If we were sharing a pot of tea…

Lately I’ve been in teaching mode, giving you all my tips for staying healthy through the holidays. But I need a bit of a break from that today, as you might too. Today, I just want to sit down and tell you what’s been going on with my life lately, as I used to do more often, because there’s some really good stuff and some not so great, real life stuff. It’s not all healthy food and European travels like my Instagram shows, and I just want to chat with you about it for a minute, as if we were sharing a pot of tea at a café (you can have coffee if you’d like, I don’t mind), or cuddled up on the couch in our comfy clothes with the Christmas lights on.

So, if you and I were sharing a pot of tea…

I’d tell you how my pregnancy is going.

Yes, I’m pregnant! In case you didn’t know already. This little guy is kicking and making his presence known to the world, by growing dramatically in the past two weeks. All of a sudden, I feel like my belly “popped” as they say. Which is nice because I like that people can tell I’m pregnant now. I was more self-conscious at the beginning than I realized I would be because I felt fat, rather than pregnant. Past pregnant friends had told me they felt that way, but I didn’t understand how they weren’t enjoying their growing belly with a baby inside. Once I got pregnant, the same thing happened to me, like the best of them, even with all the body image work I do. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy being pregnant at the beginning, it’s just that I didn’t enjoy feeling bloated or the discomfort of my tight clothes, because I spent so much of my life relating those two things to feeling fat. I imagine I’ll post more on this later, but I’m currently happy to be noticeably pregnant. And so happy to have a healthy (and big according to doc) baby boy growing inside me. 

I’d tell you that I had a crappy birthday, and I’d try to do so without crying.

As some of you know from my Instagram post, I share my birthday with the anniversary of my mom’s death. It is a bittersweet day, always, but usually I can enjoy my birthday along with the occasional sadness. I couldn’t do it this year. This year was the ten-year anniversary of her passing, and I’m also embarking on a new life adventure that I want to tell her all about and ask her all about. A friend told me recently that she and her mom got so much closer after she became a mother. This realization was hard for me; that I don’t get that opportunity with my mom. It sucks. Usually I can see the positives in everything, but this week, I’m just letting myself feel the sadness. I’m letting the tears flow, knowing that it will get better, as it always does. I don’t think pregnancy hormones are helping matters. I got a manicure on my birthday to try to cheer myself up, but it was a subpar 15-minute manicure and it turns out it cost 65 franks ($65). I left feeling defeated, and was in tears on the tram ride home. Who knew an expensive manicure could bring a girl to tears?! Hah. Just one of those weeks.

I’d tell you that I’m so happy with my business and so excited for it’s future.

It’s been one year since I started my health coaching business and I’ve never felt more fulfilled in a job. I’ve helped women with their health, I’ve shared my knowledge via multiple platforms, I’ve gotten myself out of my comfort zone, I’ve invested in myself and business, and I’m believing in myself. I’ve had some wins and some failures, but both are leading me on this path that I feel destined to be on. I honestly want to work every single day, which is the coolest feeling to have, especially when I’m currently making less money than when I was a part-time nanny (hah!). I’ve made some great friends along the way – some awesome local solo-preneurs like myself in the area of health and wellness. My friend Martina is a Beauty coach, helping women feel beautiful inside and out (she has an awesome !), Andrina is my favorite yoga teacher and fellow health coach, Sandra is a dietician who just had a beautiful baby boy, and Janne is an Ayurvedic doctor with a new podcast (for those that want to practice their German ;). Then there is Lisa, who leads amazing mastermind groups, and Mallory who started her very own Spin studio in Zurich. I feel lucky to have found such a community of like-minded women in this foreign land I live in!

I’d admit to you that I’m so confused as to when and what I should be eating.

My goodness, pregnancy throws your eating habits through a loop. The first three months, I slowly figured out that I had to eat within five minutes of waking, or I’d be nauseous. And all I wanted to eat was complete junk food (mostly carbs). I was embarrassed to be a health coach eating what I was eating, but I couldn’t imagine eating a piece of broccoli or fish for the life of me. Now, in the second trimester, I am not averse to anything, but I have to eat 2 breakfasts or I’m starving. As of last week, I have acid reflux, which I guess is rather common in pregnancy, so I need to cut back on my acidic food intake (chocolate is one of them! Yikes!). Our house cleaner tells me that’s because he has a full head of hair. Some days, I get so bloated that I look like I’m nine months pregnant. After some food experiments, it turns out that my body doesn’t like the cruciferous vegetables right now (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli…), as they are causing the bloating, so I have to cut back on those as well. The one thing I’m truly thankful for is that I learned about intuitive eating and can trust the fact that I can experiment daily and figure out what works best for the baby and me at any given moment. If I were still back in my dieting days, cutting out chocolate would have made me deep dive into the bag of chips! Luckily, I have the mindset that I know that I can have chocolate if I want it, but I am choosing not to in order to feel my best.

I’d tell you about how excited I am for our upcoming holidays! And also a bit nervous.

Jon and I are going on our “babymoon” over the holidays. Just the two of us. First, to my favorite German spa hotel over Christmas, and then to the Canary Islands over New Years. I’m excited to relax, read, bring along my new calligraphy workbook, and just be for a few weeks. But, it’s the first Christmas I haven’t been with Jon’s or my family, so I’m a bit nervous that I’m going to be homesick. Hopefully it will pass quickly and we can truly enjoy ourselves, as it will be our last big holiday as a family of two.

All in all, life is good. I feel so fortunate to have a precious baby on the way, a family that I love, and a career that I’m passionate about. But as with anything, this life comes with ups and downs, and I just thought today would be a good reminder of that, in case any of you can relate.

At this point, I’d pour us another cup and it would be your turn to gush about the good and vent about the bad. I swear, I’m a good listener too 🙂 (Feel free to come on over and chat with us in our Facebook group!).

I hope your holiday season is turning out how you hoped it to be, and that any emotions that come up, you take time to feel them, and know that they will pass. And distractions usually always help (except for overpriced manicures!).

Much love to you all! Thanks for letting me share today.