Well folks, here I was thinking I finally had an excuse to slack off. I figured if I was pregnant, I could eat whatever I wanted and lie around on the couch. Nope. Being over or underweight can be a problem. A pregnancy workout is super healthy for you during pregnancy, and can be helpful for giving birth, preventing back pain, and lifting your baby once they are born.
Weight Management During Pregnancy
Be really careful with this. Do not set your weight loss app to lose weight as fast as possible like I did before I got pregnant, which I would give up a week later. You can make changes to lose or gain weight, just do it slowly and gently.
There are charts that can help show you how much you should weigh. Most tables show you how much to gain based on what your BMI was before getting pregnant. Yes, BMI was a system first designed for cattle and then applied to white, European men, and it has never been revised for everyone. But it is a ballpark. The way this works is if you were underweight before getting pregnant, you focus on gaining more weight during pregnancy. If you were overweight, like me, you focus on still gaining weight, but less weight. A pregnancy workout can help with this. I made putting batteries in the scale that hasn’t worked in over a year, a project for my spouse. It has disappeared, which I am taking as a sign he is working on it, not that the scale trolls have stolen along with half my socks.
I do use Myfitnesspal to log my meals and exercise. I looked up the average calories women need per trimester, and I try to stay within these goals. What I am eating is also really important to me. Foods like kale, bananas, protein, and calcium are important. You know, all the stuff that is important for you before you get pregnant but chips taste better. If you are interested in my meal plan, I am happy to share it, just let me know in the comments!
#FitBump
I was just going to walk the dogs for 30 minutes a day and do training for my pregnancy workout. Then today, I realized there is a pregnancy strength training set of videos with Apple Fitness +. I promise I am not getting paid by Apple, though I love their products so if they want to sponsor me, I would be ok with it… The video I did was light strength training with a 10 pound dumbbell and had squats and lunges and stuff. I watched the video on my iPad, it automatically connected to my Apple Watch and showed me my heart rate and calories burnt on the screen live.
There are a bajillion Youtube videos for pregnancy workouts as well. Obviously Youtube is for anyone to post on, so be careful which one you choose. If it feels like they are doing something crazy, they probably are. And this is kind of a good method for anything in pregnancy. If something you are doing feels uncomfortable, it is ok to stop. Now obviously some of the things that feel uncomfortable you can’t just stop. Like, ok your feeling nauseous? Well just stop! Yeah, right. But when it comes to workouts and eating, listen to your body. If your normal workout routine feels ok, and doesn’t include a lot of jumping or super heavy lifting it is probably ok. With eating, if you feel full, don’t over stuff yourself. If you are still hungry after your calorie limit, eat some more, I would just recommend you choose something healthy like a cheese stick or baby carrots.
Listen To Your Body
Folks, listening to your pregnant body is what it is all about. You say you are going to be one of those awesome people who runs a 5k while they are pregnant. And you come out the gate strong and your body says, “please gods no, stop!” Listen to that voice. You can always come back to it tomorrow, and chances are it will get better.
Remember you are creating a human! I may not always feel like it, but your body is working overtime even when you are just sitting down, much less working out. You are going to end up pumping twice as much blood, and your body temperature is going up, and your breathing increases to compensate, and your heart rate goes up. All of these are things to pay attention to when you are working out. For reference, yesterday I only walked the dogs. When I got just under a mile in, I got nauseous, and 1 mile in my body screamed at me to stop. Today I walked the dogs again and just over a mile I got nauseous. I still got tired at the 1 mile mark, but my body was not mad at me today. So I decided to do a pregnancy workout, which actually felt great.
Which workouts do you do? Are there any pregnancy weight loss tips your have? Let us know in the comments!