Shoop Fitness

So, you’ve decided to get pregnant.  You know that it may take awhile to conceive.  But hey, practice makes perfect right?  ☺  What should you do to prepare your body in the mean time?  If you aren’t doing so already, start a regular workout routine.  If you are already working out, consider beefing it up a little.

I know you are probably wondering why you should bother working out if you are just going to put on a bunch of weight.  There are a ton of reasons why you should workout throughout your pregnancy.  However, it is a lot harder to start a workout routine after you are pregnant.  First and foremost, you may be exhausted or nauseous which can really impact your desire and ability to workout.  There are also a lot of precautions you have to take when starting a workout routine if you are already pregnant.

The beautiful thing about your body is that if you’ve already been working out regularly, you can keep doing the same things!  And for a lot longer than you might think!  You’ve already taken the time for your body to adapt to working out, so doing so during pregnancy is not a huge challenge.  Doing it the other way around, pregnancy then starting to workout, definitely can be done.  It is just much easier the other way.

Workout activities that I recommend include:
o    Walking
o    Spinning
o    Low-impact aerobics
o    Pilates
o    Yoga
o    Weight lifting
o    Water aerobics

Pretty much anything you enjoy doing is fair game pre-pregnancy.  Keep in mind you want to keep your body safe from injuries that might prevent pregnancy.  You might want to skip dangerous sports such as skydiving at this time.

My workout routine looked something like this pre-pregnancy:
o    Monday:  Pilates video
o    Tuesday:  Spinning
o    Wednesday:  Weight lifting
o    Thursday:  Spinning
o    Friday:  Weight lifting

I tend to vary my routine every few weeks so I don’t get bored, but this is one that I particularly enjoy.  Focus on activities that will help strengthen your stomach and back.  These two areas will handle a brunt of the load while you are pregnant, so anything you can do to help them out now is great.

Get out, get moving, and get your body ready for pregnancy!

Yippee! My husband and I decided to enhance our family with a baby! Now what? I know it can take awhile, what should I be doing to get my body ready?

That’s where I started out.

The first thing I recommend is taking a look at your vitamins. What are you currently taking? At a minimum you need to take a women’s multi-vitamin and Folic Acid. An easy way to accomplish this is to take a prenatal vitamin. I had plenty of women’s multi-vitamins on hand so I didn’t want to just abandon them. What I found was a Folic Acid supplement at GNC. It was less than $4.00/bottle and combined with my multivitamin, had the same amount of Folic Acid as a prenatal vitamin. Another good reason to just add Folic Acid is to ward off anybody who is nosing around in your medicine cabinet. All women should be taking Folic Acid anyway, so you can just say you are taking care of your body. Prenatal vitamins scream, “We’re trying to have a baby.” If that’s ok with you, no big deal. For my husband and I, we did not want the pressure of people knowing we were trying. Especially our parents. It ended up taking 3 tries to conceive! My best friend conceived both of her children on the first try. <Grrr>

So why Folic Acid?

Taking Folic Acid before and after you become pregnant helps protects your baby from neural tube defects. Neural tube defects lead to spina bifida, skull malformations, and brain malformations. Folic Acid consumed before, during, and after conception greatly reduces this risk. Folate is necessary for fertility in both men and women so it is a good idea to check your partner’s vitamins as well!

What can I eat that has Folic Acid?

Leafy vegetables such as spinach and turnip greens, dried beans and peas, fortified cereal products, sunflower seeds, liver, and certain other fruits and vegetables are rich sources. If you are like most people you don’t regularly eat liver, spinach, and turnip greens. I love cereal, so that helped me. But when it comes to my baby’s health, I decided that the best solution was the extra vitamin. I do my best do eat well, but I could not guarantee that I’d eat enough of these foods every day. After you get pregnant, some of these might make you nauseous as well. You just don’t know!

How much do I need?

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for Folic Acid for pregnant women is 600 micrograms, twice the normal RDA of 300 micrograms for unpregnant women. Most prenatal vitamins have 800-1000 micrograms. When I asked my Doctor about taking a prenatal vitamin vs. multi-vitamin plus Folic Acid, he said as long as I hit 1000 micrograms I was good. You can check with your doctor, but everything I read says 300 micrograms is the absolute minimum, 400 micrograms is better, and 800-1000 micrograms is best. More than that is not necessarily better.

One last note, see if your insurance will cover your prenatal vitamins. Some companies will!

Enjoy getting your body ready for a truly amazing experience!