As the summer comes to a close, it is typically a time when parents (let’s get real – it is mostly us moms!) have lists and lists of things to do to get ready for the school year. And typically, we have to get all these things done with our kids around, which only makes it harder to get things done. Some of us have had our kids around for a good chunk of the summer and are kinda dreaming dying for our kids to get back to school — for everyone to get back to a routine.

DO NOT LET THIS TIME BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO PUT YOUR FITNESS ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR PRIORITY LIST!

Let’s face it – when family/kids stuff gets extra busy, our needs get pushed to the bottom of the priority list. I am here to tell you, beg you, ask you NOT to let that happen. I am here to tell you that it is precisely when your family/kids stuff feels extra busy that you should prioritize your health and well being because let’s face it, as moms, fitness is kinda as important for our mental and emotional well-being as it is for our physical bodies, and without that outlet — without taking that hour a day for you — you may just end up going nuts, or at least yelling at everyone … a lot.

AND … as many of you look at your Fall calendars to plan your children’s after school schedules, do not forget to plan YOUR fitness schedule. Remember, your fitness should be a part of your every-day routine (just like brushing your teeth). That does not mean some crazy hard workout 7 days a week. That means moving your body every day. For many of us, this requires forethought and planning. SO, plan not just for your kids, but for YOU too!

Looking to supplement your current fitness routine with a great once-a-week workout with other cool, fun moms?  Hoping to jump start your fitness routine after your 2nd baby? Not sure how to start to get back after not working out for a looooong time? Move It Momma to the rescue! My Fall class schedule (Prospect Park & Fort Greene Park) is up.  I aim to give each and every one of my moms a great workout – which means, I push you to work to the best of your ability, whether you’re a beginner or a Cross-fit enthusiast.

Remember moms, what you eat/how you move/your fitness really truly has an impact on how you feel/your happiness/your mood/your interactions with your kids. So, don’t forget to take care of YOU while you’re crazy busy taking care of everyone else in your household.

#youmatter #putmomfirst #backtoschool #moveitmomma

This is postpartum. The real deal.

When I gave birth to my first born, 12+ years ago, I knew so little about birth, about the birthing industry, about how birth and pregnancy would dramatically alter my body.  As detailed in the story of my first birth experience, it was a traumatizing birth that ended with a healthy 8 pound 12 ounce boy, but also an episiotomy, a torn anus and months of excruciating pain and discomfort.

In fact, for 6 MONTHS postpartum, I could not shit or have sex without pain.  Of course, when I went for multiple follow up visits to my then OB-GYN, she examined me and said “everything looks fine.”  Not once did she say “you are experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction and you can go to a pelvic floor PT who can help you feel better.”

I am here now to tell all of YOU that the pain and discomfort you may be feeling is NOT normal and that there are people who specialize in helping moms (not just new moms) with any of the following:

• incontinence
• painful sex
• pelvic pain
• painful pooping
• prolapse (when muscles weaken such that organs drop into the vagina)
• diastasis recti (separation of the abdominals)

It is always shocking to me that OB’s don’t as a matter of course refer moms to PT’s post birth, but for whatever reason, they generally do not.  From my birthing experiences, it seems that doctors who practice the “medical model of  care” – as opposed to the “midwifery model of care” – focus only on having a healthy baby and your vagina can go fuck itself.

And guess what?  If you give birth in France, you are sent home with a pelvic floor physical therapist and it’s FREE.  In the US, we’re sent home with a package of Enfamil and radio silence about what we might feel down there and what if anything we can do to feel ok.

So, what do Pelvic Floor PT’s do exactly?  Depending on your circumstances, they typically stick their fingers inside of you to assess whether you are experiencing tightness or weakness in your pelvic floor and then they help you stretch or strengthen the muscles that are not functioning properly.

