Fitness

Postpartum fitness (first pregnancy) – Months 4-6… hit a slump then it’s time to take it to the next level!

Fitness, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

These few months really showed me what a roller coaster the postpartum fitness journey was! After seeing some improvements, especially with my run, I hit a wall and suddenly had a very tough workout. Even at my fittest, I could just have an off day – but it was still very frustrating. There were times where I felt like I was never going to be as fit again, but I knew that had to get out of that headspace and remind myself that I had setbacks during my Ironman training too. There were days where I felt like I was not improving at all, but of course all the training paid off in the end when I completed my Ironman and did it below my goal time! Some days may be tough, but I needed to always keep in mind that hard work and perseverance always win in the end.

During Christmas, I decided to take a week long break and indulge. Of course, there was nothing wrong with that but it also was a bit of a drag to get back to training. I was still working out at around the same frequency as the 2-4 months period but with a little bit more intensity. My birthday followed after Christmas and it was another few days of indulgent eating. After that, I decided it was time to take it up a notch. It has been 6 months since I gave birth. I felt like I had given myself ample time to recover and I could push myself a bit more now.

We had started to do family hikes on Sunday and were initially doing a gentle and flat hike. I decided that we were going to start doing the Twins every Sunday instead. For those not in Hong Kong, the Twins is a relatively tough hike with a lot of stairs. It is a great workout! The timing worked out perfectly with Lex’s growth because he was now able to hang out in the carrier for a longer period of time without getting fussy. Major shout out to my husband who carried this little 18 pound weight during the entire hike!

I also decided to increase my trainer rides from 30 minutes to an hour and to follow a training program. I did not do all the programs of the week because there were 3 and that was too much, but I did 2 of them per week. This was the same program that I used for my race trainings. It felt nice to follow a structured program and that I was dedicating more time to building my bike fitness again. Bike fitness was my toughest discipline during triathlon and it took me a while to develop my bike fitness. However, it was sometimes hard to do a full hour ride with an energetic baby around. Luckily we have a helper who is wonderful with Lex and he was starting to accept the bottle more.

Another fun workout that I started doing were couple run + HIIT circuits with Jerry! It’s not always easy to find time for one another so I decided to make one of our workouts into a “date” activity. We would run to the beach together and then do HIIT circuits such as squat jumps, mountain climbers, and lunges. It was so exciting to be able to do mountain climbers like my pre pregnancy self, when I could hardly do a few when I had just gotten back to working out postpartum!

We also continued to do fun and active family outings together. One activity was kayaking and swimming together! Jerry and I both love an active lifestyle and we hope that we can instill that love in Lex too. One highlight was participating in the our triathlon team’s swim/run event. Jerry and I participated together and even brought Lex! We did a relay so we passed Lex to each other when it was our turn to swim or run. It was such a fun event and also gave me back a taste of the exhilaration and joy of racing.

I also told my personal trainer my plans of leveling up my workouts and she was happy to oblige. We started increasing the weights and intensity and it was very motivating to feel myself get stronger and stronger!

I definitely felt a big difference after all the changes I made to my workout regime and it was incredibly motivating. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to travel for races. It is difficult to work up to race fitness without a race to train for, but I was happy to get myself back to my base fitness. The postpartum fitness journey was very humbling, it was definitely harder than I expected! I am very proud of myself for finding the balance between giving my body time and pushing myself.

Postpartum fitness journey (first pregnancy) – Months 0-4: slow but steady progress

Fitness, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Uncategorized

The postpartum fitness journey has been a roller coaster! There are days where I feel strong and like I am making great progress, then suddenly I feel unfit and weak again. I was very lucky to have a very smooth c-section recovery. I was able to move the next day and walk around. I hear from friends that some have intense pain and need to stay in bed so I was very grateful that I felt fine and was totally mobile. I did have to extra careful when I was getting up and to not strain my ab muscles. I hardly had any pain in my wound but the edges of the wound felt a little tender. My doctor gave me panadol and some stronger meds but I did not need to use the stronger meds at all and only a little bit of panadol. After I got home, I was able to hang and fold some laundry. In a week I was also able to cook again! I was able to hold and breastfeed Lex with zero problems. I went back to see my doctor 1 week post op to remove the plaster and 2 weeks post op to put on on a scar minimization bandaid. I really took it easy and did not do much until at least week 6 as recommended by my doctor.

During the months of 2-4, it was mostly quite positive and I felt like I was making good progress. However, I was also feeling stuck on whether I should be pushing myself harder or be taking things slower. I did not want to give myself too much pressure and to give my body some time, but I also like being challenged and enjoyed feeling fit and strong. I decided to create a fitness plan for myself but with some more flexibility to fit in my current fitness and lifestyle as a new mom. I also made sure to track my progress and to have a plan of how to continually improve and increase the intensity or duration of my workouts.

Back when I was training properly for triathlons, I was on a super strict workout regime and basically followed everything to a T. I hardly missed a workout and if I did I might move it to the next day to make up for it. With my postpartum workout plan, it was no longer possible to follow a strict daily workout and instead I made a workout plan that included ranges of what I wanted to achieve in a week such as “1-2 runs” or “1-2 Youtube workouts”. I also did not link each workout to a day because I never know whether that day I will be super busy with Lex or be exhausted after a tough night. I enjoyed having a loose guideline of what my workouts should look like so I had some sense of direction but it also did not restrict or stressed me out too much. My plan was to work out 5-6 times a week but I would not beat myself up if I sometimes only worked out 4 times a week.

By 9 weeks, I was moving into high intensity workouts such as HIIT (high intensity interval training). I was still doing some postpartum workouts but was slowly starting to do regular workouts also. By 10 weeks, I was no longer doing postpartum workouts and was also starting to do the advanced moves in the regular workouts (Bodyfit by Amy gives you lots of options for all fitness levels, I also tried out some fun dance fitness classes on Pop Sugar). I also started training with my postnatal trainer for personal training again at 10 weeks. Around this time of 2-3 months, I definitely saw improvement and noticed how I was able to do lunges for a longer time before getting tired and busting out high impact moves that would totally destroy me before.

Love that my pre/postnatal gym is super dog and baby friendly!

By around 3 months, I was ready to incorporate triathlon training back into my workout regime. The bike was always my weakest discipline and I was not looking forward to getting back on the trainer. Bike fitness takes a long time to build and I was feeling a little apprehensive to find out how much fitness I’ve lost. I started doing free rides on my bike on the trainer at first and did short rides of 20-30 minutes. After a few weeks of free riding, I signed up for TrainerRoad again to have more structured training rides. In terms of running, I was able to do two runs during the week, one interval run in my building’s gym and one longer run outside. I slowly built up the longer run to around 4 km and was feeling quite strong and that I was able to push my pace a bit on the uphills!

I still did not feel like I was back at my base fitness, but it was encouraging to see the improvements! It definitely is taking longer than I expected and I did not think I would ever feel this heavy or unfit, but what is most important is that I am getting the work in and slowly building my strength and fitness back!