Author: bettinathenomad

Nomad. International Relations geek. Reader. Feminist. Swimmer. Boulderer. Runner. Hiker. Not necessarily in that order.
220 in 2020 · family · fitness

From the trenches: postpartum re-definitions of “fitness”

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Hi all, I’ve missed you! I went on parental leave from the blog at the end of July and gave birth on 21 August. But I’m back! For now it’s going to be once a month from me and I’ll most likely focus on my postpartum fitness journey most of the time.

It’s been quite a ride! From an emergency c-section (luckily everyone involved is doing very well) to figuring out life as a parent and starting an Executive MBA at the same time (thanks to Covid, all classes are online, which is actually extremely convenient for me), I’ve sort of been in a haze for the past 8 weeks since giving birth. Some days, I feel like I’m beginning to emerge from the fog, but other days are still hazy.

Of course, the c-section meant that I was completely off movement for a short while, but once I got out of the hospital, my midwife allowed the gentlest, tiniest postpartum exercises. Thus followed a complete redefinition of “fitness” and “workout”. I’m part of the 220 in 2020 challenge group, so of course the question of what to count as a workout came up. Initially I counted any sort of purposeful movement, even if it was just lying on my yoga mat for ten minutes doing pelvic tilts (not even lifts! Tilts!) and moving my arms about. Then I was also allowed to start walking, so I could add my walks.

After about 4 weeks, I started getting impatient. I was feeling good, and yet here I was doing pelvic tilts. I know, I know. A c-section is major abdominal surgery and You. Need. To. Be. Careful. But I feel like “careful” should be defined individually? For some people, pelvic tilts might be plenty. For others, maybe they can return to a bit more a bit earlier.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I found a very gentle post c-section yoga video online that felt right, so I did it. I had to make some minor adjustments the first few times, but they were easy enough. My midwife also gave me more exercises. But they were still incredibly boring, so I needed something else.

And then I discovered MommaStrong, an online platform dedicated to postpartum fitness. I’ll write about it in a separate post because I feel it deserves one, but basically there are different stages you go through, starting with “Hazy Days”, an 8-week postpartum programme for the first weeks. The premise is this: 5 minutes a day, be gentle, and there are modifications even for when you’re holding a baby. I graduated “Hazy Days” yesterday, so I’m excited to see what the next stage brings.

Last week, my OBGYN cleared me for exercise and I’ve been doing slightly more challenging YouTube videos since. And in another 2 weeks’ time, I’m safe to go back to the pool! I hope it stays open, since here as elsewhere, there’s an uptick in Covid cases and everything feels very fragile right now.

I won’t lie, redefining fitness after giving birth is hard. There’s no time. A little person wants to eat from me about every two hours, and in the meantime they want to be held, changed, cuddled… My body is completely different after almost 10 months of pregnancy and giving birth. But slowly but surely, I feel like I’m emerging from the haze.

blogging · family

Bettina goes on maternity leave

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My maternity leave from work officially begins on Monday, so it’s only fitting that I also start maternity leave from the blog now. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve started to understand why mat leave is a thing, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have a fairly generous policy at work: things do get exhausting as you grow bigger, especially now that it’s also hot. I also find it harder to focus, and pregnancy forgetfulness is definitely real for me.

Taking a break now feels right. I’m not due for another few weeks, but I’m going to start focussing on getting everything ready for our new arrival.

I won’t return to work until February next year, but I hope to be back to blogging earlier than that! I’ll definitely keep you posted on how things go once I can go back to exercising after the birth.

Thanks for reading along, and “see” you soon!

covid19 · yoga

Prenatal yoga: Bettina relaxes, breathes, and is unexpectedly challenged

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Thanks to Covid-19, my prenatal yoga experience was off to a rocky start. Early during the lockdown, I could still do “normal” yoga. Mostly, in good tradition of the writers on this blog, I did Yoga with Adriene (YWA), because who doesn’t love a good dose of Benji the dog with their yoga?

