Last Baby Farrar Update Before Delivery!

Hi guys - Lindsay here!

While we try to keep the focus of our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube pages (dang, that's a lot of social media!) on healthy living - we can't help but sneak in pregnancy updates from time to time. Quite simply, it is our life right now, but if you don't like the baby stuff, you can keep it moving :)

For our last blog update, we were at 6 months. Now, we are quickly approaching 9 months - we are currently 33 weeks pregnant! The last couple of months have gone well - nothing really changed too drastically from the last update. Just more OB appointments (aka get weighed, pee in a cup, vitals taken, measure the belly, listen to the heartbeat, see you next time), more growing in the belly/lots and lots of baby movement, more accumulating the necessities (car seats, stroller, glider, etc.).

I passed the gestational diabetes test - which I was overly-worked up about, mostly due to getting some flack from my OB/nurse about my weight gain. It's not outrageous at all, and in their words, they "didn't know where I was putting it" because the belly and baby measure right on target and I look great, but the fact that it was seemingly an issue to them always upset me. I don't know why - I've always been a girl who weighed way more than people would've thought (Yes, you can be a size 2 and weigh 145-150 pounds) - but because they would push the "you don't want to have a big baby" button on me, I would get so emotional. Here lately, since I am so close to the end, I've tried to be more intentional about letting the weight comments roll off me. So long as he continues to measure on track, my blood pressure continues to be perfect (usually 110/70), SO WHAT!!!!

We were able to get a 3D/4D ultrasound done - and that was amazing!! Both the technician and myself thought Baby had Timothy's cheeks, nose, and chin! He was a smilely little thing too - and when he would smile, he'd scrunch up his nose - now that's a trait from me!! :) Oh, and he was very clearly still a boy, lol.

Cute scrunched up nose when smiling!!

We finished our 12-week Bradley Method birth class - and while going to and from Richmond so late on Sunday nights was a pain, we really did learn SO much. I think both of us feel prepared and confident with regard to labor and are dedicated to doing all that we can to bring Baby into this world naturally. Being that we are giving birth in a hospital with an OB, we decided to hire a Doula. While my OB has agreed to all my birth preferences, there is no guarantee that she will be the one in the practice to actually deliver me when it is time, so a Doula will be one consistent figure and advocate in the process, no matter what.

It's funny - once I hit 32 weeks, I finally began to feel pregnant. Took long enough, huh?  :) Don't get me wrong, I am by no means uncomfortable or dying to get this over with, but I am starting to notice certain changes that make me go "Yep, I really am pregnant". For example, it now takes me 1-2 days to recover between workouts. I'll do TurboFire or P90X or a longer Crossfit WOD and feel great, but then I'll need at least 1 day of rest before working out at that intensity again. That being said - yes, I'm still doing intense workouts because it feels good to me. I've tried prenatal Pilates and other more gentle workouts, and they just don't do it for me. What feels good to me and what works for my body is my usual workouts, just modified as needed! (Disclaimer: Always work with your OB to find what's appropriate for you)

Sleeping is still pretty good, eating is always good (lol). Baby is head-down and I have Braxton Hicks contractions daily, lasting about 40 seconds, several times throughout the day. Mine are not painful, rather my belly just tightens up and gets rock hard on all sides. I've had a few folks tell me they don't think I'll go all the way to 40 weeks. Timothy is betting I'll go in early July, and a couple co-workers have bet that I'll go mid-July. My due date is July 31st - what do you think???

Some preggers selfies :)

You'll remember, it took us a long time to get here, so we are just blissfully happy and excited!! The next Baby blog post will be after he's arrived!!! Stay tuned!

In Health,

Lindsay

Pick Up Heavy Stuff, Put It Back Down, Repeat

It's hard to believe, but even in the age of Crossfit obsession and with ALL the research and knowledge out there on the benefits and overall necessity of weightlifting, women STILL avoid lifting, especially lifting heavy.

Based on what we hear, see, and read, it seems like there are a couple of factors at play here. One is that women, more so than men, are obsessed with burning calories. It's all about how high I can get the "Calories Burned" number on the treadmill or elliptical. What they don't realize is that while cardio can give you a high calorie burn, when you build muscle, you burn 24/7 instead of just during your workout. Also, people who do chronic cardio (what we fondly call cardio whores) end up not just burning calories, but burning already limited muscle mass as well. Bad News Bears.