One thing that is extremely important to mention here – because most women are not informed about this — women who are experiencing some sort of pelvic floor issue, such as incontinence, often assume that their pelvic floor is weak and needs tightening so they assume they should do kegels up the wazoo and that will help alleviate their problem.  That assumption is wrong.  In fact, often times when a woman pees just a little bit, it is because her pelvic floor is too tight and doing kegels will just make the condition worsen.  How do you find out whether kegels are the right solution for you?  You see a pelvic floor PT.

If any of this rings true for you, or if you’re not sure whether what you’re experiencing is normal, please do yourself a favor and make an appointment with a PT – contact me, I have awesome people to refer you to.   Again, no one told me any of this back in 2005 when I was suffering post birth.  Now it is part of my mission to inform and educate moms so you guys don’t have to suffer too.

Well that title is a handful.

But really – shit gets harder as we age, people.

I’m sure those of you reading this who are nearing 40 or who have passed that milestone realize that in your forties:

• you are more likely to experience injuries
• you can’t just up the cardio and eat fewer carbs to take off a few pounds
• you feel more aches and pains
• maybe you have more kids and that alone makes it harder to get moving

Bottom line, as we get older, staying strong and healthy can be more challenging and because of that, it is crucial that we commit to taking care of our bodies in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and beyond.

So what’s a young lovely thirty something year old to do?  Here’s my advice.  I wish some 40-something year old had mentioned all this to me 10+ years ago.  Learn from my mistakes, people!

1.  Buy a foam roller and roll into the pain

My clients know that the one tool I encourage them to purchase is a good ol’ foam roller.  Basically, your muscles have something called fascia around them; kinda like saran wrap but not.  If you consistently roll out the tight areas (and I’m sure you have them), you will lessen your chances of injury in the future.  I like to think of the roller as “poor man’s massage.”  And for those of you who’ve tried and don’t like it or think it hurts too much, as Hilaria Baldwin once said – saying you’re too tight for yoga is like saying you’re too dirty for a bath.  In other words, the more it hurts, the more you need to roll out.  Not sure how to use one?  Go ahead and ask me.  I am happy to show you.

2.  Mix It Up

You have to mix up your movement, people.  Maybe in your 30’s, you could just run to stay fit, but now, at 42, you’re finding that all that running has led to a knee injury so you have stopped moving altogether?  To avoid injuries later, it is best to cross train – if running is your thing, go ahead and keep doing it, but add yoga and strength training (more on that below).  Do not just repeat the same activity day after day after day.

3.  Strength Train, Folks

Aside from mixing it up, another oh SO important thing to do to stay fit and avoid injury is to incorporate strength training into your routine.  This does not mean lifting heavy weights.  In fact, this could mean using just your own body weight as resistance. Research shows that starting in our late 20’s, we begin to slowly lose muscle mass and that rate of muscle loss increases every decade.  Strength training now means maintaining muscle mass as we age.  Also, if you strength train now, you better protect your joints which can become weak as you age so that you avoid injuries.

4.  Stretch

Many injuries result from over-using one muscle group and under-using another.  Leave 10 minutes to stretch at the end of your workouts and focus on those tight painful areas that need stretching.  This goes hand in hand with #1 above – the foam rolling.  Yes, make time for both.

So there you have it — my tips to help you feel better in your body as you get older.  I really do believe that taking care of ourselves now is only going to make us feel better later.  My hope for my future is to be able to hike at age 70-something with my husband and family — I want to be that active and healthy grandma one day.  With that goal in mind, I am going to go now and roll out my tight IT band — practicing what I preach, people.

Most moms would agree that the biggest obstacle to exercise is time.  We do so much for everyone around us and too often, we convince ourselves that making time to exercise is simply not do-able with our busy schedules.

I am here to show you that it can be done – and how.

