Is It Safe for Pregnant Women to Lift Weights?

2010 CrossFit Games competitor Heather Bergeron

First, a quick introduction to this post. I have been blogging off and on for a couple years now. It started primarily as a way for me to share my thoughts on the best ways for families to reach optimal health through the types of exercise and nutrition patterns I believe we were created to follow. Friends and family became increasingly interested in what exactly I was eating and feeding to our family (especially since I was pregnant with our first child when I started), so the blog kind of morphed into a glorified food log. You’ll see lots of posts in the archives with pictures of what I ate. Helpful to some people, but not exactly riveting blog content for any length of time. Turns out, it bored me too and I stopped posting for a while. Now I’d like to get back to the original intent of the blog: that is to share my own opinions, suggestions and research findings that might help people make healthy decisions for their family.

So, with no further adieu, I’m starting a series of posts to answer questions I get on an almost daily basis regarding what is and isn’t safe for special populations like expecting moms and young kids.

We’ll start in Part I with “Is It Safe to Lift Weights While You’re Pregnant?”

Has a friend or doctor ever told you not to lift anything “heavy” while pregnant? I’ve even heard the arbitrary number of 25 pounds as a weight limit from more than one medical professional – as if every woman’s capacity for strength is exactly the same. My toddler weighs 32 pounds. Does this mean I have to ask my husband to load him in and out of the car, the shopping cart, and the bathtub for 9 months?It bothers me when untruths are spread by people who have done no analysis or research into the topic, but it especially bothers me when medical professionals do it. We trust our doctors’ words as biblical truth, by and large. That leaves them with the responsibility to dole out well-researched advice. Putting an arbitrary weight limit on what pregnant women can and cannot pick up or lift overhead causes confusion and robs women of the significant benefits of strength training.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists publishes its recommendations for Exercise During Pregnancy on their web site. Nowhere in the document does it list any limitations on weight-bearing exercise. In fact, it lists some of the benefits of “exercising at least 30 minutes a day on most, if not all, days of the week” as promoting muscle tone, strength and endurance. The only forms of exercise the ACOG cautions against are certain activities where there is a high risk of falling or of trauma to the mother or baby (ie, downhill snow skiing, horseback riding, scuba diving, and contact sports like hockey, etc.).

I believe weight training during pregnancy is not only safe, but that it is critical for developing and maintaining core strength, bone density, and joint integrity. It also builds your lean muscle mass, which is the primary factor in your body’s metabolism (ability to burn fat). Movements like deadlifts and squats are integral to protecting a pregnant woman’s lower back and hips so she can support the weight of a growing baby, not to mention increase her ability to birth that baby naturally. Once the baby is born, there are innumerable tasks associated with bending, squatting, lifting and carrying at which the mother should be proficient so that (a) she doesn’t get hurt, and (b) life is simply not so difficult. Even a 7- or 8-lb infant carried around in those car carriers on your arm is enough weight to create back strain and hip imbalances in a mother with poor core strength.

So, HERE’S WHAT I’M NOT SAYING:

I’M NOT SAYING go to your neighborhood globo gym and copy all the bodybuilders doing heavy leg press and bench press.

HERE’S WHAT I AM SAYING:

I AM SAYING don’t be afraid to work with an experienced, competent trainer who has you doing a program that includes squats, deadlifts, presses and other functional movements with weight.

As I type this, I am 7 1/2 months pregnant with my second child, and I have been CrossFitting/lifting weights in some capacity for many years. I felt it was perfectly safe for me to do a metabolic workout last night involving 5 rounds of deadlifts, hang power cleans, and push jerks with 75#. That’s about a third of what I would have used pre-pregnancy. And I took far more breaks than I would have before. (In the photo, I’m with another pregnant trainer friend of mine who is just shy of 7 months pregnant herself. My smartphone doesn’t exactly take the best-quality images, especially in motion. But you get the drift.)

I have several clients who came to me in the beginning or middle of their pregnancies, never having done much (or any) strength training before. For someone like that, I would have significantly decreased the number of repetitions they performed, increased their rest time between movements, and used very little weight (maybe 15 lbs total) until their form was flawless and they had the core strength to support some additional weight. These women now have babies 6 months to a year old and their strength levels and coordination astound me. Their body composition is better than it has ever been in their adult lives. They talk of increased energy levels and more regulated moods – even through the sleep deprivation and energy required to nurse their infants.

