Naturally Jami: The Diary of a Pregnant Crossfitter: Part Four

I have a couple of topics I could talk about - self-confidence during pregnancy, and also self-care (both during and outside of pregnancy). Self-confidence is a topic fresh on my mind, though, so I decided to write about it. Mainly because Derek (owner/trainer at Flex Fitness) and I had a conversation about it today and how it's something EVERYone deals with in some way or another, but when you're pregnant it's a whole different can of worms.

Self-confidence is probably something most, if not all, of us pregnant gals struggle with. It's something I've been trying to avoid, but I guess it's inevitable in the society we live in. The media pushes flat bellies and toned abs and here we pregos are with this giant round thing protruding off of us.

Since Elliot began making his presence known in the form of a happy little bump on my belly, I've been making a conscious effort to say, "Elliot is gaining weight," or, "Elliot is getting bigger." Not, I'm gaining or growing. It makes me feel better when I get on the scale and see the numbers beginning to rise after spending the last two and a half years trying to get them to drop. I'm telling ya, it messes with your head! For awhile it wasn't bothering me, I still felt good - I'd go work out, complete a WOD, and feel like a champ because I just did that shit pregnant, boom! But, Elliot is growing. My rib cage is expanding to make room for all the organs he's kindly shoving up out of his way, my boobs are getting bigger to get ready to feed him, and I'm beginning to feel like EVERYTHING on me is big. Which, like I said, messes with my head after I worked SO HARD to melt all that excess body fat. I find myself vainly studying myself in the mirror - is my face fuller? Are my arms thicker? Losing their tone? Are my legs and butt flabby?

What is this? This is exactly what I was trying to AVOID. When I got pregnant and made it my goal to stick with crossfit throughout the entire pregnancy, I also made it a goal to try to keep my thoughts as positive as possible. It's helped to go back through pictures from when I was pregnant with Harlee and just compare and contrast. As I was doing that, though, I started browsing through all the pictures I took as he grew up, and all the life events we experienced. Postpartum was not the best time in my life, and I hope to never go back there. But the transformation I pushed myself through afterwards was pretty awesome, now that I look back on it. I'm trying to applaud myself for the hard work I did. But I remember last year, getting ready to go to Mexico for our friends' wedding, and having a lot of anxiety about buying two-piece swim suits. I had started personal training at Flex in April and, while I had experienced great results already, I was not quite where I wanted to be. So I was still hard on myself, and down on myself, and so knit-picky about this flaw on my body and that flaw on my body, to the point where I wasn't really fully enjoying the results I had already experienced. So recently I looked back on pictures of myself from back then, and I was amazed at how good I did look! And I remembered feeling self-conscious about myself, which led me to think, "Wow, how sad that I was so self-conscious, that I couldn't feel proud of myself for how much progress I made, or see how good I already looked despite the goals I still hadn't met." It took me a year to be able to look back on that progress I had made and appreciate the hard work I had done. How would I feel at this present moment if I could feel that appreciation NOW rather than a year later? Instead of feeling self-conscious and insecure now, I could feel proud that I've been doing so well, that I look so much better during this pregnancy than I did during Harlee's? Sure, I still have goals to meet, I'm not perfect, but I'm doing well regardless. I've been working hard. What good is it to work so hard if you can't feel good about the accomplishments achieved?

And then I wonder, why am I so worried about looks anyway? Why do I get so worked up about this stuff? I should be more focused on health, not looks. I had blood pressure issues last time I was pregnant. I should be focusing on eating healthy and keeping my blood pressure under control this time, and it has been - it's been awesome at each prenatal check-up - I should be more focused on feeling proud of that, right? And I felt so fatigued last time, and this time I feel great! I should feel proud of that too, right? And all the changes my body is going through, causing strains and stresses on different joints - I'm seeking appropriate therapies to relieve those issues and doing the exercises and stretches they prescribe me so I don't have to suffer like I did last time, and it's working - I should be proud of myself for that, right?

Of course I should. But more so than how I feel about my looks, right?

Probably. But Derek made a good point about that, too, during our conversation. It's a simple point, but something we probably don't think about often enough. Or at least I don't. That looking good makes us feel good, and when we feel good, our health is positively affected by that. It all goes hand-in-hand. If we feel good about our bodies and how we look outwardly, it makes us feel better inwardly. If we're down on ourselves about how we look outwardly, and criticize our bodies and dislike everything about them, then our bodies will respond to that criticism, and eventually be as inwardly unhealthy as we feel outwardly. I really do believe our thoughts create our realities. It is important to feel good about ourselves, especially how we look - our outward appearance is what the rest of the world sees, and if you feel strong and confident in how you look, then the rest of the world will most likely see a strong and confident person when they look at you, too.

So, I'm going to keep being vain, I'm going to keep studying myself in the mirror, but I'm going to try my best to be kind and gentle about it. I've been working hard, managing to keep going to Flex despite all the craziness of building a house and running a business and chasing a two-and-a-half-year-old all while my husband is working long hours, so I should feel good about all the hard work I've been doing.

I think that's something that everyone working towards a goal should keep in mind. Focus on how far you've come, not how far you have to go. That way you can look at yourself now and feel proud and accomplished and good about yourself, rather than looking back a year later and wishing you had seen in the mirror what you see in the pictures.

Here's a lil before and after action for ya... Same stage in pregnancy, about 23ish weeks, the top is my pregnancy with Harlee, the bottom two are with Elliot. So glad I'm working out...