I had signed up for a prenatal yoga class that would have started about mid-way through my second trimester, but of course that got cancelled. Once I stopped doing YWA because I was too lazy to think of my own modifications for all the things I would have had to modify, I downloaded the prenatal version of the Downdog yoga app. I continued participating in Zoom classes with a work colleague who is also a yoga-teacher-in-training and who was kind enough to think of modifications for me. Unfortunately her maternity cover contract ended and so did our yoga classes. I enjoyed both the app and my colleague’s classes, but neither felt really “prenatal” to me. They simply felt like modified versions of my usual practice.

Balance: it becomes a new concept towards the later stages of pregnancy. (Picture of carefully stacked stones on the shores of the Lake of Constance – Bettina would definitely fall over if she tried balancing like this these days.)

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was able to register for an in-person prenatal yoga class! As I’ve mentioned before, the case count for Covid-19 infections in our area is currently very low and I am comfortable with going to an in-person class. There are also precautions: there are only six participants in the class, so we have a lot of space. We have to enter and leave separately, wearing masks, although we can take them off during actual practice. It feels safe. It’s also nice to finally meet other pregnant people. So far, pregnancy during Covid has been a bit lonely in the “bonding with other future parents” department, and this is a nice change, even though we’re not interacting all that much because of the distancing restrictions. There’s no huddling together outside the classroom before or after the sessions, no lingering for chats.

Normally, I like to challenge my body during yoga. I try to sink deep into the poses, test the limits of the comfortable. Prenatal yoga is different, of course. There’s a lot more focus on relaxation. But there’s also challenges, some unexpected. After all, the goal is to help us prepare for birth, which is a huge physical challenge! In last week’s class, as we moved further down into a wide-legged squat with each breath, our instructor explained how this was an excellent pose to take while in labour. We all laughed. Our legs were shaking, it was definitely not a comfortable position to be in! How would we do that on top of working through contractions? I suppose we’ll eventually find out…

This class is very different from any yoga I’ve ever done before, but I’m enjoying it. I’m learning to focus on “new” parts of my body, and on “old” parts in different ways. I’m learning new skills, like using sound and tones to relax and deepen my breath (these will definitely come in handy with the contractions). And of course, as my balance changes, my joints relax, and my lung volume decreases, I find challenges in poses that I was able to do with much more ease when I wasn’t pregnant.

There are also parts that I find a bit amusing. We usually have the same instructor every week, but last week she couldn’t make it and was replaced by someone else. Both of them are great teachers, and both are… mildly esoteric. I suppose it comes with the territory. It’s not my jam, but I can deal with it. It doesn’t annoy me like it has with other yoga instructors in the past. I’m there for a different purpose, and I’m able to take on board those parts that work for me.

The long and short of it is: if you’re pregnant and you can get yourself to a prenatal yoga class, I’d recommend it. Have any of you done prenatal yoga? What was your experience?

covid19 · fitness · swimming

Fish back in the Water: Bettina’s first post-lockdown Swim

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You all, I am back in the water! As mentioned in my post on Saturday, my lifeguard club has started training again this week. Tuesday was our first session and it was… somewhere between glorious and very, very strange.

A picture of swimmers doing laps in a pool. It seems like it will be a while until my club will be back to swimming like that.

Glorious because we were back in the water after almost exactly three months. I have really been missing it, especially now that I can no longer run because of my pregnancy. It felt great to swim again and even though I’m noticeably slower (due to three months without training and being a lot less – what’s the water equivalent of aerodynamic, aquadynamic?) I’m pleased to report I didn’t drown. I felt a lot more graceful in the water than outside!

And this is where we get to the “strange” bit, because we spent a lot of time outside. Because of distancing regulations, and because our pool is very small, we can’t swim laps back and forth once there are more than three people in the pool. The pool has three lanes, so we swam up one outside lane, back down the middle one, and up the third. Then we’d get out, walk back to the beginning, and do it all over again. One thing that you definitely can’t get into this way is the flow that I love so much about swimming laps, which is a bit sad.

We also can’t:

  • overtake each other,
  • swim closer than two metres behind the person in front,
  • shower after swimming (we’re allowed to quickly rinse down before getting in),
  • have a conversation that goes beyond very simple instructions,
  • linger in the changing rooms,
  • walk around the common areas without a mask (unless it’s to go directly to the pool deck and get in the water),
  • and many more things that I’m currently forgetting.

