“Pregnancy is no longer a contraindication for physical activity, but is rather recognized as a window of opportunity for behavior modification. It is safe to continue or start most types of exercise…” - Dr. Ylva Trolle Lagerros, Karolinska Institute.
We all know exercise is healthy, but for some reason it becomes a controversial topic when you are talking about fitness during pregnancy. Centuries ago, expecting moms engaged in a lot of the same activities while pregnant as they did preconception; nowadays, there’s a lot of fear surrounding prenatal exercise. While there are some considerations and adjustments to make, particularly during the final months of pregnancy, exercise is generally a very good thing for both you and baby.
There are many reasons why you should keep exercising during pregnancy:
-gaining less weight;
- lowering chances of developing gestational diabetes or preeclampsia;
-recovering faster from childbirth;
- stabilising your mood swings;
-boosting your energy;
-preparing you for labour (hey labour is an endurance event for most women!!).
Beyond the physical benefits, exercise has mental affect as well, helping to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression. Exercise makes it easier to stay in-tune with your body as it changes throughout the pregnancy. This mind-body awareness can help you choose exercises that help prevent lower back pain, reduce hunching in the shoulders, and reduce the chance of injury.
Full disclosure from the beginning, I’m a personal trainer and a qualified pre-natal coach. My pregnancy was my own experience and my own journey of 9 months. Movement gives me energy, good mood and a great feeling of empowerment.
I do believe that energy creates energy and that if you have been exercising prior to great news of expecting a baby, you should keep exercising as far as your body allows you to do so, with a permission of your doctor, of course.
Once I got pregnant I straight away within a month noticed changes in my body. I always have been very sensitive to any hormonal changes in the body: my face doubled up in a size, my boobs became bigger and I got easily out of breath during my runs and walking uphill.
FIRST TRIMESTER
I know that most of women experience nausea or sleepiness during the first trimester, I was lucky enough not to go through this, plus I always trained clients early morning. It didn’t give me a chance to think if I want to sleep or not. I kept my own training at the same level as pre-pregnancy. I did experience a round ligament pain towards the end of the first trimester though, which slowed me down a bit with running but I never stopped.
EXERCISES
- I was running around 4-5 times per week.
- Doing weights at the gym 3-4 times per week with the same load of weights.
- 10 min of yoga or stretching in the morning every single day.
- My average daily steps count was around 20k.
EATING
I know they say there’s no need to increase your calorie intake during the first trimester but I was starving from the minute I woke up from the first week of pregnancy. So yeap I’ve started to eat more, good stuff though and not so good too.
COFFEE
I reduced my coffee intake to 1 large coffee per day – it’s a massive achievement for me cutting it from my usual daily 2-4 cups.
SECOND TRIMESTER
I was still feeling pretty fit but started to get tired at the end of the day after 25-27 weeks. I also developed plantar fasciitis, a sharp pain in my heel, which completely stopped me from running at the 27th week. Some days I could barely walk but I still was training my clients and was accumulating around 16k steps per day without runs. My last longest run of 21km was completed at the 22nd week and after that I’ve started to scale them back to 16/14/10km etc.
EXERCISES
- Since week 16 I’ve joined the boxing gym and started doing the boxing class once per week. Active recovery during this class would usually include something like 3 minutes plank + 100 push ups + 100 sit ups. I did my last boxing class at the 35th week.
- I also tried kickboxing at week 17 and really loved it but had to scale back as I thought all these kicks could be dangerous for my belly.
- I finished running at the week of 27 due to the heel injury.
- 10 min of yoga or stretching in the morning every single day.
- My average daily steps scaled back to 12-15k steps.
- I’ve started doing more weight training, around 5 times per week.
EATING
My appetite finally went slightly down. On the other hand, I started to eat chocolates at some point, not for too long though. I was training a group of pregnant ladies and always was checking in with them about their diet. Most of them confessed they eat chocolates and felt fine about it, so I thought I might do it too. Lots of sugar doesn’t work for me personally, so I had choccies occasionally as a big treat.
COFFEE
Reduced my coffee to 1 small almond cappuccino per day. Tried to quit twice, went through migraines etc to get back to it again.
THIRD TRIMESTER
That’s when I started to take naps during the day. I still consistently went to the gym, limited my walking to a minimum and used the car more often.
I also went to the gym early morning on the day of the delivery. I trained my clients to the 39th week and trained myself to the day of delivery.
EXERCISES
-In order to compensate my lack of running I did 20-40min of stationery bike at the gym twice per week.
-10 min of yoga or stretching every single day.
- Weight sessions now were limited to 25-30min, 5 days per week.
- Average step goals reached 12k per day.
EATING
I was still l eating ‘clean’ but I let myself enjoy occasional take away or eating out or peanut butter toasties before breakfast 😊I also promised myself that on the day of labour I had to have an ice cream. So guess what? We went to a gelato café with me having contractions, finished eating the ice cream and only after that headed to the hospital!
COFFEE
Reduced to 1 small cappuccino in 2 days. Can’t get lower than that, story of a caffeine addicted.