Dear CoachE’, how did you stay DISCIPLINED in pregnancy?

Hey Preggos.

I LOVE that I get to share some of my knowledge with Preggos especially cos it is really my vision to see as many pregnant women as possible lead strong and fit lives through these 9months, especially when they can.

For so long, I think we have unknowingly supported laziness in pregnancy, forbidding her from doing even the slightest thing. While yes, you want to be careful in this season, you also want to make sure you are not crossing the line into laziness.

Ok so today, a Preggo wanted to find out how to stay disciplined in pregnancy, what with cravings and all. Particularly, she wanted to find out how I stayed DISCIPLINED throughout my second pregnancy

In case you don’t know my story, with my first pregnancy, I added a whooping almost 40kg. By my 41^st week weigh in, the scale showed 111kg, and I was 75kg pre-pregnancy. But with my second, I added JUST under 12kg by my 41^st week. It really was DISCIPLINE at its peak.

So, because she asked a personal question, I would be sharing what exactly worked for me. Three things in particular

PRAYERS

You see, DISCIPLINE is a spirit and I wanted it to fall on me by fire and force, so I prayed. May sound basic but when you have dealt with a lack of discipline on a MAJOR level, you know that you do not want to fight it on the same level again. You need a higher power, so enter the spiritual. I asked God to help me

My MIND MADE UP game was STRONG

I KNEW like I know my name that I wanted DESPERATELY to have a different story with this pregnancy. Not only for fitness sake, I also wanted to really look good, and be able to hide the fact that I am pregnant till the 5^th month conveniently.

So, I LOCKED up my mind when it came to eating anyhow. I recall telling my best friend, who incidentally was pregnant the same time as me, that I would not taste ONE junk food all through first trimester cos I didn’t wanna add even half a kg. And I didn’t. The only way I truly can explain it is by saying I LOCKED UP my mind, truly. You couldn’t tempt me, neither did I even believe in craving. I just decided what I wanted to eat and stuck to it, NO MATTER HOW I FELT. Number 1 point obviously also helped. I also know that when you start to believe in cravings, you take the power away from yourself and ascribe it hormones, meaning you cannot do anything about it. I BELIEVED I had power over cravings so indulging was not something I did no matter how I felt. I only treated when I wanted to, and that was like once a month, but a bit more in the final weeks of pregnancy (cos I was tired of always going over 40weeks lol so I was rewarding myself haha)

I best-friended the scale

Again, this is personal, as this can be a controversial point, but my sister, I weighed in EVERY DAMN SATURDAY, and I tracked my weight gain.

So, there are online calculators for how much weight you should gain weekly, taking into account your starting weight. I used this one here

http://www.calculator.net/pregnancy-weight-gain-calculator.html

and I would make sure that I always stayed below the range especially in first and second trimester. The fact that I was weighing weekly kept me on my toes like crazy. Luckily, every week, I never went higher than I thought. There was a time I traveled for about 2 weeks and I traveled with my scale, and weighed like every 3 days, cos my eating changed. I knew how much I wanted to add in those 2 weeks and I even added less cos I was so careful

Again, these worked for me. I am not imposing it on you. When I coach Preggos, thankfully, I have amazing results with them cos I also make them understand that pregnancy is not a license to live a life without boundaries and discipline. So, I encourage them to follow our meal plans and to work out where possible. And we do COMPULSORY weekly weigh in. (You can email or whatsapp us to join our Preggo Squad 09055868614 coache@coachesquad.com)

Obviously, you know I worked out daily till the day before I had my baby. Working out also helped to maintain the weight.

Hey, I hope this helps. Remember that even though the cravings are real, your power to overcome them are even more REAL so here is to your STRENGTH Darling

With love’

CoachE’

We also have regular weight loss services and our next squad starts July, Details in flier