The right thing is to keep going, right? (Exercising while pregnant)

[allhailtheaubergine]

I do a military style boot camp 3 times a week. I love it. It's an hour of sprinting, push-ups, sit-ups, crawling around, swimming and other torturous contortions. It's very competitive, but also enormously friendly and really you are only competing against yourself (no one really expects me, a middle aged mum of 2, to beat the 22 year old lad next to me).

So, now I am pregnant. About 7 weeks and feeling like hollow hell. Vomiting, dry heaving, can't eat, struggling to drink, knackered, belching, shitting, acid indigestion... oh the glamour!

I initially thought I would keep up the exercise thing for as long as I could.

But now, well, I want to curl up in a corner and die.

I should keep doing it though, right? Because even if it's really hard, it's healthier for me and the baby to get some exercise than it is for us to sit at home eating beige things and belching to rattle the windows.

I am sensible about making myself drink as much as I possibly can, and I do try to eat healthyish things.

Yes, definitely tell your instructor. I also exercised till I was 8 months (both timea) and only gave up because it then felt like a hassle. I felt better for it and think I put on weight in a healthy way (2 stones). Baby is now 2 months old and I am just about to return to running.

I was doing something similar when I found out (maybe less intense though!), and kept doing the same level of exercise until I was about 12 weeks, although found that the amount of weights I could lift was reduced each week and by 18 weeks stopped with the harder exercise (pump classes and push ups etc) as it started feeling bad in my joints. I think the key is to listen to your body and not push through the pain, and found it REALLY important to have a snack on me to eat right after a workout or else I would feel a bit weak and ill. Now I'm 29 weeks and walking an hour a day and doing yoga and the odd aqua jogging as that's all I can manage - and some days that alone feels just as tiring as hard exercise used to before I was pregnant Exercise does make me feel better as it clears my mind and makes me feel less stiff, but I think you get to a point where even walking or aqua jogging is enough

I was instructing zumba until last week! That was when I was 26 weeks. I couldn't move in quite the same way as before, but I always felt better afterwards. I'd tell your boot camp instructor and take it a bit easier.