Most women can safely participate in physical activity throughout their pregnancy, and the benefits of being physically active throughout this unique time of their life generally will outweigh the risks. Exercise goals during pregnancy should include maintaining a sense of well-being, avoiding fetal harm, and maintaining regular exercise sessions to decrease the risk of chronic diseases or conditions.
Track Morning Sickness
Track your morning sickness to understand what times of day you experience symptoms. The title ‘morning sickness’ is not always true – some women can experience symptoms at any time of the day. Use a pregnancy app that allows you to track symptoms so you can analyse any symptom patterns.
Modify Exercise Timing
Modify your workout time based on when you typically do not experience symptoms. If you’re a person who likes to workout first thing in the morning, it might not be realistic to continue to work out at this time due to unfavorable symptoms. There will be times in the day that you won’t experience symptoms, so prepare to use that time for working out.
Decrease Exercise Intensity
This change can be difficult to mentally accept for anyone who is used to high-intensity workouts. Decreasing your exercise intensity allows you to continue your workouts and enjoy the positive effects of exercise.
Be Open To Changing Workout Routines
Your body is constantly changing – so don’t get stuck on a specific type of workout.
Any type of exercise can be good for your body, and being flexible to changing your workout to meet your body’s needs will allow you to maintain a happy relationship with exercise.
Monitor Intensity
Use a heart rate monitor to maintain the right level of intensity for you.
The right level of intensity could be different day-by-day, but keep the intensity to a moderate level at most. Track your heart rate and track how you felt when you were at that level so you can appropriately manage your intensity during future workouts.
Be consistent with wearing your heart rate monitor and you will quickly learn what heart rate ranges are right for you.
Remember, this will also change as you get further along in the pregnancy.
Track Your Baby’s Growth
You can get discouraged for example “going up three flights of stairs and being totally winded” but be aware that your lungs are compressing to give the baby more room to grow. Learning about this adaptation can help you to focus on what your body is going through in order to grow a tiny human.
Accept Weight Gain As Part Of The Process
One of the hardest elements of pregnancy for any women to mentally overcome can be the weight gain that comes naturally.
A good thing to focus on is the importance of gaining weight in order to deliver a healthy baby, and not associate the weight gain with fat or other negative thoughts.
Knowing that the fetus would be 6-8 pounds, the placenta would be 2-3 pounds, the amniotic fluid would be 2-4 pounds, the uterus and breasts would be 5-7 pounds, and muscle and fat would be 1-6 pounds – it won’t seem as mentally hard to accept the 20-30 pounds that you will be gaining because you can associate the weight gain with growing a healthy baby.