More "reasoning" we get from women is that they don't want to lift too often or too heavy because they don't want to bulk up, they just want the lean, toned look. We debunk your reasoning here with simple genetics. Men have lots of testosterone, thus when they lift heavy things, they get big, beautiful muscles. Women, however, have very little testosterone, thus when they lift heavy things, their figures get leaner, and tighter. Trust that the only way you'll "bulk up" or get huge from weightlifting is from eating too much simultaneously....or taking hormones. Plus, your purse probably weighs at least 10 pounds, and that toddler you're toting around is a good 25 - so please, stop with the 2 to 5 pound weights.

Look - you like to run? No problem. Love Zumba or TurboFire? Fantastic. We aren't saying don't do these things. What we are saying is that cardio should not be your only means of working out, ladies. You have got to weight-train. It keeps your body fat percentage in check, supports a healthy metabolism, helps you fight injury and illness, helps support good bone density, and damn it, you just look better with muscle!!

Still not convinced?? Here's how being intentional with weightlifting and building muscle changed Lindsay's physique:

Too much cardio

After 1 year of regular, heavy lifting

After 2 years of weightlifting!

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments below, on our Facebook page, tweet us, or message us on YouTube!

In Health,

Timothy and Lindsay

6 Months Pregnant!

It really is the strangest thing - most times, it feels like this pregnancy is flying by way too fast, but when we think about, we've been pregnant since October, which feels like a pretty long time! :) It's probably mostly due to the fact that this pregnancy has been blessedly easy, and it was easy for me to forget I was pregnant up until most recently (i.e., the belly popped and the little guy is very, very active!!).

A little update about what's been going on in the last couple of months:

• We found out "Nugget" is a BOY!!We had the Anatomy Scan at 20/21 weeks, and he was such an ornery cuss!! He had his back to us, would occasionally look over his shoulder and show his face, but wasn't showing us the goods! After some coaxing and prodding, the tech was able to get a view looking up between his legs and IT'S A BOY!! We are so excited!!! Part of me occasionally frets about what if the tech was wrong and it was really a foot or something (even though the logical part of me is pretty darn certain that's clearly boy parts! lol

• We moved - 3 minutes up the road, but a move nonetheless! While we enjoyed the tiny, old farm cottage we were renting, it was tiny and old, and generally not a safe environment for a baby to be crawling around in. The current house we are renting is much more baby-friendly and we are settling in nicely!
  
• Around 22 weeks or so, the belly POPPED in a big way! This is when I could look at myself and be like "Yep, that doesn't look like I just ate too much anymore, that's clearly a baby in there!!"

Little bump at 20 weeks

POW! 4 weeks later, hello pregnant belly!

• Still not having any truly negative symptoms of pregnancy!! I pulled an ab muscle around 19 weeks and that was uncomfortable/slightly painful, but after taking it easy (i.e., no workouts) for a week, I was back to normal! Still no sickness.....I can feel my body adjusting and changing, but none of it is uncomfortable. I'm okay with my big belly, but these big ol' boobs are a whole other animal!! They are huge, which makes me self-conscious at times, but I tell myself that it is hopefully a sign that I'll be able to breastfeed and that's an amazing positive! :)
  
• Nutrition is pretty normal. I was an eater pre-pregnancy and I'm still an eater now!! :) My food choices haven't really changed much at all. I was fretting over the scale in the early 2nd trimester, but I've stopped weighing myself at home (only gets done at my OB appointments now) and I feel MUCH better.
  
• Working out has been fun!! I have been regularly working out 6 days a week and it makes me feel strong and like I'm prepping my body for labor!! Crossfit, jogging, TurboFire, etc. - doing all the things I did pre-pregnancy, just modifying as needed (most of the modifying is just working around the belly now!)
  
•  Our birth class began last week! We are taking a 12-week course on the Bradley Method, which is a birthing class focused on natural birth that is very partner-centered. I knew I wanted to attempt a natural birth, and the Bradley class fit best because Timothy and I do everything together, so to have him be such an intricate part of this birthing process was a no-brainer!! When people find out I'm attempting a natural birth, there is sometimes some flack, but I like to remind folks that I know and trust my body, and if plans change and I get an epidural or have to have a c-section, that I am prepared for that as well. I'm not naive, I know enough to know that stuff happens and it's best to be prepared for it all :)
  

Okay, that covers most of it!! Hope you enjoyed this update. We honestly couldn't be happier and soak up every precious experience with this baby - we are so blessed to finally have this experience we've wanted for so long and we just can't help ourselves in sharing the excitement :)

In Health,

Lindsay (and Timothy in spirit)
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More Time!!

We hear it daily, in a variety of settings, referring to a variety of things, but it all has to do with not having enough time.

