It’s true, both women had a healthy and balanced diet, at mealtime. They both ate plenty of fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and moderate portions of carbohydrates, at mealtime. Breakfasts included fruits and whole grains and plenty of protein. Lunches were veggie-laden and low calorie. Dinners were balanced and light.  So to get to the source of the problem, we had to read between the lines, or rather, look between the meals to what they were eating, and drinking in the susceptible hours of mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and late-evening.

The first mother’s snack habits seemed innocuous at first. One day she had pretzels, cheese cubes, and orange juice around 10a.m., half a turkey and swiss sandwich at 3p.m., and a bowl of chocolate rice breakfast cereal at 8:30. All seemed like relatively healthy snack choices. Delving further into the matter, however, I discovered that it was not only what she was snacking but also the quantities she was consuming. Her first snack of the day ended up being 3 full servings of pretzels and OJ and 2 servings of cheese, totaling a whopping 650 calories including 16 grams of fat and 105 grams of carbohydrates.  Her second snack, the half a turkey and swiss on wheat, was modest, adding up to only 240 calories overall, but the cheese and mayo upped the fat count to 14 grams in the four-bite snack.  The after dinner snack seemed a minimal indulgence but was actually a double serving of the cereal at only a cup and a half, topped with a cup of whole milk, giving it 270 calories, 65 grams of carbohydrates and 8 grams of fat.  This mother also consumed a cola and a mocha latte that day for an added 420 calories and 65 grams of carbs. So, the grand total of snack calories for the day was 1580.  Her meal consumption for the day totaled only 1850, but the drinks that accompanied the meals increased the calories to 2280, bringing total calories consumed to 3860, about 1800 calories more than she should consume if she is trying to lose weight. (I should mention that this mother is no longer breastfeeding so does not need extra calories for milk production).

That first mother’s food diary showed a similar trend all three days. She was eating small meals that left her hungry and wanting to snack a couple of hours later. Snacks included high-calorie and high-fat additions such as sugared drinks, mayo, cheese, salad dressings, and whole milk dairy products that made her snacks weigh in almost as heavily as her meals. The homework I gave her was simply to increase portions of veggies and lean proteins at mealtime so as to decrease the desire/need for snacking in between meals. I advised her to switch to skim milk and low fat cheeses and to cut out mayonnaise and creamy salad dressings, replacing them with mustard and vinegars.  Drinking soda is like eating sugar out of the bowl and should be avoided.  Fruit juices should be consumed only a couple of ounces at a time, mixed with sparkling water to make a spritzer. Order coffee drinks with skim milk and no sugar so you can add your own sugar, which will normally be less than half the amount the coffee chains add, or better yet, skip the sugar all together.

The other mother also ate relatively healthy and balanced meals, though with less whole foods than the first mother; and she also sabotaged her diet with poor snack and beverage choices. The main difference was that her snacks didn’t even sound healthy. No matter the quantity, the quality of the food and drinks she consumed outside of mealtime was staggeringly unwholesome.  In the three days measured, she ate processed and packaged everything, including frozen microwavable sandwich pockets, potato and nacho cheese-flavored chips, low-fat cookies, snack cakes and donuts, flavored snack crackers with processed cheese spread. Perhaps most concerning was that her 3-year-old was snacking all the same foods. The mom was also drinking 5 sweetened drinks per day from sodas to pre-made sweet tea to breakfast beverages.  I gave her the challenge to drink only water and unsweetened beverages and to omit all packaged food for two weeks in order to develop new healthy habits.

After brainstorming with each of them, we came up with a list of alternative snacks and beverages to replace their old stand-bys. I advised them to continue at regular activity levels since both were exercising 3 or 4 times per week, and to eat their regular meals but to choose yummy snack alternatives between meals. Options included: a boiled egg with a can of veggie juice, a whole grain flatbread crisp with a quarter of an avocado and salt, tuna mixed with tomatoes and lime juice with whole wheat crackers, turkey breast slices rolled around pickle spears, hummus with fresh veggies, and simple fruits you can grab and go with like apples and bananas.  Skim milk and cheeses could be added to any of those snacks for a protein boost. Both women agreed to eliminate sugary drinks for the two week trial and drank only water, coffee and tea without sugar, skim milk, and a maximum of 8 ounces of natural fruit juice per day.

