Relaxin: Not as Cool as it Sounds

First of all here are the pictures from Week Four as promised. You can see that my remaining "baby weight" is hanging out in my lower abdomen and chest (for obvious reasons). Hopefully once I can shed the lower ab weight, I'll be able to fit into my pre-pregnancy pants. Tops (other than T-shirts and loose fitting ones) I think are a lost cause for the most part until I am no longer breast feeding.

On Sunday, I managed to run a little over three miles but my knees are KILLING me! Hunter is calling me "grandma" and I'm concerned that if this continues I'll be asking Santa for a new set of knees next year. I decided to do some investigating because this pain is like nothing I have ever experienced. I've had knee pain before, but never this bad or lingering.

I vaguely remembered reading about some sort of hormone or chemical that your body releases that loosens your joints and ligaments during pregnancy to enable you to physically give birth. Well according to my midwife this hormone is called RELAXIN and it does exactly what you think- causes the softening of ligaments which means you need to be extra careful of your joints and muscles. But I had a baby almost seven weeks ago, why is this still affecting me?! Again, according to my midwife as well as some online research, if you are a breastfeeding mama this hormone (along with a bunch of other ones) are still present. Your hormones won't go back to normal until you are not breastfeeding. Also research is inconclusive about how long relaxin affects your body, some believe it can be up to 12 months after you wean! It is suggested that you take it easy on your joints as you rebuild your strength.

Well this pesky little hormone is raining on my postpartum fitness plan! I was planning and still hoping on running my first marathon in the fall of 2011. However, my knees are too precious to sacrifice for my personal goal because obviously I would like to continue to run after 2011 and not be getting knee replacements at the age of 26! So this knee pain is causing me to revise my fitness plan. I know I won't be able to give up running now that I have had a taste of it again, but I think I will cut back to one day a week and not three. I will focus the rest of my workout time on getting my core back into shape and strengthening my legs to better support my knees. Maybe by the time the new year rolls around, my knees will be done RELAXIN and up for the challenge of taking on a little more...