Limited/no time is the #1 excuse folks use when trying to explain their lack of commitment to their health and  fitness. Truth is, we all have the same 24 hours in a day and you don't find the time, you MAKE the time for things that are important to you. That being said, if you want to make your health and fitness important to you, here are some things that you might find helpful to maximize the use of your precious time!

1. Use the days you have more "unscheduled time" to make it easier on all the other days!!

• We are specifically referring to meal and workout prep here! Prepping your meals or your meal staples (veggies, fruits, meats) in one day makes it that much easier on all the other days. If you aren't following a specific program, also map out all your workouts. This prep work takes out the guessing and makes it less likely you'll deviate from the plan!

2.  Make your workouts count....get the most bang for your buck!

• Be smart when it comes to your workout choices - choose programs and/or individual workouts that will give you the greatest outcome in the least amount of time. Some of our favorites are Insanity, TurboFire, Crossfit, and ZWOWs. 

3. If you must have variety in your foods, map out your meals a week in advance and grocery shop accordingly!

•  Once the shopping is done, see tip #1 :-)

 
To be completely open and honest, the tips only really work when YOU have DECIDED that this is going to be a priority for you. Once you've had the mindset change, it all falls into place fairly easily...then you get into a routine, and that routine becomes habit, and before you know it, this is just how you live!!

In Health,

Timothy and Lindsay
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Best Tools for Getting Started

Only 6 years ago - we were here. Happy as all-get-out and madly in love, but seriously out of shape.

It was clear a change was needed, and Timothy began his journey with Lindsay following suit shortly after. Years of being consistent, truly making a lifestyle change, have us here. Still happy as all-get-out and madly in love, but in shape and healthy too!

There are some key tools/advice that assisted in our transformations, and that's what we'd like to share with y'all today:

• Tracking/logging your food
• Back in the day, SparkPeople was the only online option so that's what we used. It's still a great community (and still free!) but we find MyFitnessPal (also online and free!) to be a better site. Regardless of how you do it, tracking your food is HUGE, especially when you are first starting out on your journey. It is incredibly enlightening to see what serving sizes really are!
• Having a workout program that has a schedule
• Whether you will be using a gym, running or biking, joining a Crossfit box, or using workout DVDs at home - choose a program that has a schedule. When you are starting out, if left to your own devices to come up with a workout every day, it is exponentially more likely that you will "fall off the wagon". If you have a schedule and your workouts are planned for you, every day for 90+ days, this helps keep you on track and takes out the guessing-game!
  
  
• Batch-cooking food and kitchen gadgets 
•  This is probably our biggest tip: batch cook your food!! Once a week (either Saturday or Sunday), to this day, we batch cook our food staples for the week (meat, veggies, etc.). By doing this, all your meals are ready to go, all you have to do is reheat! Also during this time, you can measure out your servings - a food scale and/or Bento-box style lunchboxes are perfect for this! This one tip can take the headache out of eating healthy and keeps you on track with your nutritional goals.
• Learn as much as possible
• Follow health & fitness gurus on social media, read more about fitness and nutrition, follow Fit with Farrar's blog and Facebook page :) Surrounding yourself with this information helps you stay motivated and focused, but also helps you to become more educated on these areas....and the more you know, the better!

These four things made a WORLD of difference in our lives and have allowed us to maintain a healthy lifestyle for 5 years now, so we highly recommend them to you!

If you have a good tip, tool, or piece of advice to share, please leave it in a comment below - we'd love to hear from you!

In Health,

Timothy and Lindsay
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Fitness & Pregnancy: From a PREGNANT point of view this time :)

You may recall - based on readers' requests, we did a Fit Pregnancy post a few months ago (you can find that post here). That one was based on the research we had done, gathering information from several knowledgeable and reputable sources, BUT - it had no personal experience to go along with it.

Well now that we got a few months of personal experience under our belt, we figured we'd give y'all an updated version :)

Original post: "During the first trimester, staying active is important. It will help alleviate some of the negative side-effects of pregnancy hormones you might be experiencing (nausea, fatigue, etc.). But no one says you have to keep up with your 6-day-a-week workouts seshs.....if you need to bump it down a notch, DO SO! You're growing a baby, for goodness sake! :)"


Now: Um yeah, first trimester did not go as gloriously as that sounds above! Lindsay really (unnecessarily) freaked about exercising because her heart rate gets so high (doesn't take much for her to get in the 180's+) and she was so scared she'd lose the baby. This cut down on the first trimester workouts A LOT. And the need for 10-12 hours of sleep, plus naps, didn't leave much time in the day for workouts, either.


