oh, how easily we succumb to this self-deception).
In fact, the need for calories in a pregnant woman increases not so much. In the first trimester, it is enough to eat about as much as in a normal non-pregnant life. In the second, you need to increase the number of calories by about 300 per day. In the third trimester +500 calories per day to your normal diet.
My mistake was that I ate all my extra calories as carbohydrates. A couple of pieces of cake after lunch. 4-5 cookies with butter and milk at night. Croissant or homemade puff pastry brioche for Breakfast ... Well, I'm pregnant, I told myself, I can do anything.
When I entered the emergency Department of the maternity hospital with contractions on January 29, 2014, I weighed 18 kilograms more than before pregnancy. I was discharged with a weight of +14 from my physiological norm.
In the dressing room, for mothers before discharge, in our hospital provides a huge full-length mirror. When I took off my Department-issued shirt and saw myself in that mirror ... Girls, my world turned upside down. I never thought I could look like this!
Of course, gaining weight during pregnancy is perfectly normal. But there are limits to common sense. It is good that even then, looking in the mirror, I realized THAT this amount of excess weight — my own "merit", and not the need of the body or the notorious heredity. I knew that this might not have happened if I had just kept myself in hand and eaten a varied, healthy and balanced diet during pregnancy. And not too fond of homemade cakes, which, though the preferred purchase, but still must be present in the diet in reasonable quantities.
What did I do not to repeat the mistake?
Over the past 3 years, I consciously became much smaller than the oven. Now I do it 1-2 times a week. I choose recipes with lots of healthy ingredients and less sugar. Our favorite Alice treats — oatmeal cookies with dried fruit and nuts and granola bars homemade granola. And when very lazy to start baking, we eat for dessert just fruit (kiwi, tangerines, apples) or raisins and walnuts.
Otherwise, a balanced healthy diet. Five to six meals a day in small portions. And the mandatory presence of vegetables in each of them. I also do not forget to drink 2-2,5 liters of water a day to metabolism during pregnancy were active.
As a result, by the end of the third trimester, the gain was 10 kg, which is absolutely ideal for my weight and height. And there was a new useful habit-to drink enough water, which I finally fixed it in these 9 months.
Mistake # 2: little move
When you first find yourself completely free going on maternity leave with a very hard work, the only desire is to stay in peace and quiet. A walk in the Park ... in November?!.. Brrrrr!!! You're crazy! I'm a pregnant woman. I need more rest! And God forbid I freeze!
With such thoughts three years ago I lay under a cozy blanket and rested. It was during this last third trimester that I gained the most weight. Lots of good food, little physical activity. There is no need to go to work, there is no good reason to go out. Peace and quiet.
Why, when I had a lot of free time for sports, I became jelly, lying on the couch? When we go to work we have a schedule and commitments to other people that can't be broken. It disciplines and in relation to other occupations. For example, it is easier to follow the schedule of sports training, or diet.
When we're at home, we only have obligations to ourselves. And it is very easy to break them, as practice shows. Therefore, in the second pregnancy as soon as the toxicosis let me go, I set to work and asked for support from friends.
In the last year before pregnancy, I actively, almost daily, doing yoga. And in order not to be lazy and not to miss classes, I invited my two faithful friends to study every evening on Skype together. If one of us began to look for excuses, to plead fatigue and a large number of cases around the house, the other two persuaded still not to miss class today. Such a support group is simply an indispensable thing to develop a habit of regular sports.
When it became impossible to do just yoga, I found excellent online yoga lessons for pregnant women. The advantage of them over self-employment is that you do not feel lonely. With you always instructor, albeit in records. And besides, you can review each lesson many times to perform all the exercises correctly.
But yoga of course little. Aerobic exercise is absolutely necessary for a pregnant woman. I swim and walk at least a couple of hours every day in the Park with my daughter. We don't go to kindergarten. Therefore, the company for walking and a good reason to go out into the fresh air I now have in any weather.