It feels truly bizarre, and some of the rules don’t make all that much sense to me, like the not showering – I get that we’re supposed to minimise time spent in the common areas, but if we can shower before, surely we could at least wash the chlorine off after, even if we can’t take a full-blown shower? And the “no talking” rule, which is… impossible to implement among a group of people who are friends and in some cases haven’t seen each other in three months.

It also wasn’t terribly efficient in terms of actual swim practice. We swam about half of what we would normally do in a session, and because of the “no overtaking” and distancing rules, we swam very slowly.

It did feel safe. Between all the regulations in place and infection rates in our area being extremely low now, I was definitely comfortable.

Overall, I’m grateful to be back! But I do hope that we can get back to more “normal” training conditions soon.

Have any of you been back in a pool or practicing a team sport? Did you enjoy it? What were your regulations? If you can’t go back yet, would you if pools were to open up in your area? Feel free to share in the comments!

fitness · running · swimming

Switching one sport for another, or: some stops and some re-starts for Bettina

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Content warning: discusses pregnancy

A couple of weeks ago, I went out for a run and it felt great. I did my usual 6k loop in the same amount of time I’d managed to keep up throughout the second trimester of my pregnancy. A few days later, I had to cut the same run short after 5k because I was getting uncomfortable. And then, last Sunday, I got as far as the bottom of the hill from my house before having to stop. The muscles and ligaments in my belly were uncomfortably tight and I was in more pain than I was willing to push through. As I was walking home, the pain went away, but I realised that perhaps running was over for me. I’d made it to what was officially the first day of my third trimester.

I was a bit bummed and sad, I’ll be honest. Given that just a week and a half earlier, I’d been able to run just fine, I was surprised at how quickly things had changed. There was a sense of loss that I hadn’t been quite prepared for. I consider myself a runner, but running isn’t my main sport, so I was astonished how much the thought of not being able to run any more bothered me.

The thing is: in times of Corona and pregnancy, with both swimming and bouldering out of the question and cycling to be approached with some care and trepidation, running had become my main sport. It was now the thing I turned to for clearing my head and getting peace of mind, and now it’s gone for the time being. I may still give walking with running intervals a try just to see how it goes, but I’m fully prepared to have to stick to walking.

A person (not Bettina) doing laps in a pool. This is also probably not what Bettina will look like doing laps in a pool after three months of no swimming at all!
Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

But it’s not all bad news! The same day, I learned that pools in my area were going to open back up. Next week, 17 June, is opening day for the first public open air swimming pool in our town! And then the next day, I learned that my lifeguarding club was getting back into action this coming Tuesday! We have a mind-boggling set of hygiene and distancing rules to follow, but I’ll happily obey them. Most (though not quite all) of them make sense. And it actually feels safe. We’re lucky enough to have so few cases of Covid-19 where I live now that I think it’ll be ok. Who knows, I may yet end up eating my own words, but for now things are looking up.

I’ve missed swimming so much, I’m beyond excited. I. CANNOT. WAIT. to get back into the pool!

I haven’t swum since mid-March, which was when everything around here closed down. That was early in the second trimester for me. I had only barely begun to show. The last training session before the lockdown was when I told all my teammates I was pregnant. So things will certainly be different when I get back in the water. But I’m so excited! Considering that a few weeks ago there was a real possibility I wouldn’t be able to swim at all before I’m due, this is an immense improvement. And it’ll give me an outlet and a way of being active instead of running, hopefully right up until the end. I’ll report on how it went next week!

body image · fitness · gear

Maternity fitness gear – where are the shorts?

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I’ve had a good gear rant before (fitness watches for small wrists, cycling gear for women that’s not pink), but alas, it’s time for another one.

I pretty much need maternity fitness gear now. Some of my workout clothes only just fit me still – below I am in a cycling top and shorts (I folded the top of the shorts down to make room) a good week ago. I highly doubt folding the shorts down would work even now, just 10 days later. I can still wear one pair of my old leggings. But that’s it, everything else will not come over my belly or be very uncomfortable.

Pregnant Bettina in a blue cycling top and black cycling shorts, holding her bike.