First, a few key principles to understand:

1. These days, lucky for us, research shows that it is not about how much time you exercise; it is all about intensity and effort.
2. You may need to reframe what is important.  Exercise is not just this physical thing you are doing for your body.  It actually makes us more mentally and emotionally able to do all the other crap we need to do.  Yes, people, I am suggesting that making exercise a part of your day (as much a part as brushing your teeth) can make mommahood easier, not harder.
3. Accept that long gone are the days of a luxurious one-hour pilates class followed by an energizing post workout smoothie at the cute café next door to the pilates studio.  You may only get such a luxury once a week, or… never.  But you can still fit fitness in – it just may be only 30 minutes while the baby is napping and the 3 year old is in preschool.  And that is ok!
4. You do not need fancy equipment, a large space or a gym membership to get a good workout.  Using your own body weight and that small square of space in your living room next to the mess of toys is all you need.
5. Movement is movement.  Some days you just don’t have any time to take even 30 minutes for yourself but perhaps you can walk to that next meeting or commit to taking the stairs at work and stretching at your desk for 10 minutes.  It all counts.

Ok, so you have 30 minutes and you are inside your tiny apartment.   What do you do?

I call it “3 sets of 3” and if you ask any of my clients, they will tell you that this is the method I use when working with them as well as for my own personal workouts.

• Begin with a 5 minute warm up.  This means moving your body in some way – marching or jogging in place, jumping jacks, knee lifts.  Move and try to use your abdominal muscles by engaging your abs and breathing through the movement.   For example, lift your knees not using your hip flexor muscles but instead using your abs by exhaling and drawing in your abs with each knee lift.

• Next, we come to the 1st set of 3 exercises (set 1) – one exercise that is cardio based, one exercise that is strength based and one exercise that is ab-based:

1. Cardio – do one minute (or 45 seconds or 30 seconds) of some intense cardio movement.  Examples include mountain climbers, running in place, skaters, steps ups (if you have a chair or bench to step on), walking planks, high knees, burpees.
2. Strength – do 12 (or 10 or 8) reps of some exercise that strengthens your body.  Examples include push ups, tricep dips, squats, shoulder raises, rows, lunges.
3. Abs – do 12 (or 10 or 8) reps of some exercise that tones and strengthens your abs.  Note that if you have a diastasis recti, these exercises in particular should be modified and should never include crunches.  Examples include planks, side planks, heel taps, leg lifts etc.

• Repeat the three exercises 3x without breaks = set 1.  That should mean that, as an example, you do 45 seconds of mountain climbers, 10 squats and 12 reps of a plank exercise THREE TIMES.

• 30 second break.  Drink water.

• Next, you do a 2^nd set of 3 exercises (set 2).  Again, one exercise that is cardio based, one exercise that is strength based and one exercise that is ab-based.  Repeat this set of exercises THREE TIMES.

• 30 second break.  Drink water.

• Next, your 3^rd set of 3 exercises (set 3).  Yes, one that is cardio based, one that is strength based and one that is ab-based.  Repeat this set of exercises THREE TIMES.

• Drink water.

• Stretch for 10 minutes.

Depending on how long you set aside for each exercise (30 seconds versus one minute or 8 reps versus 12 reps), the entire Three Sets of Three will have lasted anywhere from about 18 to 35 minutes.  Tack on the warm up and stretch time and you’ve got yourself a complete workout completed in around 30-40 minutes.

Bottom line mommas, just 30 minutes a day can have a huge impact on your fitness level.  You can fit it in, so go ahead and make it happen.

This blog was intended to go beyond fitness and health topics.  I hoped to write about anything that affects moms and hopefully help moms move through (move it momma) their (our) busy, hectic, sometimes overwhelming lives.

It has been years since my last post and with my 2.6 year old daughter starting full time school this Fall (two more weeks still the start of school!), I aim to change that – I plan to write more and fulfill my original intention to blog blog blog even if what I write is not “perfect.”