Comparing my physical sensations at the end of the first pregnancy and now, I notice a huge difference! Then in the last month I hardly got up in the morning from a bed, muscles without physical activity very much weakened, it was very heavy to drag unusually big weight to them. I couldn't even walk one floor. My back hurt all the time.
I'm soaring like a bird now. Humming songs. And from time to time, Alice and I even go Jogging in the Park. And every day I see a very different, slim and toned reflection in the mirror, which I incredibly like.
By the way, women who lead an active lifestyle during pregnancy, 4.5 times more likely to give birth on their own, without Cesarean section. And giving birth have them roughly on 1 hour less on the length and on 20% less painful! Truth this or not, soon check.
The last time I gave birth, I was exhausted, I could not even get up for the next day because of muscle weakness. Many, probably, like me for the first time, prepare for childbirth psychologically and pump their theoretical knowledge on this issue. But forget, that giving birth-this a serious physical work. And if the muscles in recent months did not know the load and weakened, then this work will cope much more difficult.
Today, a few days before the birth, I feel not fear, but rather curiosity. I feel in myself what my yoga instructor calls birth power! I know, that I have????? physical forces produce the most and produce easily, gladly.
Mistake # 3. Ignore your inner world
Before Alice was born, I didn't have much time to focus on my emotional state. No, not true. In fact, I just didn't bother to stop and think for a minute about who I was and what I wanted. She said I had too much work to do with self-examination and all that nonsense. Oh, how wrong I was!
Once on maternity leave a couple of months before the birth, I shed tears that my life is about to change completely and irrevocably. I did not know exactly what awaits me in this new life, but I was sure that I will not return fully to his beloved work and the usual rhythm. These unresolved emotional issues were, by the way, one of the reasons I wanted sweets all the time. After all, in a state of stress and anxiety, the brain is looking for the most accessible source of joy hormones-endorphins to calm down. And finds them most often in the confectionery Department of the store.
After birth Alice life and truth has changed. About a week after returning from the hospital, I woke up at night and suddenly felt crazy fear. I didn't know exactly what I was afraid of at first. I thought this was it, my maternal instincts kicked in.
My imagination is quite vivid, and it obligingly painted pictures of various tragic accidents. I tried to push those fears away, not to think about them, to distract myself. But they came back again and again. Sometimes I was even afraid to go outside. I was afraid of people, cars, dogs…
No, I didn't have postpartum depression in the classical sense. But it didn't make life any easier.
And so, when Alice was 9 months old, my beloved husband sent me to consult an amazing neuropsychologist. It was my first experience with such a specialist. Many things were hard to tell her, or even admit to herself. Our work together lasted several months and led to the fact that I became a different person. It sounds pathetic, but it's the truth. The degree of awareness I have now has never existed before.
I said goodbye to my fears and set off for a new and fulfilling life. I started a blog, by the way, thanks to this work on myself. I never would have thought before that I would be able to write publicly and communicate with complete strangers on the Internet.
What about today?
Of course, I'm a little worried that in a short time my life will change again completely and irrevocably. I will need to build a new regime of the day for the whole family, not to sleep at night, to establish relations between the older and younger daughters and at the same time manage to write a blog! And yet, I do not leave the feeling of complete satisfaction with my life and absolute happiness.
I am no longer afraid, because I am sure that as a mother I do everything that is necessary for my physical and emotional health and for the health of children. I eat right, exercise, take time for my own interests. Yes can just sit in silence and solitude with a book while Igor and Alisa walk, not scrubbing the floor and cooking dinner in three courses at these hours belong only to me.
I learned to take care of myself so I could take care of others. Finally, I admitted to myself that personal time was more important to me than anyone else's. More important than the time I can spend with my family. And I'm not ashamed of it anymore. After all, only when I have this personal time, I do not get irritated by trifles, but on the contrary sincerely smile and love everyone even more.