TTC after loss penguins get fit & healthy in 2020

@MrsMGE yes we lost Isla in November last year, it's actually 2 months today. It's the first Sunday I have felt a little better. I'm glad we went out last night, I feel proud of myself for managing it relatively well.

Just been to see the PT recommended to me. He was very nice, bit older with three kids so perhaps understands a bit more about childbirth and recovery. I'm seeing him next week for a health MOT which includes blood sugar and cholesterol checks. Apparently it's free for members, first I'd heard of it! Then I'm having a taster session with him on Thursday and if I like him and what we do I'll book some sessions. Am quite looking forward to getting back into exercise now.

Enjoy your skiing @tortiecat and worse comes to worse, enjoy the apres ski!

Think it'll be bath and early night tonight for me, hangover still kicking around!

@SunshineCrocodile I have a Fitbit versa which I love, it's waterproof so can be used for swimming and you can customise the screen in all kinds of ways as well as buy loads of cheap alternative straps online so you can dress it up or down!

Spa day was excellent, a very good distraction from my due date (middle of this week) and a great bonding experience for DH and I. The last time we visited this particular spa was around 15 months ago, long before either pregnancy, and just being there and relaxing in the various heat experiences and outdoor pool (blissful!) was just as lovely as we remembered. For any northern based penguins (or those who enjoy an indulgent night or two away) I highly recommend Rudding Park, I think the massage I had today was definitely one of the best I've ever had.
@MrsMGE I'm glad you've booked a spa for you and DH and hope it's as relaxing as ours was!

Re books I'm another Sally Rooney fan, but my favourite read of last week was 'Expectation' by Anna hope which is a novel about the ups and downs of a group of friends in their thirties. I've been reading a few memoirs recently and would recommend Educated by Tara Westover, and I am I am I am by Maggie O Farrell (though please note it does feature miscarriage). I've started using an app called Bookly to record everything I read this year, I've set my initial target at 3000 pages a month so aiming for a couple of books a week.....

Thanks everyone. DH and I had a good chat today and I've taken inspiration from the booking something nice for the due date (I didn't do this as I'd had a BFP and figured that was enough) if it's bad news at 7 week scan we'll book a night away to look forward to.

@tortiecat those leggera pizzas always make me laugh. DH is very much not a natural healthy eater and he ordered one once, I thought he was perhaps deciding to make an effort to be healthy and didn't want to be the kind of wife who comments....his face when it turned up, he was horrified at his tiny pizza and salad. Thinking of that has cheered me up, Thanks!

@tortiecat I'm just watching Miranda! 😂👏
Enjoy your skiing trip, I haven't been for years! The part I always enjoyed most was mulled wine and bratwurst 😂 But of course you burn a lot, so completely justified! Xxx

For those of you that I tempted with my Italian dinner last night... we ended up in Pizza Express as it turned out that our lovely local Italian is closed for refurbishment. I was good and went for the holey leggera pizza with salad, then a decaf coffee instead of dessert. Quite a departure from my usual choices but I enjoyed it.

I am on leave this week - I am going skiing! You will be pleased to hear that I am about as good at skiing as I am at barre. I have only been once before and that was a few years ago now. I was worried that my ski suit wouldn't fit after my pregnancy weight gain but having loosened the waist straps to the max and tried it in the morning it does do up. Only just - obviously last night's half plate of salad made all the difference

Evening all! I had to go to work today and have been looking forward to catching up with the thread once I got home.

@Seahawk80 - keeping everything crossed for you.

@Avocuddles, I hope you had a great spa day.

@MrsMGE I was drooling at the thought of your soup and lamb when I read your post yesterday! I speak from experience when I say that having your due date approach is really tough - I am glad that you and DH have something nice booked for mid-January.

@LASandOtto yesterday's dinner looked incredible - also, may I say what beautiful balls you have . Much, much better than brazil nuts!

@BunnytheBlueWhale how is your tooth? I mean your root canal tooth, not your sweet tooth (from the sounds of things both you and I have sweet teeth! When I was at work today I thought about what you said about snacks, and snacked on a banana and a tin of sardines I found lurking in my drawer!)

@SunshineCrocodile don't let me put you off barre if it is something you would like to try - I am sure you are much less Bridget / Miranda-Hart-esque (another heroine of mine) than I am! It is very different to yoga, but it's low impact and it's so challenging it effectively distracts me from feeling low / thinking about work for the full session

@Seahawk80 I'll be keeping everything crossed for you?! @LASandOtto added some great recommendations above (btw, sister, Haruki Murakami... I've never met anyone in RL who read him too!!!). We've started this chat on one of the previous threads, I remember writing about GG Marquez, Milan Kundera, C Ruiz Zafon etc in terms of good reads. Sure enough reading will keep you busy. Also, could you do some professional development or business development? Not sure what you do professionally? I find I get very absorbed in this kind of thing and time flies!