Bottom Line: Yes, it CAN BE safe to lift weights while you’re pregnant (including your older children). The caveat is the movements must be executed properly and weight must be added very incrementally to what a woman was able to lift before. This is best done under the supervision of a qualified trainer. But the benefits are huge. So don’t be afraid to go out and look for one.

Check back for Is It Safe? : Part II where I’ll discuss the common recommendation that a pregnant woman keep her heart rate under 140 beats per minute.

I was nearly perfect on vacation last week. I can count the number of things I had that were sugar, grains or dairy on one hand. Nevertheless, I did have some “cheats” and no high-intensity exercise. I’ll need to be extra diligent at least for the next couple of weeks to repair any damage I may have done to my gut and/or immune system.

Here’s today’s log:

• Breakfast: 2 omega-3 eggs scrambled with leftover broccoli/bacon from last night + leftover rutabega + coffee (with 1 tbs whipping cream, 1 tsp maple syrup)

• Lunch: Leftovers from a big batch I made on Sunday:  grass-fed beef with diced squash, zucchini, tomatoes, olive oil, basil, garlic and oregano; water

• Pre-workout snack: couple pieces leftover chicken breast from last night
• Workout: CrossFit Total (3 tries to get your 1 rep max on back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift).
• Squat: 135-155-165 (PR)
• Press: 55-60-65 (PR)
• Deadlift: 155-165-175 (PR)
• CrossFit Total: 405 (PR)
• After a week off, I needed to do something to get my heart pumping, so I ran eight 30-second sprints with 1 min. rest between. Felt good.
• Dinner: Leftover pork and chicken from last night; purple kale from our co-op sauteed with coconut milk; salad with diced red pepper and leftover avocado dressing from last night as well.

Tuesdays are early for me. I should have been asleep two hours ago! Nite nite!

We had both sets of parents over for a Father’s Day dinner at our place last night (just makes life way easier to do things on your turf when you have a toddler). We’re so blessed both sides of our family are extremely supportive of our dietary choices and how we’re raising our son. On top of that, they are getting more and more paleo themselves every day. We try to cook new foods or prepare things new ways when they come over to hopefully introduce them to new vegetables or flavors they didn’t know they liked. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  :)  Last night pretty much worked, though.

• Hubby made a couple different dry rubs and grilled chicken breasts and a pork loin on his charcoal grill.
• I made a quick salad with a bag of romaine lettuce and a bag of spring mix, then added the avocado dressing from Everyday Paleo (avocados, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salsa verde – all in the food processor). That’s it – just lettuce and dressing, and it was really good! Had a slight kick to it.
• I peeled, diced and roasted a whole rutabega on a cookie sheet with olive oil, salt and pepper (400 degrees for about 45 min.) and it tasted just like breakfast potatoes to me.
• I also baked 6 strips of bacon (350 degrees for about 20 min.). After it cooked, I removed the bacon, but left the grease in the baking sheet. I chopped two heads of broccoli and tossed the florets in the bacon grease, added salt and pepper, and roasted the broccoli at the same time as the rutabegas (400 degrees for about 25-30 min.). I served the roasted broccoli in a bowl with the crumbled bacon pieces on top.
• For dessert, we had a ton of fresh blueberries, strawberries and blackberries. I also made some homemade whipped cream to go on top (whole whipping cream, a touch of maple syrup and some vanilla).

I know! I’ve been very quiet the last week and a half! Apologies to all six of my readers.  :)  We were on vacation, and while I had hoped I would take the time to continue my daily updates via Droid, I found I just didn’t have the attention span for all that typing on a handheld. But I had really good intentions. I logged everything on a napkin and took pictures of my food for the first four days. No gym time, but stayed pretty active – water sports, walks on the beach, deep sea fishing, running around after my toddler.  :)  Around Day Five, I decided, “Why am I doing this to myself? I know how I feel when I eat grains or dairy. Crappy. I know how alcohol and caffeine affect my sleep quality and work performance. Crappily. HOWEVER, it’s also making me feel crappy to deprive myself of a cup of coffee with my mom and her sisters while we play with the babies in the morning and cook breakfast. And it’s making me feel crappy to not have a glass of wine with our fresh-caught fish dinners each night. And it’s making me feel crappy to not have my Aunt Mae Mae’s made-from-scratch peach cobbler that I only eat once a year anyway.” ……. So, even though I hate to be a woman who goes against my word, I finally decided to take a couple of intermittent hiatus-es from my strict paleo challenge while on family vacation. And I’m glad I did!

