Weekly Preview – June 12
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It seems like now is a good time to link up with one of my favorite blogs, which I’ve been following for several years, Mommy Run Fast, to talk about what I’m doing for fitness and diet since my cesarean in the form of my plans for the week ahead.
During my pregnancy, I tried to keep up with my running and I was successful for a while. Then, right around Christmas I ended up with a horrible cold. After that, I just couldn’t manage to keep my heart rate down, so I ended up switching over to walking. I resumed walking about 5 days after my surgery at about a 30 minute pace with a quarter mile. Now, I’m walking up to 3 miles between a 15 and 16 minute pace. I’m happy with that progress i less than 5 weeks time, but that still means I haven’t run for 6 months. UGH!
On Thursday of this week, I have my 6 week postpartum visit with my doctor and I’m hoping that means I’ll be cleared to start running again. I won’t technically be at 6 weeks until next Monday, so I’m not planning to start mixing running in until that day, but this week I will continue my brisk walks to prepare my body for running when I get the all clear. I am still taking a rest day very frequently because a cesarean is major surgery and I want to make sure I am treating my body kindly to allow it to properly heal. I’m also leaving out strength training because I am not cleared for core work yet and I get enough upper body work carrying around the baby and pushing the stroller.
Here is how my week will look:
Monday: 35 minute walk
Tuesday: REST
Wednesday: 45 minute walk
Thursday: REST
Friday: 30 minute walk
Saturday: 1 hour walk
Sunday: REST
I’ve also been taking a bit of a break from meal-planning while I’ve been recovering. I have an amazing husband who has been meal-planning, grocery shopping, and doing most of the cooking since the beginning of my third trimester. I’m working on starting to make that more of a collaborative process again now that I’m feeling more recovered and have another month at home before the end of my maternity leave.
We can also plan some slightly higher maintenance mid-week meals right now, because I can typically get a some prep done during the day. If something happens and I have less time, we just switch the planned meal to something a little easier. What has made our meal planning much easier is buying a small dry erase board for the refrigerator. I picked up this days of the week dry erase board by Quartet days of the week dry erase board by Quartet from Amazon for less than $10. It is heavy duty and is magnetized so the dry erase marker sticks directly to it rather than having to stick it on the refrigerator next to it. We tend to stay much more organized with our meals when we use it. We also add when we have special things going on so it helps us to keep track of when we don’t need to plan meals or we need to make some other type of special arrangement. I only wish that the week on the board ran from Sunday to Saturday instead of Monday to Sunday as that is how we plan our meals.
For this week we are planning to have a real mix of things:
Sunday: Summer Vegetable Risotto
Monday: Big Salad with Tuna Medallions ($6.99/lb at Harris Teeter this week)
Tuesday: Grilled Chicken & Brussels Sprouts with a Shallot Mustard Sauce
Wednesday: Pork Tacos
Thursday: Skillet Gnocchi with Spinach and White Beans
Friday: Cookout with friends
Saturday: Eat out or get takeout
Yay! Welcome back and good luck as you ease back in to walking and running. You have plenty of time to train again but won’t ever get those infant days back – enjoy the tiny baby stage!
I love the dry erase board too… after I write it all out on my blog I find that I still need to write it somewhere in the kitchen because I like to glance over quickly through the week and remember the plan.