The results spoke for themselves. Both women lost 3-5 pounds in two weeks. Perhaps more importantly, they also both reported feeling better overall and no longer craving the sugary or processed foods that had been a dietary staple.

It’s food for thought. What you eat and drink outside mealtime and the drinks that accompany your meals may be sabotaging your diet.

In most cases, I have them on the right track to pelvic floor health in just one or two sessions. My secrets revealed….

The Pee Test: The first thing I do is assign the task of trying to stop the flow of urine. This simple task actually requires substantial PC muscle strength and women who leak when they sneeze invariably cannot stop their flow. The pee test serves as a good baseline measure for guaging progress with pelvic floor training. It is an effective test and a good technique to learn to isolate the PC muscles, but not a good way to try to exercise the muscles due to risk of irritating the urinary tract.

The Finger: Then I give homework. I instruct women to relax while lying on the back and to insert two clean fingers into the vagina before trying to squeeze the fingers with the inner vaginal walls. The hips should stay relaxed, with no contraction in the buttocks or the inner thighs so as to isolate the contraction to the inside. When they reach as strong a contraction as they can muster, I ask them to hold it for a count of 10 and repeat for 10 reps, 3 times a day.

Sexercise: Once you can manage a full set of 10 Kegel’s around the finger, the homework gets more fun when you engage your partner in the workout. The exercises is simple, same as above but using your partner’s penis in place of your finger. He will like this exercise as much as you do. And since Kegel’s have the added benefit of increased ease and frequency of female orgasm, it is a pleaser all around!

The PC muscles form a muscular hammock which supports all the internal pelvic organs including the uterus, bladder, anus and vagina

Stay tuned for other interesting ways to work your PC muscle in a future edition!

Kate Hudson in a string bikini on the beaches of Cancun also sparked a buzz, but without the ensuing rumors and allegations, probably due to the fact that her fantastic figure is 8 months postpartum.

Come to think of it, you don’t see many post-baby photos of celebrities looking pudgy. Since the average mom gains 20 to 35 pounds in a healthy pregnancy, did you ever wonder why that is? One explanation could be that they hide from cameras until they’ve shed their baby weight, which they seem to do at record speed. A second likely justification is the use of strong and sleek elastic undergarments to pull everything that’s loose into a seemingly tight package. There are no Spanx that fit under a bikini, though, so when they are baring all, it’s real.

An important factor in how much baby weight is gained and how quickly it is lost is the resources that celebrities have at their disposal.  The personal chefs, personal trainers, personal stylists, personal assistants, and all other personal staff that one might imagine can make it a lot easier to take care of one’s self during and after pregnancy. But the average mom shouldn’t use that as an excuse to support the flawed belief that she cannot maintain and regain her shape as well as the stars.  She has more references at her fingertips now more than ever. What it generally boils down to is quite simple: Eat Healthy and Exercise.  There are many resources to guide you on nutritional choices and easy-to-implement exercise routines. I will not hide my biased opinion and shamelessly plug my own book, Baby Weight, as the best of those available.

So, the next time you see a picture of Reese Witherspoon looking slim and trim even as her pregnancy progresses, remind yourself that even though she probably has a personal trainer and a private yoga instructor and a personal chef to help keep her on track, it is in the end the mama who makes healthy choices and shows restraint against temptation, and who does the hard work to exercise regularly to keep her body toned. Every mama can do that. Yes, even you.

There, I said it. So now that it’s out there, we can move on from the awkwardness of bringing it up to talking about solutions.

The drastic hormonal shifts during and after pregnancy are the primary culprit for the stopped up feeling. Other factors include activity level, diet, and stress or anxiety.