Here’s what I would say to other “challengers” out there: (1) There will always be something … a wedding, a party, a vacation, a co-worker’s birthday, etc. If you have never gone through the exercise of cutting out sugar, grains, dairy and legumes for at least a full 30 days, my opinion is that it is imperative to do that and follow it to the letter. I’ve been living this way for nearly 3 years and though it may sound like my vacation shenanigans fall under “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do” dogma, I assure you there have been many, many 30-day periods strung back-to-back-to-back over those 3 years where I was grain, dairy and legume free. You have to start somewhere and a month is a manageable period of time to make those kind of commitments, mentally – and it’s generally enough time to start seeing positive changes in your body composition and overall health.

(2) The other side of that coin is, you gotta live a little. Although I think food is FAR too closely tied with celebration in our culture, that doesn’t mean it’s ALWAYS bad to celebrate with food. I just think it’s a little abused. When our children do well in school or sports or any other arena, our plan is to reward them with quality time … a visit to the zoo or water park, a sleepover with friends, etc. rather than a trip to Yogurtology. That is not to say we will never take our children to get ice cream. We definitely will. Ice cream is delicious. We just don’t want our family associating every type of celebration with copious amounts of sugar. All that being said, I wasn’t willing to turn down homemade peach cobbler on vacation. And I’ll be having cake when I turn 30 next month.  :)  You just have to be careful that “living a little” doesn’t become your rationalization for abusing sugar and perpetuating the addictive food cycle that made us overweight and unhealthy in the first place.

Comments welcome!!

Here are a few food pics from the trip, starting with the day we left. We tried not to let any food go to waste, so there was not much left as we were packing up!

Grass-fed beef sausage, 2 fried eggs and leftover cantaloupe. No veggies left!

Again, no veggies available for lunch; just some leftover romaine. Made lettuce wraps with canned tuna and the rest of my homemade mayo. A small lunch, but enough to get me through my afternoon workout.

The after-effects of "Badger." 3 rounds of: 30 squat cleans at 65lbs, 30 pull-ups (I used the small blue band), run 800 meters (1/2 a mile). I wanted to finish under 50 minutes, but when my hands split, it slowed down my pull-ups in round 3. Finished at 58:05. But the good news is, I felt great on the squat cleans!

Post-workout meal of sauteed cabbage, red onion and some leftover shredded chicken

We drove at night so Little Man would sleep and knew we'd need paleo food the next morning and on the rest of the drive that day. We took a cooler packed with: gluten-free sausage I pre-cooked, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, 2 avocados, dried coconut flakes, canned olives, celery and sunbutter, carrots and salsa, package of smoked salmon, Applegate Farms turkey and roast beef, gluten/soy-free beef jerky, 2 Larabars, and a jug of water.

One of the five times we had fresh red snapper that we caught ourselves straight out of the Gulf. Doesn't get much more primal than that!

I have nothing witty to say; I’m pooped.  :)

Day 9

• Slept: 11pm – 7am = 8 hrs
• Breakfast: Trying to clean out the fridge right now, so there are SLIM PICKIN’S … but I always have grass-fed ground beef in the freezer and pastured eggs in the fridge. No veggies left. No fruit left. But did have some organic salsa. So, voila. There you have it. (Oh, I ate off the baby’s plate. He was done. I didn’t want to clean a new dish.)  :)

• Lunch: Again, SLIM PICKIN’S. Can of tuna mixed with spicy mustard and homemade olive oil mayo, rolled up in lettuce leaves. Needed some more fat to fill me up and last through my workout later that day. Had to resort to another serving of that pudding-esque creation I made last night: 1/2 a banana, mashed with 2 Tbs coconut butter and 1 Tbs almond butter.

• Workout: Strength Day again. 5 sets of 3 power cleans at 102.5# (PR), up from 100# last week. 2 sets of 5 bench press at 82.5# (PR), up from 80# last week + 1 set of as many reps as possible (3). Then worked on pull-ups. 3 sets of 5 slow, dead-hang pull-ups with smallest blue assistance band.
• Dinner: Saved by my mother-in-law again.  :)  Burger patty with spicy mustard; roasted squash, zucchini, red pepper and sweet potato. Finished with one of her “Protein Balls” from Mark Sisson’s recipe book: nuts and dates mushed together in the food processor with some cinnamon, then rolled in shredded coconut. (Trying to limit the dried fruit as much as possible; this was fine for post-workout, though.)