One glaring omission in my blog is the birth story of my 3^rd (and final) child – Adeline Lou Nusbaum.  I wrote about my shittiest-hospital-first-birth experience and my no drugs-10-pound-posterior-hurt-like-hell-but-never-felt-so accomplished 2^nd-birth experience, but somehow with three kids, a job, a household to manage, I never got around to talking about Addie’s birth.

I mentioned that in my third trimester, I had polyhydramnios – a condition that affects 1% of pregnant women and means you have extra amniotic fluid and have to be continually monitored.  It also means that you feel extra large and uncomfortable.

Not knowing why I had this condition and feeling like my belly was going to explode, it comes as little surprise that somewhere in those last few months of pregnancy, I experienced something that never happened to me before – I had severe insomnia and two separate panic attacks during which I could not breathe and just wanted to rip that baby out of there.

I saw a cognitive behavioral therapist a few times to help me learn how to manage/avoid another attack, and thankfully, there were no more.

When I visited the hospital for my weekly check-in at week 36, the tech detected that there was some sort of distress and sent me upstairs to labor and delivery for additional overnight monitoring.  I remember that last night before she was born as being one of the most uncomfortable 24 hours of my life – I had this monitor attached to my belly that felt like I had 10 babies in there and just could not find a comfortable position.

In the early morning, my doctor appeared by my side, telling me that we had to induce because the blip in her heart rate was still there and outweighed the concerns they had about her coming at 36 weeks.  The idea of another “induction” certainly scared the crap out of me, but this time, both my husband and I were communicating with the team of medical people and understood from my doctors that this induction was actually medically necessary.

And that it was.  After she came out hours later, the doctor found that the umbilical cord was fraying and the placenta did not look good – both signs according to my doctor that had we waited, I might have “come back days later for a still birth.”

She was ok – at 36 weeks, she was 6 pounds 13 ounces and her lungs were good.

The weeks after her birth are at this point somewhat of a blur.  I know that I had a lot of rectal problems and thank goodness, with my husband back at work after a week, my amazing mother in law (who has since passed away) was with me for a good amount of time taking care of me so I could take care of the baby.

This is what postpartum really looks like — for me, anyway.

The postpartum depression signs were not there in those first few months.  I was busy dealing with my own pain, and my first-ever colic baby who wasn’t gaining enough weight.  At around month 4, I came to recognize that I just felt this blah feeling all the time, a lack of energy that I never experienced before.  Something was off.

Postpartum depression does not always manifest in those first few weeks, and more often than not, it is not a feeling of wanting to avoid or harm the baby.  For me, it was just a shitty feeling all the time and thankfully, I knew that when moms experience severe anxiety during their pregnancy, they are at a greater risk of PPD.  So, even though I never experienced PPD before, I suspected that this was what was happening to me.

After seeing a psychiatrist, I first tried Zoloft because it was breast-feeding friendly and at the time, I hoped to breastfeed Addie for longer than I had with the boys.  But, Addie had severe reflux and was not gaining enough weight so my pediatrician directed that we supplement with a special kind of formula.  Ultimately, that supplementation resulted in a decreased milk supply and I breastfed for 7 months.  When I stopped breastfeeding, I took wellbutrin.  Using medication to alter my experience was hard for me.  But, it worked.  I encourage all moms who feel “off” and don’t understand why they are feeling that way to seek medical intervention.

If reading this helps just one mom, then telling this story is worth it.

P.S. Though those first several months with Addie were filled with colic, reflux, depression, anxiety and sleeplessness, at 2 and a half, she is the greatest little creature and brings us an unbelievable amount of joy and happiness.  So, yes, despite the crappy start, the answer to To Three or Not to Three is a resounding yes!

Reposting my article posted today by A Child Grows:

Many moms are familiar with the term “diastasis recti.” Some know what it is.  Many do not.  Unfortunately, most women think that it is a condition that affects only new moms, and that if you are reading this next to your 5^th grader, you can stop reading now because this post about diastasis has no relevance to you — a mom of a 10 year old.

