“I want to give my baby a good start but I want to feel good too.”
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Karina Downie is an active, 30-something woman and is the wife of SparkPeople founder Chris Downie. Karina also is seven months pregnant and is due in August. However, she is fending off the usual aliments during pregnancy thanks to her program using the SparkPeople System.
During pregnancy, one of the hardest aspects of your life to keep consistent is your diet. Everyone knows the stories of crazy cravings, like pickles with chocolate syrup. But Karina has been able to stay on track, thanks in large part to the nutrition tracker on GoalPilot.
She knows the baby needs certain nutrients during the pregnancy, so she keeps track of these specific ones. Also, she wants to maintain a good weight during the pregnancy and figured out to keep this weight she needs to consume 2,000 calories a day. So by using GoalPilot, it acts as a reminder system for her and helps fight her crazy cravings.
Karina is not Superwoman however; a few times she has caved in and eaten that cheeseburger or whatever she was in the mood for. But she then goes into GoalPilot and finds out how many calories she can afford the rest of the day. This system has helped her maintain that consistent weight she wanted, while giving her baby all the important stuff it needs.
Another area Karina has focused on is exercise. What her doctor told her, amongst other things, is when you become pregnant you should try and maintain the level of fitness you were at before the pregnancy. So if you are pretty active, exercising 4 to 5 times a week, keep that up. Since that's the level she was at, she has kept it up.
For Karina, the reason she started working out was to strengthen her lower back, which had always been a problem. So during the first trimester, she continued her normal workout, paying close attention to her back. But she had to make adjustments for the second trimester because her doctor told her to stop any exercise where she lied on her back.
So she made some modifications while still working her body just as hard. For instance, instead of doing crunches on her back, she would sit on a physioball. She also let her body tell her when she needed to bring the intensity down a bit. The weight she has been using for exercises has decreased, but her workouts have kept her stomach strong and her lower back has actually gained strength since she became pregnant.
Keeping her stomach strong has been an area Karina has really focused on during her pregnancy. So in addition to her workouts, she is also doing yoga. This has not only helped with her stomach, but it has also increased her energy, which is another area of concern during pregnancy that she has focused on.
Basically, whenever Karina feels tired, she will rest. She tries to get 8 hours of sleep each night. If she feels tired during the day, she will sit for 10 minutes and relax. And by relaxing it means more than not walking around. She will clear her mind and relax her entire body. She knows that pregnancy is a delicate state and needs to be handled carefully.
So far, everything is going smoothly for Karina. She has avoided all of those pregnancy aliments, she even avoided getting sick during a nasty winter. By eating consistently, continuing to exercise and relaxing whenever possible, she is feeling good about herself and providing her soon-to-be-child a healthy start to life. Good luck to Karina and Chris as they prepare to welcome their first child into the world.
Give canned pears gourmet appeal by gently simmering them with dried cranberries and spices. The result is so good people will think the recipe came from a celebrity chef.
Printed with permission from the American Institute for Cancer Research
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