HHave you recently seen a sweaty woman with a watermelon stuffed in her fleece wheezing behind some bushes just a few meters off the towpath to pee? If so, next time Thank you very much. That woman is probably me.
Even though I’m 7 months pregnant, I still run three times a week. “Running” means flinging Lumpen’s body through various forests, fields, and city parks at slower than walking speeds while wearing slowly disintegrating trainers. Do you need to stop every 10 minutes to empty your bladder? I bet you do. Are you running half the distance you normally do, in twice the time you normally do? Yes, ma’am.
Like many pregnant people, I’m currently facing a variety of physical challenges. But instead of taking anti-emetics or painkillers, I was mainly encouraged to stay active. After all, regular exercise is incredibly effective at lowering blood pressure, regulating hormones, and improving mood. According to Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada“Women who exercise during pregnancy have a 40% reduced risk of developing gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, and preeclampsia.”
At my appointment, my wise and wonderful midwife told me in no uncertain terms that running was great for pregnancy. A consultant obstetrician, whom several women I know are passionately in love with, told me to keep swimming. Joe Wicks has a pregnancy workout that my son likes to do with me before school.
But you know what’s so great about exercise when you feel like you’ve swallowed an air fryer whole? You’re not good at it. You will only get worse. So as an act of forced humility, this is hard to beat. When you’re pregnant, your body becomes heavier, slower, larger, you wheeze more, your continents decrease, and they become more noticeable. We have to stop thinking of exercise as a vanity or status tool and start treating our bodies like the fleshy instruments of survival they are meant to be. It makes you bad at something and keeps doing it. I think it’s the same as raising children.
So this is different Harder, better, faster, stronger. It’s slower, wetter, bigger, and shorter. That’s the point.
