Baby Fit

Once upon a time… Oops, wrong audience…(Too much toddler-influenced Shrek)

Hello there, Sisters!  Wait, wait before you start throwing your rotten tomatoes at me and chanting for your regular sisters, I am not a troll that has hijacked the Shrinking Jeans website.  I am one of you, I am a tried and true real sister.  I’ve been a member of the sisterhood since pretty much the beginning.  I’ve done some challenges and quietly lurked during others while secretly stuffing my face with chocolate cake doing my own workout. I’ve read posts, shared jokes on Twitter, entered contests.  Did I mention some working out and dieting too.  Ahem.

So what the heck am I doing here?  It would seem that the colloquial sisterhood really wanted to discuss pregnancy, fitness, and nutrition, but none of your regular sisters wanted to take one for the team and give their fertility another go.  So, when Christy found out I was pregnant, I jokingly said, “Hey, can I guest-post?”  I figured if I was writing to all of you, a fit-and-inspiring audience, about my pregnancy, about fitness and about nutrition, perhaps my rear wouldn’t need a back up beeper by the time I delivered this baby.  Christy and I exchanged correspondence, and now here I am!!  I wish I could tell you just how excited I am but I just don’t have the words to do my enthusiasm justice.

Now that you know how I got here, I need to tell you a little about myself.  My name is Allyson, I am a mother of five with one on the way.  Yes, you read that right I am pregnant with our sixth child.  I like to refer to us as the mini-Duggar’s.  I do have only one husband.  We do not have a Big Love house, as much as there are times I would Iove a few sister wives to help out, I do not share well and would want my husband all to myself.  I currently stay home with our children during the summer, but I am a college student when school is in session, working towards a degree in Psychology.  In my spare time I am also a photographer, on that delicate cusp of amateur and professional.  Soon, I plan on growing my business more but, for now, I enjoy the amount of work I have.  This is me in a nutshell on the home front.  On the fitness, diet, and weight front I think I am your typical 30 year old woman.  In high school I got hips and boobs before everyone so therefore I was marked as “fat”.  Yada, yada you know the story.  Girl thinks she is fat, girl is actually pretty average, but that doesn’t stop my self loathing and perpetual self hate.  Three kids later I am squishy and things are sagging that didn’t sag just a few years before, I discover lumps where lumps never existed before and looking in the mirror naked is generally thought to be a form of self torture.  That was after just three kids.  After five, my bladder has turned against me.  My stomach muscles have given up the good fight, and I cannot blame them.  My breasts lactate even when I am not currently nursing a child.  The undiscovered country of motherhood.

It all sounds covered in a gloomy overcast, right?  Well, it is certainly not what I thought I would look like when I dreamt of motherhood, and of holding those little cherub-faced angels.  Alas, it is not all bad either.   I actually had the most amazing moment just a few weeks before I found out I was pregnant again.  I had been running, and training for my first triathlon, I was out for my weekly long run and I ran 60-minutes straight.  I ran for an hour!  That was my proudest moment throughout the endeavor of training, as I was here, adorned with saggy boobs all tucked up into a sports bra (don’t even pretend like you don’t know what I am talking about), with my flabby stomach, and big thighs.  And yet, I was in better shape then I was when I was 18 and pre-kids.  Suddenly all those cosmetic things didn’t matter, I was a runner, and I was healthy, and I could run longer than most of the people I knew.  I was a ROCKSTAR!

So here I am pregnant again…and to say it was a shock is the understatement of the year.  My husband had his vasectomy booked when we found out I was pregnant.  I was finally back in school, I was working out and really progressing and was looking for races through fall.  Then… bum bum bummmmmmm 2.pink.lines.  After the initial shock we are thrilled and excited to be doing this yet again.  I do intend to do things differently this time. In pregnancies past I haven’t kept up with exercising, and following a nutrition plan, but I’m tired of having babies and then starting off behind the game.  I want to be walking, and eating right throughout this pregnancy so that when I hit that  postpartum time it isn’t such a mountain to climb.  So if any of you out there are pregnant and want to join me, I could really use the company.  I’m so excited to be here and share this with all of you.  I’ll be back every few weeks to share with you where I am and what I am doing.

Ally