Is this real life? Your expectations and mine.

This is me. In real life. On a 14 day vacation. #notfilter I'm happy and loving life...and I don't care what you might think of my body or my lack of visible abs as a Fitness trainer. I don't care if other trainers want to see biceps,

or striations of muscle, or look down on me because I don't have those (and, sadly, many do). I want to live a healthy, balanced life eating pizza and salad or frozen yogurt with my girls....and that is what I do. That is what I tell my family, friends and clients to do.

Trainers are always talking about living healthy and balanced...but as they say this they're standing there shirtless with their abs on display as they tell you to "go live life in balance, eat in moderation and work hard" and YOU TOO CAN LOOK LIKE ME with a six-pack. Don't believe everything you read or see (though filters and good lighting). That trainer is lacking. They don't have the empathy needed to see your situation as different from theirs or that your physical wants may not be the same as theirs. They don't have the knowledge and understanding of the biological differences that each woman has to deal with at different stages in life or that genetics does play a role in physical appearance...or that some people just don't want to work that hard, and that's ok too!

Everyone is different...does this person have another career to balance? Friends that aren't as into fitness? Understand menopause or hormones?

- Kids? Have they every been though pregnancy and any or many of the complications both major and minor of pregnancy, birth and postpartum bodies or hormones?

- Do they have family members to take to lessons, practice or other mouths to feed?

- Is this trainer truthful with themselves in how they feel? Are they going to parties but feeling guilty or are they able to enjoy themselves?

- Do they get to go on last minute Thai food dates with their husbands just for fun without guilt?

I'm not talking about diminishing the ability of a trainer simply because they DO have abs, it's just important to see if they're really happy and truly balanced WHILE having abs (the holy grail! ).

ABs are not my life. Family, Fitness and Health are my life, feeling GREAT and feeling STRONG (both mentally and physically) are my goals.

I teach my clients about Flexible Dieting or tracking macros because it is a learning tool, it creates an understanding of nutrition and choices and how to actually make choices based on your own body and goals. It leads to more mindful living. And we can get pretty lean if we want or we can use it to learn to live a BALANCED life with lasagna at dinner or french toast at brunch and still lose body fat to be healthy. This is real life.

www.heartstrongfit.com/work-with-me

After the baby bump...fit plan

The baby is here! She turned out to be a girl :) She went exactly 1 week past her due date, that was one of the longest weeks of my life! But Cecilia Crimm Howard is here and Gianna, Steve and I are excited to have her here. It's still a learning process for me, learning to have two kiddos around, but it is a fun one. In the words of Gia "having a newborn around is hard..." and yes, it is. But we know that time will fly by and I'll soon be able to put her down and we can be more free.

This is from 38 weeks, I went to 41!

Now it's time for me to get this healthy body back. It's important to be healthy as a mom. You have to play with your kids, keep the baby happy, bouncing and clean and you have to make milk to feed your baby...it's very taxing on the body and if you aren't full of energy you won't make it! It's also important to be healthy and fit for YOU. I dealt with postpartum depression last time and I know it had to do with my first snowy winter ever, being a new mom, moving to a new state, not having local support in the beginning and all of the other changes.  I had an active pregnancy last time, so that helped but with the winter I wasn't able to get right out and walk or be as active as I wanted....it was a very emotional and interesting time.  Then what did we do? Had another winter baby!

This time...my goal is to avoid the depression... I had an equally fit pregnancy (I chronicled it on Facebook and Instagram).  You'd think that would make for an easy delivery...nope. I did it natural again (I'm NO hero... I did it this way both times because i'm terrified of long needles in the back and pain meds make me out of sorts!) Last time it was 17 hours and this time...19 all ACTIVE labor hours...hard work!  So here is the 1 week postpartum pics. NO body/belly binding/wrapping and no exercise. Just GENETICS at work here:

1 week postpartum

Now it's time to work... What's my fit plan???    I'm back to the studio and training clients both online and in person so I'm jumping in 6 weeks postpartum. I also got an awesome sponsorship for my next bikini competition...yep it's happening at the end of the year! I'm part of Team All or Nothing Fit!! My coach waited for my go-ahead and now we've begun the off-season fitness plan that will help me build back any muscle I lost, and hopefully put on even more... then we'll begin a competition prep towards mid summer.  The one thing that is most important to me is my milk supply. I will not do anything to compromise my baby's health during this process. I will drink tons of water and eat oatmeal (though my supply is good for now, I will keep an eye on it) I'm not cutting calories since I'm not trying to cut fat, I'm building muscle. Once milk supply is established it will be  cutting time. I will also be doing protein powder, fish oil and vitamins (and a cup of joe for preworkout) no other supps at this time.....

I'm stoked to focus on building muscle! I may not lean out and thin down like many want to do right after having a baby, and that is going to be a tough pill to swallow, but I may do just that when lifting heavy. This is why I love fitness and lifting, it's like a science experiment, trial and error every time. You get to see how your body responds to your hard work and dedication and change it up as needed. Here's some pics from home, just a few days past 1 month postpatum:

I'm pretty sure it's a slimming mirror since it's at an angle in my room and I am a bit more flabby than the pics show but this is my "progress mirror" for now. I don't have stretchmarks (thanks mom!) but I've heard they can come later so we'll keep fingers crossed. I have been on my macros (protein, fat and carbs) for a good few days now and I worked out a couple of days but beginning Monday I'm all in, on plan, ready to see how to change my body. I expect to see the scale go up...with MUSCLE...so we'll see. I will post daily pics on Instagram and I'll update the blog as best as I can so stay tuned.

Physique bikini competition November 7th, 2015...there. It's in writing. Join me on the journey to change.