Dear Hayley,
I’m currently 10 weeks pregnant with my third child. In my past pregnancies, I had been able to do some workouts, like running and circuit training, although scaled way down, and found the workouts to be extremely helpful in getting energy back and combatting morning sickness. This pregnancy though, I’m having trouble finding any motivation to work out. I was hit with a really bad case of morning sickness in the past month and even though its subsided now, I just feel so drained and unmotivated. It doesn’t help to have two young kids to take care of.
I know that working out will be help me get my energy back, so I’m hoping you have some recommendations just to help me start! Mainly it feels like since I haven’t been able to work out in the past month, I’m back at square one. I’m not able to do classes right now because of my schedule and two young kids, but is there anything that I can start doing on my own to get me through the last few weeks of my first trimester?
Thanks so much!
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Trying to motivate yourself to work out is tough enough even when you are not pregnant, but add morning sickness and two small kids to the equation and I am thinking it is an accomplishment just to think about exercise. The first trimester can be different with each pregnancy, and when I work with newly pregnant women, their workouts vary from day to day. Somedays clients will come in full of energy and ready to be challenged while other days I have to motivate them just to get through the door. Lucky for you, the second trimester is close and it is the time where you usually feel your best, so hopefully in a few weeks you won’t have to work so hard just to find motivation.
There are many reasons why we exercise: to sweat, to feel good about ourselves, to challenge ourselves, to prepare for a race, to get strong, to get lean, to lose weight, to relieve stress, to be social, to calm our minds, to get outside, to reenergize (to name a few). When I look at this list, the reasons for why you should exercise that stick out to me are to feel good about yourself, to relieve stress, to get strong, to be social, and to reenergize yourself. Those seem like pretty good reasons to move.
What I suggest you do is sit down and make a list as to why you want to exercise and then pick activities that will help you accomplish those goals. Getting out for an afternoon walk with a girlfriend will help energize you as well as remind you what it is like to be social. Downloading a prenatal yoga class, and doing it before your kids wake up will help relieve stress as well as start to strengthen your body to carry your third baby for the next 7 months. This may take some convincing to get yourself out of bed early but even if you just make it to your yoga mat and lie there in meditation you are going to benefit. You can also wait until the kids go to bed and do an at-home circuit workout. Even something as short as 15 minutes can help improve your strength and remind you of how good it feels to challenge yourself. There are so many tools available online that you really don’t need to leave the house anymore to exercise.
It sounds like your time is already pushed to the max, and I am sure that any spare time you do have you want to use it doing something that you enjoy, so find something that you enjoy and start doing it. Once you have recreated the routine of exercising then it is easy to start to change what you are doing to make your workouts more challenging. Start small and when your body wants more you can you can up the intensity. Listen to your body as well as your mind and exercise to make both feel great.