Tomorrow, I will see how posting goes from my Droid. Never done it before. Let’s see how savvy I am.

Hormones. They control your whole entire life and we don’t even realize it. Women experiencing post-partum depression (a common hormone imbalance after childbirth) are prone to some pretty uncharacteristic behaviors that are not at all consistent with their true selves. Estrogen, testosterone and progesterone aren’t the only hormones running our lives, controlling what we think and how we feel. Insulin is a heavy hitter, too. And insulin is released in inordinate amounts when we eat sugar and grains. Removing these from the diet goes a long way toward not only weight loss and disease avoidance, but mood stabilization too. Imagine a day where you wake up in a good mood, first thing in the morning! You don’t get crabby with your kids or co-workers for no reason at all. You don’t snap at the intern for asking you where the copier is. You don’t come home wishing that nobody will talk to you for at least the first 10 minutes when you walk in the door. Anxiety, depression, irritability, nervousness, tiredness, and just plain old crankiness are often significantly reduced just by getting off the Insulin Roller Coaster. No pills. No side effects. Just clean, healthy food and a whole new outlook.

Day 8

• Slept: 10:30pm – 7:00am = 8.5 hrs
• Breakfast: 1 gluten-free organic sausage, sauteed in coconut oil; 2 fried eggs; 1/4 of an avocado; water

• Lunch: Meeting at Park Shore Grill. Spinach salad with carrots, red onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and sesame-crusted tuna steak; water
• Snack: small handful of dried cherries and some unsweetened coconut flakes
• Pre-dinner: Was going to be at more meetings from 6:00 – 8:30pm, so I needed something sort of substantial before I left. Last of the jambalaya leftovers with a little extra olive oil added.
• Dinner: Last of the beef roast from earlier in the week; last of the cauli rice I made at lunchtime yesterday; handful of frozen broccoli (We keep frozen fruit and veggies on hand for occasions like this – when you need to punch up a quick snack or some leftovers with extra nutrition).

• Dessert: Just needed a little something sweet. 1/2 a banana, mashed and mixed with 1 tbs coconut butter (I got mine at Rollin Oats in St. Pete) and 1 tbs almond butter. Stirred it all together til it was kinda like the consistency of pudding.
• No workout today. I hit Mon/Tue. Will have to hit Thu/Fri/Sat to meet my goal of 5 this week. No biggie!

It’s funny how your tastes change once you bring your tastebuds back to life. With packaged, processed, frozen and fast food options comprising the bulk of our calories, our ability to taste is deadened. Removing the super-sweet and the super-salty from the menu all of a sudden makes a fresh cherry taste like dessert. And coconut feels decadent. Water becomes refreshing. A little balsamic vinegar, olive oil and maybe some lemon juice is all your salad needs. Really. It’s a strange transition when you realize you’re actually TASTING your food for the first time in years.

Day 7

• Slept: Midnight – 5:30am = 5.5 hrs (FAIL!)
• Breakfast: At a meeting. 3 scoops of the buffet eggs and water.
• Early lunch: Leftover jambalaya. Made cauliflower rice to go with it that I intended for last night, but ran out of time.
• Snack: Rest of the jambalaya and more cauli rice; water.
• Workout: “Football Gone Bad” – 3 rounds of 5 exercises, 1 minute each: dumbbell thrusters (30# dumbbells, freakin’ heavy), box jumps (16″ box), push-ups (on toes, nose to ground), double-unders (jump rope with the rope passing under your feet twice for every one jump), row (for calories). My three rounds of thrusters were 10, 7, 5. Box jumps were 17, 19, 18. Push-ups were 16, 14, 18. Double-unders (brand new for me; this is what makes or breaks your final score) were 9, 9, 6. Calorie row was 10, 10, 9. Total score: 177.
• Dinner: Made by my sweet mother-in-law again since I was teaching class. Crockpot pork roast, steamed carrots, cauliflower “rice” with green peas, chicken and tamari. This was SO GOOD! (Green peas are technically a legume but are pretty low on the lectin / omega-6 scale, and do have plenty of fiber, B vitamins, Vitamin C, and Vitamin K. I put them in the “let’s not get crazy about the paleo rules” category. Same with tamari. This is wheat/gluten-free soy sauce. Yes, soy is generally not good for you. But the soy in soy sauce has been fermented and is much less toxic than products like soy milk, soy formula, tofu, edamame, etc. Personally, we buy Coconut Aminos instead of soy sauce or tamari. But a little bit of fermented soy once in a blue moon isn’t going to inflame me.)