And you would be wrong.

Diastasis is a condition that affects most women when they are pregnant.  Women’s abdominal muscles separate during pregnancy, and after giving birth, there remains a significant gap between those muscles, often leaving you with a bulge on your belly.  Some gaps come together on their own.  Most, however, do not, and require significant work to heal and bring your abs back together.  Having multiple children and being pregnant over age 35 makes this condition more likely.  Left untreated, a diastasis can result in hernia, low back pain, and incontinence (because of the relationship between the abdominal wall and pelvic floor).

Contrary to popular opinion, you can have a diastasis years after giving birth and yes, you can still do the work to heal it.  Doctors might tell you that the only way to heal the gap is surgery, but that is not true.  If you learn the proper deep abdominal work, practice specific exercises regularly and avoid specific movements (crunches are the biggest no-no), you can make significant changes to your abdominals even years after your last pregnancy.  There are physical therapists who specialize in this work and a good personal trainer with specific expertise in pre/postnatal training can also teach you the tools you need to heal your diastasis.

As a personal trainer who works exclusively with moms, I am flabbergasted by the number of moms I meet who have been working out for years trying to lose the “mommy tummy” and have no idea that they have a diastasis.  Especially since most OBGYN’s and midwives do not as a matter of course talk about diastasis with their patients (if yours did, consider yourself lucky), many moms are crunching away in group fitness classes (where instructors also often do not know anything about the condition) wondering why their bellies continue to look like they just had a baby.  Moms are also walking around thinking that peeing just a little bit when they laugh or having back pain is just part of being a mom and that there’s nothing they can do to change that.

So the great news is yes, you can change your belly, your pelvic floor muscles, your incontinence … even if you are sitting next to your 5^th grader.  It takes a lot of work but it is doable and so worth it.

Curious to learn more? Physical Therapist Gopi Pillai, PT, DPT (Brooklyn Health Physical Therapy) and I will be hosting a discussion on diastasis and pelvic floor health at the Park Slope Armory on Sunday, May 22 at 11:00 am.  The talk is free of charge and open to non Armory members.  RSVP to chana@moveitmomma.com

I am a mom of three including a 5 week old with colic or reflux or some combination of the two.  For anyone who has had a baby who cries after every feed, who cannot be put down, who is up all night long nursing and crying, you know how emotionally messed up I am right now.  Physically, I am faring no better.  Lets just say this third baby – my beautiful and amazing little girl who I am totally in love with — really did a number on my pelvic floor and I got lots of problems “down there.” 

It is with this background that I say thank you.

• Thank you to my friends and family for walking my kids to school, sending us food, picking my kids up from school and taking them for countless playdates.
• Thank you to the woman at the coop who lent me $ when I arrived with 3 kids and had forgotten my wallet.
• Thank you to my husband for bearing with me during this challenging time.
• Thank you to my mother in law for being the best post partum doula a girl could ask for and for always making me laugh.
• Thank you to my mom for filling my fridge, watching my boys, and supporting me in so many ways.
• Thank you to my boys for being patient and loving your sister so.
• Thank you to all the moms who have listened and counseled me and reminded me that this time will pass.
• Thank you to the strangers on the street who smile at me.    Those smiles and warm faces really mean a lot.
• Thank you for all the support and love.  Its getting me through this and I know I will come out stronger.

xo, chana

A few posts ago I talked about how my belly was so big and how annoyed I was hearing all the unsolicited comments about my large belly size.  Turns out there was a reason why my belly appeared and continues to appear larger than typical – I have a condition that affects 1% of pregnant women called polyhydramnios – otherwise known as high amniotic fluid.

I know.  You never heard of too much fluid.   Well, now you have.

Thankfully, my condition is mild and hopefully does not mean that anything is wrong with the baby.  Sometimes, too much fluid can indicate a baby that isn’t swallowing right or producing too much urine, but it seems that is not the case for me.  What it does mean is that I have to be monitored weekly at the hospital to check my fluids and make sure that the baby is doing ok.   There’s also increased risk of a host of other crap during the birth, like the cord wrapping around her neck.

