My Mental Health

Let's face it, before I knew that Dennis and I were expecting a little bundle of joy, I already felt overwhelmed by life.  

It had taken me over a year to learn how to balance work, Crossfit, Running, eating right, and that little thing called a social life, all while keeping up with my weekly errands and maintaining a decently clean house.  I think that I've blogged many a times about how I've struggled with one or some of these challenges, but after a while I sorta got the hang of it (even if the level of difficultness stayed the same). 

So now I'm in complete panic mode because as I mentioned before, my energy level has plummeted.  What has that done to my mental health?

1.  I couldn't push as hard as I wanted to during the Crossfit Opens.  I mean, I probably could have pushed harder than I did, but I was scared that I was unknowingly hurting Baby O.  I'm not saying that it preventing me from qualifying, but I know that I did the opens at about 70% - 80%.  It was a little disappointing, but I was being a good mom (already) and the 2012 Crossfit Opens are NOT going to be the last ones I'm going to participate in.  

2.  So if you do the math I was pregnant while on vacation and what happened on vacation?  My diet went to hell.  I didn't go CRAZY but I ate what I wanted and didn't think twice about the nutritional value.  I don't think I've fully recovered from this.  Between falling off the wagon on vacation and being pregnant, I've been wrongfully justifying every "bad (but delicious) food choice" I've been making.  My vacation was back in March and I just need to get back to healthy eating.  So between being pregnant and eating like crap, guess what is growing?  My belly.  And how does this make me feel?  Like Crap!  Ok so I know SOME is from baby, but I have to wonder (and trust me I do this every morning) how much is baby and how much is from my bad eating.  Mentally, this is really hard.  

3.  My running.  Before receiving that life changing reading on the pregnancy test, I was on track to run my first half marathon EVER!  The reason I wanted to complete the half was that A. I hated running, and B. I had previously signed up for 2 half marathons and blew both of them off.  Not this time.  I trained so freaking hard as you saw on my Digital Mustard Facebook page.  I would so proudly post all my run times and even though it was cold or raining, I would get my miles in.  I started with a 5k and on on March 3rd I ran a 10 mile race and PR'ed by 21 minutes.  TWENTY ONE MINUTES!  I was 8 weeks and 2.1 miles away from doing a half.  March 4th I found out I was pregnant and running started to become very hard.  I would get a cramp a few miles into my runs and when my energy levels practically prevented me from getting out of bed, running was out of the question.  So guess what.  No half marathon for me.  I was devastated.  I was so close.  But it's not the end, you better believe that I will be completing my first half POST baby in 2013 or 2014.  

Now please don't for one second think that I'm not extatic that Dennis and I are having our first child, but just know that it hasn't been the easiest transition for me.  People at 610 are so wonderful, they see me at class and make me feel like a hero for just showing up, while I feel like I'm not doing enough.  

I have to get used to the idea that I'm no longer Crossfitting to lose weight or to increase my strength, I'm simply going to keep up my endurance and maintain the strength, form, and motions that I've learned.  This will for sure help me during delivery (Have Baby for Time WOD) and it will 100% help me with my recovery and getting me back at it post baby.  

Soooooooooooo in conclusion....I feel a bit better after blogging about these feelings that I've had over the last 12 weeks.  I know that it's going to be hard to get used to the changes my body is going through but I have to embrance it.