Monday, March 14, 2011

my diet and exercise history

Exercise, diet and I have a long, on-again off-again relationship. As a teen, I didn’t have the most active Jr. high/high school experience. You see, I took a LOT of music classes, and because of this, they let me bump my Phys. Ed. I took PE in Jr. high, but in high school, I believe I only had to take one quarter of it, because I was in 3 different choirs. Should they have let me do this? Meh- who knows. I was never very sporty or athletic, so I highly doubt PE would have changed that for me. But, physical exercise and movement is important… so, who knows what would have been best.

I tried in high school a couple of times to lose some weight, but really, I wasn’t that overweight. Maybe 15 pounds or so. I mean, that’s not NOTHING, but it wasn’t horrible. Never really succeeded though, and carried my extra weight into college.

In college, I gained the freshman 15-ish, and as I said, I was already probably about 15 pounds overweight. So, in my sophomore year of college, my roommate and I went on our very own design of a weight loss plan. It really wasn’t much of a weight loss plan; but when you’re 19 and you’ve never been much of an exerciser, then you add in exercise 5 days a week, plus cutting calories, the weight comes off pretty easily. Ah, the metabolism of high school/college. For exercise we did a Kathy Smith work out tape as often as we could, and that’s pretty much it. We also cut calories in probably a not very healthy way. I mean, we didn’t starve ourselves, but we still didn’t eat that healthily. Just ate LESS of the junk we were already eating. It worked though, and when Is started my junior year, I was down about 35 pounds.

Throughout the rest of college, I kept the weight off MOSTLY, but probably gained back about 10 pounds. I wasn’t really exercising, but I was really busy, so that helped.

In my early 20’s, I slowly started gaining it back, so my friend Jamie and I went on Weight Watchers. We also started working out together every weekday morning. It worked swimmingly, and I lost about 40 pounds. Then, I broke my foot. This was devastating to me, because I had been doing so well, and still wanted to lose a little weight, but because of my injury, I couldn’t exercise, and I got depressed. I gained back about 20 pounds.

The next time I lost weight was when I was doing a show, and found out I had to be in a bathing suit on stage. Now, granted, it was a 1940’s bathing suit so there was a little more coverage, but a bathing suit nonetheless. I started doing Weight Watchers again, and also started running. I had very little free time, as I went straight from work to the show, but had about an hour after I arrived before I had to start getting ready for the show so I started running during that time. I wasn’t a very fast runner, but I’d run for 30-45 minutes, take a shower, and then do a very dance heavy show for two hours. I probably lost about 20 pounds during that show.

Sadly, it’s all uphill from there. We moved to California for two months because my husband got a show, and then moved straight there to New York. I just slowly gained and gained. I think I gained because we were lonely and didn’t have many friends, and didn’t know what we were doing in this big city, and, I was in my 30’s; my metabolism slowed down. Then I discovered I had PCOS, which explained why weight loss had always been a little slow going for me. I tried a couple of times to lose weight while living here, and I think I was able to lose maybe 10 pounds each time, but then would gain it back.

When we started trying to conceive; I really wanted to lose weight beforehand. But, I had a lot to lose, and once we decided we were ready, we wanted to start right away. I think I knew it was going to be hard for us to conceive with my wonky cycles, so I didn’t want to waste time. When we started trying and nothing was happening, and then we started facing hurdle after hurdle, I slowly started to gain weight. I was depressed and discouraged. You’d think I was gaining weight because I was gorging myself or something, but no, I had just stopped paying really close attention, and the weight slowly climbed up.

After my miscarriage, the bottom just kind of dropped out of our worlds. I think I gained another 5-10 pounds after this happened. And now we’re here. I’m pregnant with twins, and started out at a not very desirable weight.

I think and worry about it constantly. I don’t want to get so huge that I can’t move around very well. I mean, this will already happen since I’m carrying twins, but if I gain too much weight, how will my frame carry it all? I don’t want gestational diabetes. Now, I know that GD doesn’t only happen to overweight women. It can happen even if you’re a perfectly normal weight. But with my extra weight and my PCOS, and my twins, my risk goes up.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I will face the dreaded scale. So far, by some miracle, I’ve only gained four pounds. I am worried about my weigh in tomorrow though, because I read that starting this week, weight gain will happen faster. The babies are growing faster. Of course I want them to grow. Grow babies, grow! I’d just prefer that my ass, thighs, and arms don’t grow along with them. My doctor had said it would be great if I could only gain a total of 15 pounds. It makes me nervous that I only have 11 more pounds I can gain from now until the end of June. I mean, that’s a little over 16 weeks. So, to do this, I can only gain a little over a half a pound a week from now until the end. GULP.

SO. What to do. Even though I should have been doing this all along; I’m going to start exercising. Why haven’t I yet? Well, mostly because I’ve been tired. All of my first trimester I was just exhausted. Couldn’t make myself do much of anything except for go to work and come home. Now that I’m 2/3 of the way through my 2nd trimester, I’m realizing; this isn’t going to get any easier. I just have to start now. I have 3 pregnancy tapes, and I plan on also doing some walking. I can’t do anything too totally crazy, because I wasn’t working out too heavily before I was pregnant, so I can’t change things up so dramatically. But, I can get some in, and hopefully be healthier for me, and for the babies.

I’m going to work out tonight when I get home, and I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m not really looking forward to it, as I didn’t sleep well last night so I’m already tired. But I know it’s for the best, for me and my two girls. So, it will be a focus of mine from now all the way through my pregnancy. Wish me luck! :)

~M

6 comments:

  1. I totally can relate to this Mariah ... I'm not an exerciser either and I kept telling myself during my pregnancy ... 'just go for a walk!' but the lack of energy really is overwhelming ... And I can't imagine what the extra baby throws in the mix! I think just being a new Horner with all those subway stairs and city street walking you're probably WAY more active than you think! I bet you're doing great ... It sounds like it weight- wise! I found that yoga was the extent of what I could do ... It was strength stuff but also very reflective & meditative & allowed me to connect w/ body & baby ... Just an idea! I'm proud of you ... This is hard work and you're doing great!

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  2. I meant new 'yorker' ... Dumb iPod typing!

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  3. You know I get the weight thing...oh, you know I do! :) Just wanted to say you are doing so great!!! And I think your attitude about movement is awesome. (God knows I have been terrible about regular exercise lately too!) Think of all the walking you do in the city...and those steps up to your apartment. I've walked those. That's tough, and carrying two babies on top of that! Oh, and I remember that 1940's Pin Up Girls show, and I remember turning to Cory and saying "Holy Moly, Mariah is HOT!". You looked amazing! And you always do! xoxo

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  4. I completely agree with Kate. I keep meaning to say this to you actually. I think the amount you walk is WHOLLY sufficient exercise during pregnancy. ESP with all the stairs you deal with. I think you really are doing enough on this front. Walking is the best pregnancy exercise and you do it every single day! It's perfect. Really, I think you should let yourself off the hook on this one. You're doing it perfectly!

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  5. Hi Mariah, I agree that is sounds like you are doing an awesome job! I bet if you got a pedometer and actually saw how much you are walking you would surprise yourself :)

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  6. Hello there, Miss Coney Island (it was like foreshadowing!) :)

    you are doing so well. keep doing what you can do, and know that (as a New Yorker) you already walk MUCH further daily than the average American, not to mention the Average Pregnant Woman.

    love to you.

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