Tag Archives: pregnancy

Berry-Chocolate Green Smoothie Recipe, a.k.a. My Favorite Vegan Pregnancy Smoothie

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Vegan pregnancy breakfast smoothie

Today I’d like to share with you the recipe for a vegan breakfast smoothie that’s been a lifesaver for me during the past few weeks of my pregnancy. You certainly don’t have to be pregnant to drink it, but it makes a lot of sense to have it every now and then if/when you’re pregnant because of all the nutrition packed in it. Okay, I’ll admit that it may look like the most appetizing thing ever, but hey, some great things in life sometimes come in less than perfectly looking packages 🙂 For almost all of my pregnancy, my go-to breakfast during the week has been oatmeal of some sort – overnight oats, steel-cut oatmeal, or these microwaveable packets of oats in maple-brown sugar flavor that I had a craving for early on. However, around 7 months into my pregnancy oatmeal started giving me heartburn, and I knew that I … Read the rest of the post →

My Vegan Baby Shower: Mission Possible! The Menu, the Recipes, Plus the Food Prep Schedule

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A couple weekends ago I hosted my vegan baby shower. At 7.5 months pregnant, it was no easy task, but in the end everything turned out wonderful! Today I’m sharing how I managed to put together a delicious vegan spread for this party that was enjoyed both by vegans and non-vegans, plus the food prep schedule I used to make it all happen. To be honest, the idea of a baby shower has stressed me even more during this pregnancy than the thought of eventually going into labor! There were a few reasons for this: I’ve never entertained more than a handful of people at once at my home, wasn’t sure what to do with the menu and cooking (of course I wanted all the food to be vegan, plus it had to be delicious to impress even the non-vegan guests), plus the party entertainment aspect was completely foreign to … Read the rest of the post →

Working Out During Pregnancy: Full-Body Workouts for Each Trimester

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Working out during pregnancy remains a subject of controversy: it seems like people either believe that it’s important to stay active and maintain strength during these nine months, or that pregnancy requires avoiding physical exertion as much as possible. I lean towards the first group of thinkers as I’m seeing great benefits of staying active into my third trimester: I hardly have any aches or pains, my energy levels are pretty high most days, plus it’s encouraging to see that my body is still capable of kicking some a$$ at the gym despite feeling like it’s not completely mine anymore 🙂 Today I’m sharing my typical workouts that I’ve been doing during my first, second and third trimester. I approached this pregnancy being quite strong after a year of lifting heavy (I had a few injuries during that year though, so I scaled the weights back before I learned that … Read the rest of the post →

Working Out and Lifting Weights During Pregnancy: 5 Things to Keep In Mind

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When I announced my current pregnancy to my parents back in March, the first thing they said was, ‘You should stop going to the gym now!’ I’m not kidding 🙂 The myth that pregnant women should avoid working out while pregnant runs deep in our society – it’s even deeper in Russia where my parents live. Thankfully, more and more women are witnessing great benefits of staying active for as long as they can while pregnant. More energy, less aches and pains, feeling stronger, having a better body image – what’s not to like? (Please note that I’m talking about low-risk pregnancies here. If your pregnancy is taking a more complicated path, or if working out just doesn’t feel good to you – please take it easy. No judgement here!) When I found out that I was pregnant, I did lots of research about working out during pregnancy to make … Read the rest of the post →

Running For Two: 9 Lessons I’ve Learned About Running During Pregnancy

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Hi all! I haven’t written much about my personal life lately, so the truth is, a lot of things have changed in the recent few months, and even more are about to change in the nearest future. The biggest change, which I’m finally ready to talk about here on the blog, is the fact that I’m getting ready to become a mommy in October! The road to becoming pregnant has not been the smoothest, and I’ll talk about it sometime in the future. Rob and I happy that things have finally worked out for us, and looking forward to finding out what this vegan parenthood thing is all about! Getting pregnant coincided with a renewed interest in running for me. When I started this blog almost four years ago, being a runner was a sizeable part of my identity, but after completing my last marathon in June 2015, I lost … Read the rest of the post →