How to Stay Fit During Pregnancy

It is so easy to use the excuse of pregnancy to stop exercising. The benefits of staying fit during pregnancy outweigh any excuse you can come up with against exercising, minus having an at-risk pregnancy. There are many paths a pregnant woman can take to keep herself healthy, well and fit, and maintaining a healthy pregnancy is something that should be sought after.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Seek fitness advice from your obstetrician. It is always a good idea to check with the doctor and make sure there are no limitations placed on your physical activities. Also, the obstetrician can help formulate a positive nutritious diet and suggest fitness activities.

2. Incorporate a variety of different fitness activities into a weekly schedule. This can include organized classes in pregnancy yoga and other types of ‘mommy-to-be” fitness programs. By varying the week’s activities, it will help maintain motivation which will keep you inspired to exercise and stay fit.

3. Join a pregnancy club. Ask your doctor if one has formed through their office, or if you can start one. With a pregnancy club you have a group of pregnant women that meet weekly, or more, to discuss pregnancy, plan shopping trips and even put together a “stay fit” program. It often helps a pregnant woman stay busy and staying active can keep you fit.

4. Know your limitations and know when to stop. You can do this by monitoring your heart rate and not allowing it to go over 140 beats per minute. When you exercise, it should be gradual and not overly exhausting.

5. Create reasons to keep the body moving. For example, park your car in walking distance of the destination you need to go to. This way you will walk and encourage exercise.

6. Keep fitness activities simple. By keeping the activities simple, it will encourage you to do them more frequently and it will not seem like a task to incorporate the activities into your daily life. Also, keep the activity fun. An activity that is not fun for you will be an activity you will be less likely to continue and keep up with.

7. Monitor your weight. Make sure you discuss with your obstetrician the proper amount of pregnancy weight gain that is allowable for you and your body type. Gaining more weight than necessary will contribute to health problems during the pregnancy as well as make it harder to keep your body active. The extra weight of pregnancy places a strain on the body to begin with, so, you do not want to add more unnecessary weight on top of it.

8. Maintain a healthy diet. A pregnant woman that eats healthy nutritious foods and gets calories from healthy foods will have the energy to continue a fitness routine. Eating the wrong foods will make a person more lethargic and sluggish.

9. Drink plenty of water. Proper hydration is very important whether you are pregnant or not, but for a pregnant woman exercising, they need to drink more water to replace water loss that occurs during physical activity.

Tips & Warnings

• Any abnormal pain of feelings that occur while exercising should be reported to the woman’s obstetrician. Yes, it is important to exercise and stay fit while pregnant, but you do not want to over do it or ignore adverse effects that may be experienced during or after physical activity.

[Nyko]

on 2/16/2008 This is wonderful. Thanks for the information.