@Shefliesonherownwings Well done, girl. So glad to hear you had a good time and don't feel guilty re having a few drinks. It's a social occasion, you're allowed to enjoy yourself. Getting out after the loss and being around people can be very daunting (I get it). Well done you. You will feel more and more confident about this in time. Did you lose Isla last November (2019)?

Well done on the PT front as well, a very sensible decision and good that he knows about your circumstances, hopefully he'll get a nice tailored programme for you xxx

@Seahawk80 I hope you're ok! I can imagine spotting is always worrying, but I've read many many positive outcomes of ladies who had it and all was fine!

Definitely rest up a bit and do what feels right for you! Keep us posted!

I'm going to buy the Deliciously Ella Plant Based Cookbook, I think. It looks quite good! I'm not a massive desert person so wouldn't try making those anyway. More snacks and main courses and lunches etc!

In terms of good reads:

I read Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends and her other book Normal People too, and loved them. Easy to follow!

I also like Haruki Murakami but know what's not for everyone - I read Norwegian Woods last year and 1Q84z.

My OH doesn't like fiction so he read Homo Deus, Human Universe by Brian Cox, and Matthew Walker Why We Sleep.

Evening all, hope everyone has had a good Sunday. I am a tad hungover today. After saying to DH that I would drive last night so he could drink, his friends ended up plying us with fizz and I drank way too much. Luckily they only live 15 min drive away so we got a cab back. It was our first proper night out since losing Isla and I managed to enjoy it for the most part. I don't have many friends locally, I was looking forward to meeting some mum friends but DH's friends have been incredibly supportive to us over the past few weeks and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better and have some friends that are more local.

I am off to the gym shortly to meet a PT to discuss having some sessions to get back into exercising and building up my core strengthen again. I've started the couch potato to 5k app on the treadmill but want to get back to some strengthening exercises and i'm hoping he can help with that. One of my MILs friends works at my gym and recommended this guy. She has also filled him in on my situation so I hopefully don't need to explain.

@LASandOtto thank you for the gym clothes recommendation, I really need some leggings so will check that out. Those balls look amazing too, I am defo copying that recipe. I am very bad for snacking so need to look at healthy snacks.

@SunshineCrocodile I have the Samsung Gear Fit 2. I have a Samsung phone and they work well together. It does all the usual tracking, has a heart rate monitor and you can track you fluid intake as well. All the data goes straight to my phone which I like. It's comfortable too.

@BunnytheBlueWhale I love D Ella. Funnily enough I got her books as there was a big buzz about all the natural sweet snacks but I found them a real faff to make and also all the ingredients were expensive. I soon decided I'd rather have half a real chocolate brownie than her sweet potato ones! However since I had the books I tried the savoury recipes and most of them are quick, simple and delicious. She really makes a lot of effort to make things really flavourful. Even DH who is a hardcore meat eater likes them. I find the second book (Everyday) the best but you can probably find a lot of the recipes online. (PS free pret is good but when you have it 4 days and week and stick to healthy options it gets repetitive!)

I'm going to have to pause the couch to 5k for a few days. Had some heavy spotting this morning. I'm not too worried as it's stopped and was only ever when I wiped and I had similar at this point with DS and the pregnancy that ended in TMFR but I'm going to take it easy for a few days then repeat week one. In need of major distractions if anyone has any tips / book recommendations as need to wait at least a week for an early scan as I really don't want to risk going a few days too early to see a heartbeat. Please all keep your fingers crossed for me.

*ever say

I like your balls @LASandOtto! Not a thing I'd thought I'd say ever to you 👀😂

I'll be trying them next weekend! The DE ones are nice, however mine are somehow very peanutty and less raspberry-ish & not as pink as hers. They are tasty though. You're right, all those energy balls and bars are ridiculously overpriced and sold individually in plastic packaging, I'm not a fan of that. Easy enough to make your own, and cheaper, so no excuse really, unless you're really rushed or travelling.

This is exactly the book I've been thinking to pick up this afternoon, it's good, but I haven't had much time to read it, so nowhere near finished yet! Mrs O is a cool cat, I like her perspective xxx

'Les Balls' 😬

thefertilitykitchen.co.uk/2019/03/17/cherry-almond-bites/

@BunnytheBlueWhale well done on the gym girl! Whoop! Bet that felt good to go (and on a Sunday too)!

