Perfect timing! Mark Sisson's PB 21-Day Challenge!

Checked my email today and it was a pleasant surprise to see that Mark Sisson is holding the annual Primal Blueprint 21-Day Challenge. I have read several testimonials from people who took up PB and experienced conception as one of the positive results. If it helps the female body optimise its natural functions, how would it not help an already-pregnant body? I reckoned so and signed up!

For the next 21 days... :D

Since I am pregnant, losing bodyfat will not be one of my goals. Rather it is to "get the rest, food and workouts that my body needs to fuel itself and my baby right". What this means is about 8 hours of sleep/night, 15min of direct sun exposure/day, 3x Crossfit a week (ok this is my little tweak :P), No grains/beans/legumes/added sugar and unhealthy fats, moderate servings of fruit/dairy/dark chocolate (PB allows moderate alcohol but that's out for me now) and lots of meat/fish/eggs/vegetables/nuts/seed and healthy fats! Seems pretty straightforward eh? And all for 21 days, I will be keeping a log so that at the end of the journey, I can look back and have an accurate review of how the process has affected my body. 

Here's what I did for the WOD over the weekend:

30 thrusters (my load was 25kg)

Run 400m and up 7 storeys to the old box

100 pull-ups

Run back 400m to the new box

Barbell Deadlift max rep (I began with a 3-2 reps set starting at 55kg and ended with 90kg)

Our box made the move to another unit a couple of blocks away last week and the pull-up bars are still drilled to the wall at the old unit, hence the run inserted in between the WOD - a pretty creative and fun addition, I'd say! I had to do my pullups with a resistance band that's less than 2cm wide and broke it up into 10-rep sets. My pre-pregnancy PR for deadlift was 100kg so I was fairly pleased with the 90kg load I managed. I could have gone on but my DH's eyes were turning from looks of concern/pride to glaring so I thought it wise to stop. :P

A chat with a friend today brought up the topic of rectus diastisis, which is essentially the separation of the rectus abdominis (think front ab muscles you use when doing a situp). It happens to about 30% of pregnant women, usually caused by the enlarged uterus. This is not a pleasant piece of news for me, but knowledge is power, so I will be reading more on it and will share what I've found in a later post.