• Snack: 15 frozen cherries (thawed) + couple tablespoons of unsweetened coconut flakes

Dude. Sugar addictions are real. I talked about it a little bit yesterday, but I’m having to seriously go out of my way to avoid sugar because if I don’t, it will grab me by the throat and throw me right off this wagon. For me, that includes fruit. Yes – fruit is nutritious and full of vitamins and antioxidants in many cases. But it is also chock-full of fructose; a huge insulin spiker. And one of the main purposes of eating this way is to keep insulin levels stable. I’m not saying don’t eat fruit. And I’m definitely not saying don’t let your kids eat fruit. Kids get unlimited amounts of fruit and sweet potatoes, in my opinion. But for adults working on body composition, healing the gut (most of us have “leaky gut” syndrome, google it), and increasing power capacity, fruit may need to be regulated a little. Personally, I’ve discovered I really can’t eat it for breakfast. I will be fuller longer if I just have eggs than if I have eggs and fruit. Because it spikes my insulin enough to cause a crash and I am hungry an hour later. Do not cut out all fruit from your diet … I’m just saying start paying attention to how you feel after you eat it and at what points in the day. And I would make sure it’s always paired with a protein and/or a fat (meaning: meat, eggs, olive oil, nut/nut butters, coconut flakes/coco milk/coco oil, avocado, or any combination of those).

Day 6

• Slept: 11:30pm – 7:30am = 8 hrs
• Breakfast: Finished the last of the broccoli and spinach I had in the fridge. Steamed it in a skillet with some homemade chicken broth (adds calcium and other nutrients from the chicken bones when it’s homemade; also lends a sweetness to the veggies); plus 2 scrambled eggs and 1/4 of an avocado; water to drink

• Walk: No walk today but chased Little Man around at Open Gym for an hour
• Lunch: Leftover pot roast and onions we made last night (specifically for lunches the next couple of days); steamed some squash/zucchini in that homemade chicken broth. Added some olive oil on top of the meat for a dose of fat. This was a feedlot roast which means the cow’s diet was crap and all the toxins his body stored were in his fat cells. We avoid as much of the fat as possible when we don’t get pasture-raised animals, then add it back in the form of olive/coconut oil or avocado with the meal.

• Snack: Headed to pick up a few things at Rollin Oats before dinner. Was getting really hungry and this place has an awesome organic bakery that I have hit up in the past. In order to avoid a pitfall, I needed to eat something before I left. (Never shop hungry!!) I had some leftover veggies from lunch. I mixed them with a can of tuna and some homemade paleo mayo (takes 5 min. in the food processor – another good “google”). It totally worked!! I didn’t even look longingly at the bakery; I forgot about it completely!
• Dinner: Jambalaya from Sarah Fragoso’s Everyday Paleo book … shrimp, fish, and I added chicken, plus carrots, red pepper, and a leek. (I love leeks. If you haven’t bought one or cooked with it before because you’re not sure what it is, try it! It has a slight licorice-y smell to it, but I don’t taste it when it’s cooked. A great veggie! You just have to slice it then pop the rings in a bowl of water to rinse all the dirt out of the crevices.) Topped the jambalaya with chunks of avocado.

• Workout: Strength day. Power Snatch: 5 sets of 3 at 75# (really working on technique these days; hopefully will go up in weight soon); Squat: 2 sets of 5 + 1 round of as many reps as possible. I did it at 135# (my bodyweight) and got 6 reps on the 3rd set. Clean and push press: 2 sets of 5 + 1 set of as many reps as possible. I did this at 75# with 10 reps on the 3rd set. It was hard not to “jerk” the push press, where you land in a partial squat and use your legs to get the weight back up to full extension. A true push press just allows you to dip your knees, but then your shoulders have to do the rest. Pull-ups: 3 sets of 5; I used the smallest assistance band and got 3 sets of 3. Last time I did this, I did 3 sets of 5 dead-hang pull-ups on the medium assistance band. I felt like I was ready for less assistance this time, so I went down to a smaller band but I couldn’t get 5 reps in a row, so I did 3 sets of 3. But still. I was happy with that.

Finally going to bed now. Good night!

Not having coffee was much less annoying today.  :)  That’s good.  Had to make a couple sacrifices due to situations outside my control, but such is life in paleo-land. You do the best you can with what you’ve got and you move on.