Finding nice capri yoga pants was easy. They are the comfiest things ever and everyone should wear them always, pregnant or not. The way they give way at the top is divine. Great for breathing room! For tops, I just bought a couple of long, flowy running tops that will cover my bump (you can see a picture of me wearing one in this post), and finding actual maternity options seems to be easy enough as well.

But I’ve been trying to find maternity fitness shorts and been straight out of luck. It’s mid-May now and summer collections are everywhere (not to mention it’s very warm here already!), but maternity fitness shorts are yet to appear. I’ve found exactly two models but they were sold out in my size. Searching online, I’ve found some (limited) options across the pond in the US and am envious. But not in Europe. Capris and leggings, no issue, but what is a pregnant person who wants to work out in real summer weather to do? I don’t understand. Are we just supposed to stop being active? There is a non-zero chance I actually won’t feel like exercising once it gets really hot, but at least I’d like the option, please.

I also don’t understand why. At first I thought it was because of body image issues. I read so many stories from pregnant people who feel unattractive in pregnancy because of the changes their bodies go through. But there are plenty of other maternity shorts, some of which are short-short, so that can’t really be it? Unless it can, because people aren’t comfortable working out with their changed bodies? I’m worried that that’s what it is after all. Any other ideas? Bonus points for anyone with tips for where to buy maternity workout shorts in Europe – I would be forever grateful!

covid19 · fitness · habits · yoga

Towards a new “routine”?

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I don’t know about you, but two months into lockdown I feel like I’m starting to settle into the “new normal”. Getting up in the morning and “going to work” across the hallway doesn’t seem outlandishly strange anymore. People at my workplace are settling into automatically logging their intermittent visits to the office on our online building log without me chasing them, which pleases me no end (I’m responsible for coordinating our Corona measures at work). Even as we ease lockdown measures where I live, at least partially remote work will stay with us for another while, so it’s just as well.

Bettina’s current universe: a red yoga mat and her home office workstation

I’ve also started noticing a few things that are missing and rather than it feeling too much, I’m doing something about it. (I realise that I’m incredibly privileged to be in that headspace right now.) One of these things is a way to work out my arm muscles. In the before time – which to me right now means both before Corona and before pregnancy – I bouldered (stopped first because pregnant) and swam (stopped later because Corona) regularly. Now that I’m not doing either of those things, my poor arms are definitely noticing the lack of a challenge. That’s why I’ve started doing a bit of arms exercise with dumbbells almost daily. It’s not much, just some sets of biceps curls and some shoulder and triceps exercises, but it’s something. I won’t lie, I don’t enjoy it. I find it a bit boring. But I keep telling myself that I’ll have to carry a baby around soon and I’m reliably informed they are heavy, so I’d better prepare!

Last week, I’ve also started doing prenatal yoga every morning, except on the days I have my online Iyenga yoga class. This is more enjoyable than the dumbbells! I like getting into the movements as my body wakes up, and it’s very peaceful and quiet around me. I’m still trying to understand why it’s taken me this long to get into that routine, and my conclusion is it’s a mix of things both pandemic and pregnancy-related that has messed up my day-to-day.

Let’s see how long it lasts. The one thing both the Corona crisis and pregnancy have in common is that they evolve daily. Soon I’ll be too big to cycle, at some point I’ll have to stop running. But for now, I’m pleased I’ve found a groove.

How about you? Have you found a way of settling into things?

Book Reviews · cycling · food

Book review: Felicity Cloake’s “One more Croissant for the Road” – food and cycling in France

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Being in lockdown has left me, like others including Sam, with time to do more of some things, including reading. I’ve always been an avid reader, but in pre-Corona times other “extracurricular” activities occupied more of my free time than they do now. Given the dire situation in the real world, I’ve also given in to the temptation of reading as a form of escapism, and what better way to go somewhere when you can’t go anywhere than a travelogue?

