Fit and Pregnant, an oxymoron?

Before becoming pregnant, I was fairly in shape. I was running up to 7 miles at a time, I was lifting weights regularly and I was on a basketball team. I lost weight, but never got to a "normal" BMI (although my body fat was normal). I still had a ways to go, but I was doing great and had come a long way.

Then I got pregnant.

Me, being the doctor, I of course looked up as many research articles and information I could about exercise and pregnancy. The information is pretty scarce. I think that is true for a lot of pregnancy issues. No one wants to be be in a randomised trial that MAY cause fetal damage. It's unethical. So, most of the research is either built on case reports or people reflecting back of their pregnancy.

The ACOG, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, used to have a heart rate limit for pregnancy (specifically 150). Recently, the ACOG changed their recommendation to "moderate" exercise "most days." This is more vague, but gives a little leeway. Because I have a heart rate monitor, I know I often go above that 150 bpm level and feel pretty comfortable at high heart rate levels. When I am not pregnant, I have no problem pushing my body, but now I don't want to. When I was about 5 weeks pregnant I went for my last run. It was a slow run that seemed ridiculously easy, but again, I didn't want to risk it. I played basketball until 7 weeks and I just went by symptoms. I never felt out of breath or that I was pushing my body, so I kept playing.

Also, when I found out I was pregnant, I was working with a trainer weekly. I thought it would be a good idea to continue this, to at least keep be as strong as possible. That did not go as well as I wanted. Every week when I worked with my trainer, I was able to do less and less. I was more exhausted quickly and my strength was decreasing rapidly. This was true with all exercising, but much more apparant with weights. My trainer knew I was pregnant and was working me through it, but he always had me do things at my previous level and then fail at them. Every week I would come home more frustrated than the last. I couldn't do everything I wanted. I felt like a failure, even though it was out of my control. I started hating to go to the gym to do the weight lifting routine because it was so hard. I wasn't doing much cardio because anytime I went to the gym I had to lift weights. It was frustrating to me, so I made a decision. I stopped training. No more push ups, pull-ups and bicep curls.

So now what am I doing? I'm still trying to get to the gym as often as possible, but it is nothing as regular as before pregnancy. I still walk to work most days (except when it is during a heat wave). For a while I was only doing only the elliptical machines at the gym and that was getting a little boring, so now I'm spicing things up with a little swimming. So far so good. I like the thought of doing cardio over weight lifting because I want to keep my heart in shape. Hopefully that will make it easier to get back to my previous level after the baby.

Only time will tell on that one.