Here are 5 things you can do today to get you going:

Drink 10 glasses of water a day. Dehydration worsens constipation. When your body needs water, your bowels slow even more and feces become harder. Simple as that. Before you have anything else to eat or drink, down 2 glasses of water. Then drink water steadily throughout the day.

Exercise regularly. Walking 20 to 30 minutes a day at a moderate pace not only burns calories and increases strength as well as muscular and cardiovascular endurance, it also stimulates intestinal movement.

Eat your fiber.  Fiber makes the digestive process work more efficiently. Since fiber is not absorbed or digested by the body, it moves through the digestive tract, pushing all other intestinal contents with it. Soluble fiber also helps with constipation by absorbing water to make stools softer. Natural sources of fiber include all fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, and legumes like beans and lentils. Some fiber-packed options: broccoli, pears, raspberries, split peas, lentils, black beans, and artichokes. Add a cup of bran cereal to your diet every day to boost your fiber quotient. All Bran does it for me, every time.

A simple stretch (or two). Who knew that these great stretches for the low back are also good for intestinal health!?

Knee to Chest: Lying on your back, draw your right knee in toward you chest while keeping the left leg straight; hold it for 5 deep breaths to stimulate the ascending colon. Release and switch, straightening the right leg and drawing the left knee in toward your chest; hold for 5 deep breaths to stimulate the descending colon. Repeat 5 times on each side.

Lying Twist: Lying on your back with knees bent and arms stretched out to the sides in a “T”, drop your knees to the left then extend theright leg to straighten the knee. Hold it for 5 deep breaths then repeat on the right. Do 3 to 5 reps on each side.

Take your time. Try to give yourself the time to go in the morning. After you’ve had your 2 glasses of water and high fiber breakfast, sit down to read the news or write a couple of emails for 10 minutes. Often, that’s all it takes to get things moving. If your first thought after reading this suggestion was “Yeah right, who has time for that?”, you must simply make the time. Get up 10 minutes earlier and put it into your routine. You will see the results immediately and will be a happier mama for it.

• Increased weight of the breasts causes a more forward head and rounded shoulders, and an achy neck and midback.
• Increased weight and forward displacement of the uterus shifts the body’s center of gravity upward and forward, causing lumbar swayback and a tight and achy low back.
• Lax ligaments in the pelvis set the stage for sciatic nerve impingement or pubic symphysis pain.

The stretching of the abdominal muscles over the expanding uterus causes the muscles to weaken and lose effectiveness in their role as stabilizers of the lumbar spine. Did you know that abdominal weakness is the main culprit in low back pain in all populations (not just pregnant ladies)? Tight cervical spine muscles and weak thoracic extensors account for most neck and shoulder aches.

Fortunately, much can be done to counteract the persistent forces of gravity, reducing the postural changes of pregnancy and the resulting aches and pains:

Just a few minutes a day of stretching what is tight and strengthening what is weak can go a long way toward a pain-free pregnancy and a rapid postpartum recovery. So, don’t delay… get moving, mamas!

That’s all fine and good, well-intentioned and healthy-seeming.  But now that a month’s passed, what have you actually done? Did your New Year’s resolutions instigate a momentum toward a positive change?  Or have you left your resolutions by the wayside and slipped back into your old ways?

I am no different than the masses. My resolutions don’t have staying power beyond the first week or two. I think that we set ourselves up for failure by aiming high without much resolve.  So this year I decided to think small, to aim low. It might seem slothful to set easy-to-achieve goals.  But this year I thought I should make my goals about what really matters; and to me, the little things matter more than the big stuff.

1)Breathe deeply and smile before reacting to anything. I tend to be hotheaded and often regret my first reaction. A deep breath gives me perspective. The smile immediately changes my mood.

2) Look for the positive when speaking to my children. There is always a positive way to phrase every comment.  Looking for the positive makes me think about how I am wording my message, which ultimately makes it far more effective.