“One more Croissant for the Road” caught my eye one day early in the lockdown as I was looking for a light and joyful read. The premise is extremely enticing: Felicity Cloake, a British food writer, decides to explore the culinary joys of France over a summer. She picks out 21 classic French dishes and decides to visit each one at its place of origin… by bike. The result is a highly entertaining dash across the country and a lot of eating, some of it – but not all – delicious. From Boeuf Bourguignon to Tarte Tatin, Felicity Cloake makes it her mission to try all of it, often on several occasions. In between, her trusty green bike and bright yellow panniers battle many a hill and zoom along many a country road (and some dual carriageways, too). All of it is interspersed with a second quest, that for the perfect 10/10 croissant.

It’s definitely more food than sports-focused, but One more Croissant for the Road makes for great quarantine reading. In addition to her light and humourous writing, Felicity Cloake includes recipes for each dish, so you can expand your lockdown cooking adventures if that’s your jam (see what I did there?) and you can manage to source the ingredients.

If you want to know more, here’s the official blurb from the publisher.

covid19 · fitness · online exercise · running · swimming · yoga

Exercising while pregnant: the second trimester (so far)

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CW: discusses pregnancy

As I type this, I’m almost 21 weeks along, so this week the little bean and I successfully passed the halfway point of this pregnancy. The second trimester so far has been a steady improvement from the first in terms of how I’m feeling. The extreme tiredness and the not-too-bad-but-niggling nausea have gone away and I actually feel like doing things now. At the moment, I’m really enjoying my pregnancy. The little one is quite active and I get a lot of kicks, which is very cute. And I’m not so big yet that it’s becoming an issue.

At the same time, I’m facing new challenges: I’m definitely showing now, so I’ve had to invest in some maternity yoga pants (so comfy!), looser tops and sports bras in a larger size as my breasts have grown. There are definitely some yoga poses that are no longer comfortable. Running is slower and slower. Last Sunday, I went on the first longer bike ride (that wasn’t a commute) of the season and while my bike shorts still fit, I felt a bit like a sausage in my cycling kit. Unfortunately so far, I haven’t been able to find maternity cycling shorts, at least not from a European vendor (if I were to order something from the US now I’d worry about delivery times). I have, however, found a workaround for now: folding the front of the bike shorts down helps accommodate the bump a bit.

Bettina running down a hill in a blue flowy running top and black capris. You can’t really see the baby bump from the front but trust me, it’s there! (In the background, there’s another runner – she was doing hill reps and it was v impressive.)

And then of course, well, there’s the global pandemic that keeps us all from living our normal lives. I’m very privileged, so I won’t complain. But it’s having an impact. I miss swimming so much! Under different circumstances, I would have purchased a wetsuit and taken up open water swimming: in Germany, we are allowed to exercise outside, and that includes swimming in many lakes. But now that I’m pregnant, I’m not throwing my valuable Euros at a wetsuit that would fit me for all of a few weeks, or problably not at all, seeing as they’re not usually constructed to accommodate pregnant bodies. The first maternity clothing item I bought a couple of months ago – before the pools closed – was a swimsuit, and so far I haven’t used it even once. I really, really hope I’ll be able to return to the pool before the end of August, but I’m also trying not to get my hopes up.

I move a lot less than normal as I work from home, and I’m also finding that it’s really easy to become sedentary. Normally, I often go to my workouts directly from the office or as I’m out and about, so I don’t give myself the chance to sit down and get too cozy to work out. I find it harder to motivate myself these days, though when I do get out, I really enjoy it. So here’s what I’ve been doing:

  • Yoga. I have switched from Yoga with Adriene to prenatal yoga videos now. Even better though, I have a colleague who is training to be an Iyengar yoga teacher, and she is giving me and my work mates classes over video conference at lunchtime twice a week. She is very thoughtful and makes modifications for me. The classes are challenging but I really enjoy them. I’ve also started playing with the new Downdog pregnancy yoga app, which is currently free due to the Covid-19 situation, and am enjoying it so far.
  • Running. Slow and steady, I try to get out for my 6k loop a couple of times a week during times when the paths aren’t too busy.
  • Hiking. The weather has been glorious here (though I won’t lie, in my darker moments the fact that it hasn’t rained in three weeks and we are having nearly-25°C temperatures in mid-April gives me major anxiety about bringing a baby into this climate catastrophe). So my husband and I have been doing some hiking, again trying to avoid the crowds. Unfortunately, when there is nothing else to do, the sun is shining, and your government allows you to go outside, everyone else does the same thing. The woods are a busy place these days. Still, most people are responsible, keep their distance, and stick to immediate family as hiking partners.
  • Biking. I feel like this is going to be the next thing to go on account of my growing belly, so I’m trying to get as much as possible out of it while I still can. See the aforementioned sausage moment.
  • Other prenatal workouts. I’ve found some that I like on youtube, particularly this list by BodyFit by Amy. They’re varied (there’s a strength one, cardio, TRX…) and I can pick what I feel like on a given day, and they are also challenging. She gives different options depending on your pre-pregnancy fitness level and how far along you are, which is great.