So far, the most annoying part of this situation is that while I am in week 35, my uterus is measuring at 40 weeks and I appear and feel like someone who is 40 weeks.  That means I am contracting like someone who is 40 weeks, often woken in the night with very painful contractions, hardly able to walk around at all, and very uncomfortable.  Remember when you were at the very end? I have been there for weeks.  Yeah, not fun.

Thankfully, I was told by my doctor that if the baby does not come on her own in the next few weeks, they will induce me by week 37 or 38 so now I at least have an end in sight.  Those of you who have ready my prior birth stories know that my only experience with induction was pretty awful, but I am confident after speaking with my doctor that this would not be that same horrible experience.

So for now, I just sit at home on my couch watching bad TV, including A Baby Story, which is so annoying and awful to watch but leaves me bawling every single time a baby is born.

Hopefully the next time I write a post, I will be a mom of 3.  Till then, any encouraging comments are welcome.

Last week I started my third trimester.  If you asked half the population, they probably would have told you that I look like I started my third trimester weeks ago.  In fact, since about week 23 or 24, I have received almost daily comments about my size:

Wow, you have gotten biiiig

Any day now

Christmas baby

You sure you’re not having twins

No f’ers, I am due in March and I carry big.

These sorts of comments from my doorman and the old neighbor down the hall are a bit more tolerable than those that come from my kids’ pediatrician and others who either must have carried small or else have just forgotten what some pregnant people look like.  Why do people think that because someone is carrying a baby, they can say anything they want to about that woman’s appearance?

For someone like me — who is accustomed to sweating almost daily at the gym, to moving with ease and agility, to feeling strong and fit — carrying around an extra 30 pounds and not being able to climb a flight of stairs without getting winded is not easy.  In fact, pregnancy #3 is really hard.  And those daily comments just make it harder.

Oh I know it’s all worth it and I marvel at the fact that this baby is growing inside of me, kicking up a storm.  But do me a favor — when you see me and my big-ass-belly or another pregnant woman walking down the street, please don’t offer any comments other than something along the lines of  “you look beautiful.”  And to those of you who already offer the kind and supportive comments, love you and keep em’ comin’.

I’ve got some big news to share.  I’m preggers.  At 41.  With my first GIRL!

Many who know me know that this baby girl has been floatin’ around in my head for a loooong time.  I wrote To 3 or Not To 3 — That is the Question more than three years ago.  I have just always felt that there was this little girl waiting to be made, that I was going to be a mom with two boys and a girl…and now, that is going to become my reality, and I feel so blessed and happy.

And also scared and anxious of what’s to come.

Unlike folks who go for a third when they still have one in diapers, we are totally going back under the bus.  Things have been easy, so to speak, for years, and now, we are heading back to sleepless nights, tantrums, having to go everywhere with diapers and wipes and zippy cups.  Whoa.  It is going to be a big change.

For now, my reality is just being pregnant.  The first trimester is thankfully over (I had horrible nausea for a good 7 weeks) and now that I am feeling better, I hope that I will stick with my resolution to make this my “fit and healthy pregnancy.”  After all, in my first two pregnancies, I was a lawyer, sitting at a desk most of the day, eating too many processed foods.  Other than walking my dog, I did not do much exercise.  This time, I am committed to being healthier, in the hopes that it will result in an easier pregnancy and post-partum experience.  This time, as a fitness professional, I understand the value of good health and fitness — beyond just its impact on the number on the scale.

Hopefully, I will blog more throughout this pregnancy, and now that I have announced to the blogosphere my commitment to a healthy and fit pregnancy, I hope I can make it a reality.  First step — I am going to put down this 2nd sandwich and go take a walk in the park.

Till next time,

Chana