I'm the same as you, I make all my food from scratch and buy very little pre-made items. I just like to know what's going into my food!

Will you let us know how your Hello Fresh recipes turn out? And if there's any good recipes we can copy? 😆

@MrsMGE how are the Deliciously Ella balls? I want to try those out! I just made the ones from the Fertility Kitchen website and they were easy enough to make. That will save us a fortune because I was often buying these energy balls and bars in the supermarket and I think they can quickly become very pricey!!

Below a photo of my finished balls! Not the best balls anyone has ever seen 🤣 but hey.... they taste nice! OH had one already and apparently they can be kept in the freezer too!

Good you're having a day off exercise, it's important to rest @MrsMGE. Exercise that causes muscle aches essentially causes inflammation in the body so a recovery day is a must! Plus walking counts as exercise, as does housework! When I clean our flat I feel exhausted after!

Going to join in watching something on telly now and chilling!

Did you end up reading Michelle Obama's book btw? What did you think?

X

Congratulations on your run/gym sessions and healthy food choices today, girls @LASandOtto @BunnytheBlueWhale!

I'm having a day off exercising today, had a lovely bath with a bath bomb and managed to resist DH's Nan's delicious homemade cake - only had a single bite! Also went for a 20 min walk afterwards. I'm feeling the burn physically after the last few days, especially yesterday, had a good workout at the gym and then blitzed the house and took Christmas decs down, haven't sat down between 8am and 6pm. So now I'm going to relax, watch a bit of The Office, maybe read something. Made the raspberry and peanut butter energy balls from Deliciously Ella for the week and snacked on green apple slices & peanut butter earlier. I am hungry today and found this snack works really well for me. Proud of not going to the shop and buying crappy food for snacking!

Hope you're all having a good Sunday ❤️ xxx

Morning ladies!

@SunshineCrocodile I've got the Fitbit Surge HR (I think that's what it's called) and I love it. The AF and fertility tracker on there isn't too bad too, plus it does steps, good, sleep, etc. I mostly use it for steps as I try to push to do 10k steps a day! It wasn't too expensive and their customer service has been great over all the years I've had Fitbit.

OH and I have managed another (longer) run (with walking episodes) for almost 50 mins this morning which I am totally over the moon with!!!!!!

Celebrated with smoked salmon and spinach on sourdough and I also made a back of these healthy pancakes I saw a recipe online for! They were aaaaamazing and can be batch made for work breakfast. I had mine with Greek yoghurt and warmed up some frozen blueberries in a pan!

Also wanted to mention if anyone is looking for new gym gear - I've got a few items from Oysho Sport and they've got a Sale. Their running leggings and leggings in general are amazing. The compression leggings I've got are completely seam free and super flattering .

Hope you all have a good day!

@SunshineCrocodile Book something that will cheer you up for that day. I booked half a day at the spa for DH and I - and now I'm happy as I won't be sat at home dwelling on what's happened, and I didn't spend a fortune either as it's a half day. Winner. Xxx

Nooooo just wrote loads and my phone ate it!

@LASandOtto that looks delicious.

Have prepped Mediterranean chicken stew which will do us for tonight and tomorrow with green beans, the rest of the week is planned and shopped for. Feeling very positive about the coming week, so much so that I've booked my yoga and gym sessions into my diary too. @tortiecat my yoga teacher also does barre class but I'm not sure you've talked me into it - but thank you for a great giggle!

Interesting to see what you're all taking re vitamins. Currently I'm just taking bog standard folic acid and vitamin D, also iron supplements as I was very anaemic after dabbling with vegetarianism a year ago and although my levels have recovered with tablets I worry about them dropping as I still eat less meat than I used to. Am taking low mercury fish oil too, although the fishy burps aren't pleasant! Trying to up the fruit and veg again as I've been less good at getting a variety in since we got back from hols - sheer laziness.

Spa day sounds great @Avocuddles and a good idea for your due date @MrsMGE. My due date from the first MMC last year would have been at the end of this month and I'm totally down with sticking two fingers up at the universe and doing something nice for me that day.

Anyone got a Fitbit type watch? I'd really love one but not great with tech, is there something out there for the simple-minded that doesn't require too much syncing/set up but will actually be useful?

@BunnytheBlueWhale def take your own lunches. I get pret for free at work (because we are basically chained to our desks ha ha)! But DH now takes in lunch as we have less money and he loves it! I often make some of the deliciously Ella batch cook recipes from her second book and they make dinner for us both, lunch for him and a spare portion for a guest / freezer and they work out really cheap.