So by and large, it’s going ok and I keep moving. But, have I mentioned how much I miss swimming?

cycling · fitness · illness · running · swimming · yoga

Pregnancy and Fitness in the times of Corona

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CW: Mentions pregnancy

Throughout my first trimester, I tried to exercise as much as I could despite the fatigue I already mentioned in my post on Saturday. Very early on, I was still able to run really well (so much so that I started doubting I was really pregnant). That changed fast though, by around week 10 I was slowing way down. Right now (17 weeks) I am almost a minute per kilometre slower than I was when I first got pregnant. That might also be due to a nasty cold that knocked me out for two weeks in between, but still. I’m definitely not as fast as I used to be. After yesterday’s run, my Garmin watch kindly informed me I was “overreaching”: doing more in the face of declining fitness. The poor thing doesn’t have a pregnancy mode. Nevertheless, I plod on, especially now that the coronavirus crisis is upon us but the weather is getting nicer. While I can still get out, I do. At the moment, I’m expecting Germany to take lockdown measures similar to France, Italy and Spain before the end of the week, so let’s see how long that lasts. Here’s a picture of the panorama I will be missing once I can no longer run:

A river and a city in the evening light, hills in the background. This is on my “standard” running route when I set off from my house rather than from work. You can probably understand why I’d miss it!

Swimming – as always – worked like a charm during the first trimester. It was actually something that magically made me feel better. I had evening sickness (“morning sickness” is such a misnomer!) and swimming would make that go away. What did happen was that I didn’t go to swim practice a couple of times because I was just too tired. But I could keep going at my usual speed for longer than with running. Only in the past week have I noticed that I’m slower than before, but I can still keep up with the people on my team – I’ve just moved a couple of spots down. (Again, some of that might be due to that pesky cold.) But now, all the pools are closed, so no swimming for me, even though it’s supposedly the best sport for pregnancy, you can do it right up until the end and it works out your entire body. I really hope this passes fast enough so I can get back in the pool quickly. I miss it already.

I also did yoga throughout the first trimester. Towards the end I found I was having to start adapting some poses, like doing child’s pose with my legs spread apart. I was supposed to start a prenatal yoga class on 21 April, let’s see if that happens. I doubt it. Luckily there is a bunch of online prenatal yoga videos on Youtube, so I’ll be working my way through those once I can no longer do non-pregnant people’s yoga (i.e. I’d have to adapt the normal Yoga with Adriene routines so much they stop being fun). Not quite there yet.

I didn’t bike at all during the first trimester, save for a ride to some friends’ house for dinner one night. I was too exhausted to haul my tired butt up the steep hill behind my house for my bike commute. Actually you can see that hill in the picture above. It’s the one in the background, so that gives you an idea of what I’m up against – it’s not all that tall but steep! I started bike commuting again on Monday, and it went surprisingly well. Alas, the campus I work at is shutting down on after today and I won’t be going in anymore, and today I need to drive to haul some things back home from the office for remote work purposes. I’m still hopeful I can get on the bike a few more times before my belly gets in the way…

As you can see, corona is thoroughly thwarting my attempts at getting back into moving more, just like it seems to be impacting everyone’s fitness routines. I’ll need all the pregnancy home workouts I can get! Sam has a 7-point social distancing workout plan, which is pretty awesome. Mine looks simpler: do as much yoga as possible, some TRX workouts, and research home cardio workouts suitable for pregnant people. And: go outside while I can! If you have any advice, I’d be happy to hear it!