Spiru-what?

There hasn’t been a lot of fitness talk around here lately. Or at all.

That’s because there hasn’t been much fitness going on on my part. In fact, I really haven’t been taking very good care of myself at all.

If you don’t read the tiny sneakers section of this blog, I should fill you on one key thing: I have a baby that doesn’t sleep. Not a baby that gets up a couple times a night. A baby that gets up all.night.long. For almost 5 months now. Needless to say, the sleep deprivation is catching up to me.

<—from #photoadayjune for “Morning”.

{Join in on Instagram- I’m @sideofsneakers!}

While I was surprisingly able to keep it together during the newborn days- walking, jogging, yoga- that’s all slowly faded away. Chronic sleep deprivation makes your brain stop working. It makes your body weak and foreign. I feel like I’m living in a heavy fog.

Planning and preparing healthy meals and sticking to an exercise routine takes energy. Energy I don’t usually have to spare. But if I don’t take care of myself, the sleep demons will win and I won’t be able to take care of my son and enjoy my time with him.

So even though some days I feel like I’m one thread tug away from unraveling at the seams, it’s time to take what energy I have and make my health a priority- something that used to come naturally but will now take dedicated effort.

Besides taking care of myself, I feel like I’m eating for two now more than when I was pregnant. I’m literally my son’s sole source of nutrition. If I don’t eat the nutrients he needs to thrive and develop, he doesn’t get them.

Before I can get back into running and training and those exciting things, I need to build my muscle strength back up. I’m not only restarting postpartum, I’m restarting from a pre-pregnancy injury. I do NOT want to go down that road again.

It all comes down to eating right- and eating enough. You can’t build muscle without extra calories and breastfeeding already takes a lot of extra calories. I’m an eating machine these days.

Receiving some supplements from Nutrex-Hawaii was just the push I needed to focus in on my health. Spirulina, something I’ve only previously tried in greens powders, not on it’s own, is a serious super food. It has more protein than tofu- 375% more actually. Plus 5,500%  more iron than spinach. It’s a blue-green algae loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Research has shown it helps boost energy levels {Amen!} and improves immunity. I’m looking forward to incorporating it into my daily intake and seeing how it affects how I feel.

I’ll also be trying out a new-to-me supplement of BioAstin, which is astaxanthin, another type of microalgae known for it’s anti-inflammatory properties. I feel like this supplement was custom made for me: it’s supposed to help with rheumatoid arthritis, which is similar to the issues I have in my hands & feet, as well joint and muscle soreness after exercise, which I’ll certainly be experiencing on my road back to fitness, and internal sun protection, which I more than need for our summer beach trip- I fry in about 30 seconds flat.

I’ll be sure to report back once I get a chance to try these super nutrients and see if I’ve noticed any benefits. If you want to learn more about super nutrients, join me in a Twitter chat tonight at 9pm EST! Follow along & ask questions with the #supernutrients tag. Rumor is there’ll be some prizes too.

FitFluential LLC compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.

Have you tried spirulina or astaxanthin before?