Exercise During Pregancy

I was a Zumba lover before I got pregnant.  Work would sometimes get in the way of me making it to a class, but there were periods over the past 1-2 years where I would Zumba consistently 2 times a week, sometimes 3 if I could squeeze in a weekend class!!!  The rule with exercise during pregnancy seems to be that if you did it before, you can likely safely do it during pregnancy.  I remember one of my favorite Zumba teachers shimmying throughout her pregnancy, up until about a month before she delivered!  I remember thinking she was amazing and hoped that I'd be able to do prego Zumba too!

Source

Alas, here I am, nearly 19 weeks pregnant and only having gone to the gym a measly ONCE so far.  October 13 seems so long ago.... though I can still remember very clearly the nausea I felt when I got off the elliptical machine that day...  It seems like it hasn't let up since then!  ;)

Well, couch potato no more!  Hubby and I went to the gym together today!  {He really has been the one guilting encouraging me to go back for weeks, since all the pregnancy books try to trick you into believing that once the first trimester is in the rear view mirror so is the fatigue and nausea...}

I walked for 30 minutes on the treadmill and then did about 2 sets of 10 bicep curls on each arm using a 5 pound dumbbell before I had to call it quits.  Although I drank a full 16 ounce bottle of water while walking and didn't walk too fast or on too steep of an incline, I somehow wound up feeling pretty crappy by the time I left.  I had a little of a cramp in my side {possibly from the water, though I made sure to sip it slowly} and couldn't even bring myself to lift each arm another 10 reps.  I was a little disappointed, but I guess that's not too bad for my first visit back to the gym in over 2.5 months.  Let's hope it's not another 11 weeks before I make it back again...

I really want to work on some more arm toning and definitely some stretching and other prego-friendly exercises over the next few months.  There are a number of benefits to exercising during pregnancy.  They say that having a baby is like running a marathon, and there's noooooo way on God's green earth I'd ever be able to do the latter, so I'm thinking I need to prepare as best as I can with my remaining "training time" to make it through the delivery!!!   Plus, some studies show that pregnant women who exercise and/or stay fit have shorter labors.  Yes, please!

The Bump website has a pretty handy exercise workout guide {click here} that I'm going to *try* to use for the remaining few months of my pregnancy.

Source: The Bump

Hubby also got me a great workout video for my birthday that I'm going to give a shot, too.  {Even though my current work-out clothes may or may not look like skin on bologna...}

Here's to more exercise in 2014!