3) Exercise before anything. Even if it’s just 8 minutes of power yoga or a 15-minute brisk walk, I know that if I start my day with physical activity I have more energy and am happier, which spills over to those around me. I make my workout time a priority, scheduling it like I would any important appointment. My health and my sanity make me a much better wife, mother, and professional.

4) Eat more vegetables.  Eating more of the good stuff helps me eat less of the not-so-good stuff, gives me more energy, and keeps my weight in check.

Now entering the second month of the year, this is the most successful I have been in sticking to my promises to myself. My low-achiever resolutions will likely be the biggest impetus to a meaningful change that I have yet experienced.  Go figure… Perhaps it’s the small resolutions that lead to personal evolution.

Now that we are in the thick of the holiday season, and the recurrent parties with endless supplies of that which I should not eat in the quantities that I eat it, I am trying a new tactic: Abstinence.  That’s right, T-totalling abstinence. Those butter cookies served with the hot chocolate at my son’s Christmas pageant, they don’t even exist. The hummus with pita chips and pecan turtles, I don’t see you, smeel you, or crave you. Out of sight , out of mind.

I’m not skipping the parties this year.  I’m simply avoiding the eats.  My strategy starts with a strong foundation: I eat well before I go to a social function so I don’t have any legitimate excuse of hunger to aid and abet my compulsion. Then the geographic component: I find a new post, as far away from the food table as possible, and position myself so that the tempting spread is not in my line of sight. That’s it.  With these simple changes, I am finding it surprisingly easy to not eat.

If on a trip to the restroom my place slows and I linger too long by the buffet, a little voice in my head, firm, gruff, and military-sounding, says, “Ma’am, step away from the food table”. With that I can smile and move on.

The only danger in this seemingly flawless plan is that my new parking spot end up too close to the bar, where new laws of abstinence do not apply.

Last year I gained the usual 5 or 6 pounds between November and January.  No biggie.  Only this time it didn’t come off on it’s own.  I noticed in April it was still there and consciously started limiting my indulgences.  I normally eat pretty healthy and exercise pretty regularly, so a little modification usually brings me results.  By August, in clear denial, I asked my doctor if I could stop by to weigh myself because I was sure the scale at my office needed to be calibrated.  He reassured me that I looked great and had no need to worry when I weighed in at 6 pounds more than my 15-year normal, which was exactly my weight at 12 weeks postpartum.  I was perplexed. Could it be that my metabolism was finally catching up with my age?  It was as if my body woke up on my 37^th birthday last October and decided to behave like a 37-year-old. Not one to act my age, especially the older I get, I was confused by the situation and continued to hope that it would magically rectify itself with my normal healthy lifestyle.  After all, my clothes still fit. No need to panic and do something drastic like DIET.

I don’t have a scale in my house, to keep me from obsessing over numbers.  And since I moved up to Florida, I don’t have one at work either.  There is a big scale in the grocery store near my house, though, so I weigh myself once a week or so.  I leave my purse, phone, keys, and even my 2-ounce flip flops on the floor and step on the big platform in front of everyone who cares to see.  The needle swirls on the giant dial, which always reads the same, between 5 and 7 pounds over what was my normal weight until last year.

With the passing of another birthday almost a month ago, I wondered if my body would now behave like a 38-year-old. For our birthdays that are only a day apart, my hubby and I decided to take our two boys on a cruise, our first. The ultimate opportunity to overindulge, we enjoyed it to the fullest. While I didn’t eat 3 desserts at every meal as my sons did (who are normally sugar-deprived…they’d died and gone to cheesecake heaven!), I did frequently enjoy rich and delicious foods that I would normally shy away from, which was great fun and I have no regrets.