Day 5

• Slept: 11:30pm – 8am = 8.5 hrs (baby slept in!)
• Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs in coconut oil with sauteed spinach; 2 pcs nitrate-free bacon; water; a couple of Little Man’s blackberries while I was feeding him. (I try not to do fruit in the morning because it really spikes my insulin and makes me hungry sooner and just saps my energy before lunch. But berries are pretty low on the glycemic index and I only had a couple.)
• Lunch: Baby Shower. Ate the turkey and roast beef out of a couple half-sandwiches; spinach salad with red peppers and some kind of nuts (tried to pick around the goat cheese as much as possible), teaspoon of the honey mustard dressing. Here’s the important part: Did NOT have a cupcake, even though they were from Wright’s – the best bakery in Tampa Bay. I was thinking about it later and yes, it was because I’m doing a strict 30-day challenge, but not having sugar (for me) is really bigger than that. When I have it, I want more. If I had had one cupcake, I would have been wishing it was 3 or 4. And I would be far more likely to have sugar the next time it presented itself. Or worse, go out of my way to buy it and hide it. Sugar is a vicious roller coaster. The more I can stay away from it, the better off I am. Not to mention, I had a hard workout coming up later that day and I really couldn’t afford the crash.
• Snack: Starving when I got home that afternoon, so I heated up two of the grass-fed beef/spinach burgers I’d made for the baby yesterday and the leftover roasted vegetables he didn’t eat from our lunch at the Greek restaurant yesterday. Added a little spicy mustard and my homemade ketchup to the burgers – so tasty!
• Workout: (10) 400 meter sprints with 90 seconds rest between each one. BRUTAL! But I felt so good about 30 minutes after it was over. Mine were 2:11, 2:08, 2:09, 2:13, 2:31, 2:29, 2:34, 2:44, 2:29, 2:23 — for an average time of 2:23. We’ll see how much I can decrease that average in the next 30 days. I look forward to the re-match.
• Dinner: Had someone else cooking for us so I didn’t have a lot of control over this one: steamed squash and zucchini with meat sauce. A great paleo meal idea; we eat it a lot. Just this was conventionally raised ground beef (so, tip: drain the fat out after cooking. Grass-fed beef? I say keep the fat.) And the pasta sauce was Ragu – sugar listed as the third ingredient, followed by soybean oil. See? This crap is in EVERYTHING. We do use jarred pasta sauce from time to time but I look for an organic brand that’s on sale and buy a couple while the price is down. Muir Glen is the one I typically get from Publix. No objectionable oils or ingredients. Does have some added sugar, but a serving size yields 4g sugar vs. 10g in the Ragu.

All in all, we’ll put Day 5 in the “win” category.

I know I sound like a broken record … and  I’ll try not to keep saying this every single day from now on … but I still wanted coffee this morning! But I’m sure it’s more missing the habit of it than the actual caffeine. I wake up just fine as long as I get my 8 hrs. Anyway, here’s how we did Paleo on a weekend day when we had – quite literally – next to NOTHING in the fridge. (We ate out a lot!)  :)

Day 4

• Slept: 10:30pm – 7:30am = 9 hrs
• Breakfast: Sauteed some chopped broccoli in coconut oil, added a couple eggs and scrambled together. Tossed in some sliced local cherry tomatoes at the end; added more olive oil on top, after cooking for some extra omega-3 fat.

• Lunch: We got Little Man’s hair cut for the first time today at Hair On Central! (sad face; he’s so grown up!) It was gorgeous outside and we love hanging out downtown so we planned ahead by bringing the baby backpack and highchair. We strapped on the baby and walked a couple blocks to Acropolis for some unbelievably huge salads. They were awesome. Mine was blackened chicken with roasted squash, zucchini, red pepper, and artichokes (just asked for no feta, no pita). I used a tiny bit of the Greek dressing on the chicken because it was pretty spicy, but honestly, the meat was so flavorful and the veggies were pretty oily from the roasting that I really didn’t need salad dressing. If I had, I would have just asked for olive oil and vinegar, though.

• Dinner: Out with some great friends at Cassis. French food is notoriously slanted towards breads and cheeses, but a quick glance at the menu online before we left and I was all ready for my Tuna Nicoise Salad. Just picked out the potatoes. Everything else was spot on: tuna, cucumber, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes and green beans. So good. I will say, it did kinda suck not having a glass of wine though.

And there you have it. Paleo Challenge, Day 4 – Conquered. So far, a nourishing, fun weekend!