Original post: "Once you get into the second and third trimesters, you might have slowed down (especially if you were super active girl before getting pregnant), but don't stop completely! Remaining active isn't just good for you, it's good for that little critter in your belly too! Avoid high-risk/contact exercise, working out in extreme temperatures, and also avoid exercises that have you on your back (like Pilates), because when lying on your back, your expanding uterus presses against your spinal cord, which in turn limits blood flow."

Now: Once she made it to the second trimester, and had a few doctor's visits under her belt, she felt more comfortable working out regularly. One set of pregnancy DVDs was tried, but Lindsay has veered back to TurboFire, just doing the "low impact modifications". Energy seems to be coming back, which makes working out 4-5 times a week pretty darn doable!

Maintaining fitness is important, and Lindsay hopes to continue strong throughout the rest of the 2nd trimester and into her 3rd. The fear and fatigue that plagued the first trimester are diminishing, so here's hoping!

Today's Lesson: Things don't always go as you have planned!

A little pic - does/did this happen to anyone else while pregnant? Working out (guessing it's all the blood flowing) makes the belly swell like CRAZY?!

In Health,

Lindsay and Timothy

Our Turn

That's right - arriving this summer, Fit with Farrar will go from being a dynamic duo to a powerhouse of 3!!

I (Lindsay) figure since I'm carrying this baby, I'll tell the story :)

It has been a long road to get here, and while we will keep the very personal details between the two of us, we will bring you up to speed on our general experience.

Our TTC (trying to conceive) journey was way more overwhelming than we ever anticipated. We just figured that we were two healthy individuals and it wouldn't take us any time to get pregnant.....WRONG. The whole process involved a lot of tears, a lot of "why us?", a lot of emotionally draining discussions, and a lot of sheer frustration. Everyone around us was getting pregnant and there we were, still not pregnant. We were and had been doing everything we could, but it STILL wasn't happening; it still wasn't "our turn". Every month, without fail, I would convince myself that this would be the one - and every test was negative. We began to talk about what other options we needed to consider to get our family.....

Right after Thanksgiving, I took a pregnancy test....And much to our surprise....

IS THIS REAL LIFE?!?!

Shock. Some amusement (Seriously, just a few hours prior was yet another teary discussion of what other options to have our family were, and now BAM, positive pregnancy test. Universe is cruelly funny like that). But mostly shock.

Shock eventually gave way to sheer excitement. We determined I was 4 weeks and we decided to keep it a secret from everyone until around 9 weeks or so. While we were so excited, we were also fearful of losing the baby, so it was our little secret.

At 9 weeks, 1 day, we had our first appointment and ultrasound. We laughed throughout the entire ultrasound.....laughing from relief of seeing the little heart flickering, laughing from the joy of seeing little nugget dance around like a wiggle worm. What an awesome moment that we will treasure forever.

Around New Years, we planned 3 separate get-togethers will all our parents.....we made a gift certificate for each of them that said "Good for one grandbaby, expires 7/31/2013" and put it in a card. Everyone was so excited and happy for us and that made our joy multiply!

A couple days after that, we informed a handful of other family members (grandparents, aunts/uncles), but still wanted to keep it on the down low for a couple more weeks - well, that doesn't work so well when people have been waiting for this baby for so long :) It lasted about a week then we started fielding whispering-congratulations from random folks, so we just took matters into our own hands and here we are, announcing it to the world!

Pregnancy is going well! In the 2nd trimester, and for those interested in this kind of thing (we see lots of other bloggies do it and we enjoy it), here are some of the details:

Weight gained: 3-4 pounds, although the "bloat" makes it look (and feel!) so much more than that some days. 

Symptoms: I feel just fine! Never got sick; really just some itchy, dry skin and FATIGUE. Slept like a champ prior to pregnancy, but now - things are insane. I shoot for 9-10 hours on weeknights, and 12 hours on weekends, and some naps! :)

Food Aversions: No real aversion so far - but I have lost my taste for coffee. And pepperoni gives me awful indigestion :( 

Food Cravings: initially it was BBQ, now it's mostly salty/crunchy things, clementines and sour cream (not all together, obvi)

Of course - there is still some fear. I don't think that'll completely go away until we are in the 3rd trimester (if ever). We try to keep the fear in check because we really are just radiating excitement and energy about the entire thing - we know that this moment is a blessing and no matter the outcome, we do not take a single aspect of it for granted.

Talk soon,

Lindsay and Timothy