We returned to meet back-to-back visitors for over 2 weeks. When people are on vacation, they eat and drink like we did on our cruise. And to not be rude, we joined them! So, two more weeks of gluttony…

I woke up one day last week nauseous, then felt disgusted when I caught a glimpse of my once-flat tummy in the bathroom mirror on my way into the shower.  For a brief instant I thought I might be pregnant, from the way I looked and felt. Then I remembered my hubby’s vasectomy.  I was just saturated, too much good food and good drink.  It was time to do something.  With the rapidly-encroaching holiday season promising at least another 4 pound weight gain, I’ll have to buy myself new clothes for Christmas.  On the brink of defeat, drastic measures are in order…  that’s right, a DIET.  Stay tuned for progress…

The centenarian finished the 26.2 mile race in 8 hours 25 minutes, nearly two hours longer than Amber Miller’s time in Chicago a week earlier.  Neither are impressive times.  What is remarkable is that a hundred-year-old man and a woman who is nine months pregnant can move continually for 8 and a half and 6 and a half hours, respectively.  It is mind-boggling because it challenges the conditioned belief that we are capable of such feats only in our prime.

If you think Fauja Singh has been running endurance races all his life, think again.  Sunday’s race was his eighth marathon.  He completed his first at 89.  Mr. Singh attributes his agility and longevity to having abstained from alcohol and tobacco and following a vegetarian diet all his long life.  While I am sure that those healthy lifestyle choices have contributed to his astounding accomplishment, I would venture to say that it has as much to do with what he’s put into his head as what he has put into his body.

We as humans, inherently lazy by nature, look for excuses to justify why we don’t challenge ourselves, not only physically but also to achieve greatness in general.   These two amazing athletes are testament to that which we all know to be true deep-down inside, that we can do anything we set our minds to if we believe.

So, put that in your head, and get moving… toward physical fitness and your personal greatness.  No excuses!

Amber Miller is testament to the pregnant woman’s ability to continue even hard-core athletic training throughout pregnancy, right up until the final moments, in fact.  The 27-year-old from Weschester, Illinois was 39 weeks pregnant when she finished the Chicago Marathon last Sunday in just under six and a half hours.  Amber started to feel contractions just minutes after crossing the finish line.  Her healthy 7 lb. 13 oz. daughter, June, was born less than seven hours later, not surprisingly without complication.

While it is not the norm to see a very pregnant runner complete a marathon, it is not extraordinary that a pregnant woman continue training in her sport of choice.  There is much research to support the safety and the benefit of moderate to high-intensity aerobic conditioning and strengthening, both for mother and for baby.  One doctor in particular, James F. Clapp, M.D. has spent most of his career researching the physiological effects of prenatal exercise on the pregnant woman and the fetus.  His findings suggest that not only is it safe for women who were athletic before pregnancy to continue to train until the last days of a healthy pregnancy, it is also beneficial to mother and baby.  Active women who stay active until the last day of pregnancy experience shorter labor with fewer complications and require less medical intervention.  They gain less weight during pregnancy and return to their pre-pregnancy weight faster.  The babies of those mothers also experience fewer complications and require less medical intervention during labor, and are born at healthy birth weights but with less body fat than babies born to sedentary mothers.

Women who were not active before pregnancy can safely begin to exercise while pregnant, but it’s recommended that they stick to lower-impact exercise such as walking, swimming, the elliptical machine, and low-impact aerobics classes for cardiovascular conditioning, until a few months postpartum.  So, while pregnancy may not be the time to start to train for a marathon, a woman can continue to do so if she was training before pregnancy.  Active women can safely  continue their normal activities as long as their bodies allow, with exception of activities with a high risk of falling and abdominal trauma such as downhill skiing and horseback riding.  Nearly every woman can safely perform a core-strengthening routine to gain and maintain muscle tone in the muscles weakened most by pregnancy and childbirth.  As always, she should consult her doctor or midwife before beginning a new exercise program.

In a press conference Monday, Amber Miller stated, “For me it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”   Here’s to you, Mrs. Miller, for being amazing while ordinary.  I hope your story helps others believe in the normality of hard-core exercise during pregnancy, and motivates mothers to get moving!