Is it safe to exercise during pregnancy?
I’m 32 years old and 9 weeks pregnant with my first baby. Prior to pregnancy I was (hating it, but)running 5 miles a day and had been doing so for the past few years. However, my midwife told me I should only do gentle exercises which would not raise my heartbeat too high and make me too hot!!! Obviously this means no serious cardio and I am trying to figure out how I am going to control my weight if I cannot exercise during my pregnancy. ‘Gentle exercise’ never did anything for me and much as I hated it, there was a reason I had to do all that crazy cardio in the first place! Help! Is it the norm to only walk during pregnancy? I would have thought it’s healthy to keep the body fit and strong throughout this period and thought that as I have been athletic my whole life, this would not be too much of an issue. Not sure what to do now as I don’t want to risk my pregnancy in any way, and of course I won’t be running and going crazy at the gym, but I also need to watch my weight (as I soak up calories just by looking at food and also love my food and hence have to work to keep any semblance of a shape), else given my natural constitution, I will be a balloon by the time I get to 9 months!

Please let me know if you have any advice on the matter…

Best answer:

Answer by Shє’s мч wσяℓd ♡ 7209
Exercise is greatly encouraged during pregnancy, but, as you stated, gently.

I was in a “Body Attack” class @ Gold’s Gym a few weeks ago. It’s basically weight training. There were two pregnant women in the class. I admired them for being there. Of course they only had a maximum of 10lb hand weights & did the simplest form of each exercise, but each woman looked great physically!

Swimming is also a great alternative.