Another week of not much to say, forgive my boring maintenance mode :)

This morning found me at 215.2, which is what I was bouncing back and forth to all week, when salt bloat subsided in waves. I exercised four of the five days of the week, and just got back from biking the kids to the park again today, with strength training this afternoon. Perhaps the biggest health side effect of maintaining my schedule is having no excuse to not exercise, as incidental exercise is booked in everyday at 11:00 (in the form of taking the kids down to the park on my bike or hanging with them in the yard) and intentional workout time everyday from 4-5:00. I usually spend the latter time either walking weighted miles with Walk Away The Pounds (Leslie Sansone) or strength training with resistance bands, and it feels GREAT. Then, just because I am pregnant and all, I even have an hour nap from 5-6:00 and if I am not tired then it is reading/knitting/DVD/bloggy time. All this, and I still get sections of the house cleaned daily, as well as laundry done, homeschooing, dinner prep and cleanup, and time with my husband. I am up and about SO much more, I cannot say enough about how great it is to be getting so much done. And obviously, I am burning a ton more calories as well.

The exercise (strength training, especially) has been key in keeping my weight down, I think, as well as upping my energy and lowering my hip and pelvic pain. When my muscles are stronger, my joints take less of a beating. Its just that simple.

I am currently reading an AMAZING book, New Rules of Lifting For Women, and cannot wait to begin strength training more vigorously, to build some real muscle and increase my fitness and daily calorie burn, I am active enough right now that I am seriously considering upping that exercise during pregnancy and seeing how my body handles it, but if all else fails I can just keep on walking and doing my resistance exercises and hopefully will be in good, strong shape for birth. I will confess that I have been feeling a real drive to move my fitness away from endurance exercises and into strength, given my personal goals and body composition I think I will get a lot more out of it in terms of fitness bang for my hourly buck, and I want to be a STRONG mama as these pounds drop, not just fat-skinny and weak. Especially given the health problems I do have, minor as they are, I know the key is in not taxing my tendons and joints but bolstering my musculature.

So that's what has been on my mind lately.

On a fairly unrelated side note, today marks 20 wells passed, so I am in my fifth month of pregnancy and approximately halfway through! Somehow, it has started RACING by instead of the creep of earlier this year. Hubby and I have also decided on a name for our son, though we're still testing it out mentally to see if it will stick. I am not sure at this point if I will share it before birth or not, but it is one we both like a lot.

Um... Am I forgetting anything? I have been giving into more fast food cravings than usual, but am just logging the calories and moving on. I am obviously not gaining from them, but I know they are not the best choices in terms of nutritional density. So my ongoing goal is to keep my junk food intake to a minimum and eat out only on my date night with my husband on Saturdays. It's not affecting my healthy eating the rest of the time, nor am I bingeing on it (I am satisfied on a LOT less food when eating out than I used to be!) but it's something I want to keep to a rare treat, as it has been for the past two years. I'm not worried, but that is where I am right now. Fit, energetic for the most part, productive, REproductive, and generally plugging along with my eating, food logging, and weight.

As always, nothing to complain about. Life keeps marching on and weight is only a background concern, for which I am VERY thankful!