Exercising in your first trimester ~ my experience

So, here’s a little insight into my first trimester of pregnancy and my exercising routine. Everyone’s experiences are different and individual but maybe my experience will help other women who are going through the same thing. First off, I successfully completed a traveling burpee mile in my first month of pregnancy, the white board photo of completed burpee mile trips down the Catholic Memorial football field will be framed and hung up in the baby’s nursery!

Note: this competition took place before the morning sickness (which for me was really all day nausea) and lethargy set in. These lovely symptoms kicked in the following week.   I had heard many of my friends who have babies talk about the nausea and overall tiredness some of them felt while pregnant and well let’s just say you have no idea what they really mean until it happens to you.   Fitness is a very big part of my life and I am keeping up with my fitness routine as best as I can.

The first trimester was so tough but I made it through. A constant state of motion sickness is the closest thing I can describe it to. My doctor recommended taking a combo of ginger root capsules, B-6, and Unisom (odd trio but it really seemed to help a bit). My normal pre-pregnancy out for a normal run pace of 9-10 minute miles became 11-12 minute miles on a good day. I would run some and then get too winded to keep going so then would walk a bit and then start up my slow as molasses pace once again, all the while feeling like I could throw up at any given moment. Months of mentally and physically pushing through this was more difficult than any marathon I’ve ever run.  For weeks I would say to myself “ugh this is so pathetic, my performance is dragging and this is SO frustrating”. My brain would tell my legs to move faster but they just wouldn’t. But I kept on working out, moving my body, albeit at a tortoises pace. I bagged the hot yoga for the first tri and stuck with unheated yoga.   My friends have been great showing me support in my “condition” and slowing down their pace to match mine on partner runs and taking yoga classes that were not 100 degrees with me.  Now I am almost to 4 months and feeling a thousand times better. The nausea has dissipated and although still moving much more slowly than pre-pregnancy, I have more energy and plan to continue exercising throughout my pregnancy. Keep doing what you love. Pregnancy is not the time to introduce new exercise elements into your fitness routine. It is a time to maintain your health and fitness, as long as it is safe to do so given your individual pregnancy situation. A great resource for safely exercising before, during and after your pregnancy is obviously your Doctor, but also a book called Exercising Through Your Pregnancy, By James F. Clapp. So ladies, don’t beat yourselves up if you’re athletic performance stats during pregnancy aren’t quite where they used to be, the fact that you are moving your body is so great and you should be proud of yourselves for continuing to live a healthy lifestyle…for you AND for your-baby-on-the-way!