Lively Happenings: First Trimester Workouts

As many of you know, I truly love working out. I love being in shape and having toned muscles. I love the feeling I get after a great run or a sweaty yoga session. There's nothing quite like those endorphins!

During my first trimester of pregnancy, I was able to stick to a very similar routine to what I've been doing over the later part of 2013. Since the Tone it Up Love Your Body series in early 2013 to the Evansville Half Marathon in April 2013, I've slowed into more of a maintenance routine. After the Half Marathon, we realized my foot was fractured...yea, I needed better running shoes, silly me. I didn't run nearly as much for the later part of last year, and when we found out December 19th, 2013 that we were pregnant (5 weeks prego to be exact!) I wasn't even thinking about running.

My cycles have been crazy since the time I was 16. When I run a lot, I notice they are much much further apart. I actually only had two periods in 2012, and when the Half Marathon was finished in 2013 I had a cycle that pretty much lasted 62 days with a few 2 day breaks in between...I'll do a post on my journey to more natural cycles and this pregnancy ;-) Thus, when I got pregnant, I thought should I even be running? So I tried, and I epically failed! My normal runs on a treadmill start at level 6 and move to an 8 or even a 9 at times with an incline of 2 or more. When I attempted my first jog at level 6 I had a horrible side ache almost immediately. So I walked 2 miles instead. A few days later, I tried again, and that's when I learned my body just isn't in shape for running at the moment. It wasn't until about 2.5 months into pregnancy that my body could handle a little jog.

Even though for all of January and a portion of February I wasn't really running, I still wanted to partake in the Tone it Up Love Your Body series as much as I could. My way of partaking was doing nearly all of the toning routines I could from their weekly workout schedule. I would walk if I went to the gym, but chose not to walk outside because I seriously hate the cold, and for most of January, our neighborhood was covered in icy sidewalks and roads.

I've also been going to yoga or doing at home yoga at least once a week. I love yoga and would do it more if the studio I enjoy wasn't so expensive.

So here's a wrap-up of my favorite workouts from my first trimester:

Cardio:
PB Fingers 30 Min Intense Incline Walking Workout
Tone it Up Secret Admier from the 2013 Love Your Body Series
Tone it Up HIIT routine (from first DVD)
Tone it Up HIIT from the 2014 Love Your Body Series
Treadmill walking 2+ miles at a pace of 3.5-4 and increasing incline every minute and then decreasing every minute after I got to an incline of 15 and continuing that cycle until I hit at least 2 miles.

Toning:
Tone it Up Love Your Body with Kettelbells
Tone it Up Love Your Arms & Abs (I didn't do the Pistol Crunch or Ab Crunch if I felt uncomfortable)
Tone it Up Love your Booty from 2014 and the one from 2013 (didn't do the body surfing move b/c I thought I'd crush the baby, yes I know that's not realistic, but it wasn't comfortable!)
Tone it Up Love Your Total Body (by far my favorite during this trimester, I would do these moves when I got super tired mid day and needed an energy boost! I work from home so that's acceptable, gotta be more careful in an office!)
Tone it Up Love Your Legs
Tone it Up Love your Arms
Basically, I love all the Love Your Body Series Workouts!!!

My "Schedule" (I say this loosely because if I didn't feel great or was too tired, I didn't force myself to workout)
1-3 Days of Toning
2 Days Cardio
1 Day Yoga

Here's a lookback at my Instagrams of some of these workouts! (Follow @LivelyHappening if you want to keep in touch with these and the Etsy shop designs!)