I love this Quote

And The Answer Is....

New Mommy-itis!!! (AKA Minor Muscle Damage)

Saturday I was finally able to go into a family friend Massage Therapist and have her look at my back. I showed her where the pain was coming from and she knew exactly what was going on! She even described some of the other random pains I would have too.  She pulled out a muscle chart and showed me a little tiny muscle that connects to basically every muscle in the torso and the buttocks. Lucky me, I messed mine up, so it makes everything hurt. She says she sees it a lot in moms with lots of young kids, with all the putting in carseats, high chairs, twisting, being pulled in every direction, ect. The bad news is, the pain won't totally go away until I'm done with picking up kids and let the muscles heal. And that's not going to happen for a while.

The big thing that will help me not to make the damage worse is to start rebuilding my core muscles. I was so relieved it wasn't, you can't do any exercise! So I'm going to start going back to my dance warm ups and building up the tummy I used to have before my babies. I will do this Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday when Jon does his runs. I might try to convince him to take pictures of me doing the core exercise, so I won't be pulling so many pictures off the internet. And it'll help me see my progress.

 I'm going to be starting running tonight (Last post when I said I was going to do it, I had a major pain attack and couldn't even stand...), take it slow so I don't put too much stress on the muscles.

 I was taught some stretches that will help:

The Frog leg stretch helps basically everywhere. When I first did it, I realized how much flexibility I have lost since my dance classes. And I wasn't that flexible to begin with. Anyway... I felt it everywhere and it was wonderful!!!

Swing Stretch is grabbing my knees and slowly lowering my legs to one side and then the other with my shoulders still flat on the ground. When I feel the pull on the knots, pause and stretch it out and then move on. I struggle to not roll over, but it'll come with my core muscles.

The basic lunge. I honestly don't know why I didn't think of this before my appointment, but this helps the most out of all of them.

In addition to these stretches I need to ice and hot pad my back as soon as I feel the twing coming. 

Another tip she gave me was to get a massage during my next pregnancy to make sure my muscles are moving to where they need to be and get one six weeks after the birth. I wish I had know this with my other pregnancies, especially with how close I had our three kids.

I'm so ready to get life back in gear and slowly taking care of this problem while getting fit.

Food Portions

I was skimming through Pintrest and found this! I love it, because I'm always looking at portions and not wanting to measure out everything in a cup. How do you measure a chicken breast in a cup anyways? What I love about this, is it even shows servings for icecream. Perfect!!!


Just an update on my back. Still hurts, but not as bad. I'm actually going to try to go running tonight and see how far I can go, before the pain kicks in.

And just with trying to control my food intake, I've lost 8 lbs this week!!! YAY!

Update.

Running Schedule is still on a standstill... So far I've had a CT Scan, MRI, Blood Tests, and Urine Cultures, all coming back normal. So the good news is, I don't have something really bad that needs immediate surgery or hard core medicine! The bad news is, I have been referred to Doc #3 and I won't be able to see him until May 16th... 

I'm going to try an experiment and go to a friend who is a massage therapist and see if it's just a pinched nerve or a really bad knot in my back. I'm hoping that this is the case, so I don't have to go see another doctor, I'm really sick of doctors... Don't get me wrong, I feel so blessed to live in a time with so much medical knowledge, but I am tired of them telling me everything is coming back normal. 

In case you didn't know, I'm super inpatient.

Wish me luck!!!

Stuck Again...

Our family has been sick again... And my pain has come back.

Running hasn't been happening...

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!

Last night I ran for the first time I ran in almost two weeks. I tried running the next step, week 3, of Couch to 5K and did it!!! I am so amazingly happy for myself! I didn't give up and let the little bit of pain in my back get to me. And I my total distance added up to about 2 miles! It was a struggle, don't get me wrong, but I did it!

It felt really nice to run again, I never thought I would say this, but I missed it.

So here's what I've learned about running/myself so far:

1. Stretching is important (Duh).

- I'm really bad at wanting to just by pass the stretches an get on the treadmill, but with my knee and shin splints, I have to make sure I do it before and after.

2. I don't run well to music. Weird right? I like to think and music kinda stops that from happening or I ignore the music and get frustrated with ear buds.

3. I have to have some kind of video going while on the treadmill so I can look at something. Being able to hear isn't so important (See #2).

4. One of the best tips I've received was from my old running buddy. When breathing, inhale two steps and exhale three. She explained it a lot better, but it helps to not breath with your heart rate, so you're not hyperventilating by the end of your run. It took me a while to be able to do it for the whole work out, but now I can do it the entire run.  It's helped my chest not to burn and now that I'm in the habit, I can catch my breath a lot faster. 

5. Chewing gum is a great trick to not need to drink bottles and bottles of water during one run.

6. I make funny noises by the end of the run, and that's ok!

7. Wrap the string that's attached to the treadmill key somewhere where you don't pull the key away.... Yeah... I did that twice last night...

8. Don't give in to excuses to not run, unless it will hurt your body.

9. Active headbands are amazing!

I still am in the Love-Hate relationship with running, but it's growing on me.

I know how boring reading a blog can be without pictures, so I'm going to try to take more pictures.

Ready... Set... Go... Again!

Good news! I didn't need surgery! I got a CT Scan on Monday and they couldn't find anything, anything solid that is. They called later on Wednesday and said that one of my tests came back showing that I have strep and a bladder infection. So they think that the strep spread into my kidney and that's why I've been having so many problems. I've been on medication for half a week and I already feel so much better!

Tomorrow I'm hoping the pain will be almost 

all the way gone and I can start running.

Slow and steady right?