Pregnant Fitness goals and Prenatal Yoga

In my last post, I talked about our amazing spring vacation, aka, our Babymoon.  It was during that post, I revealed a secret that I have been keeping since November – Erik and I are 6 months pregnant, with a baby girl arriving August 15th.

bump selfie 2Because fitness/healthy lifestyle is my passion, and the theme of this blog, I am going to continue focusing blog posts on sweating. And trust me, now more than ever, I get questions daily about my fitness routine. People constantly asking, what I am doing fitness wise, now that I have a baby bump.

Everyone is different, and every pregnancy is different. And what I have found is, the fitness things I use to do, I am not preforming at the same level as I did before. My body is working hard on developing another human, that has become the priority.

Also, because this is my first pregnancy, and I don’t know how to be a pregnant woman – I’m just following all the rules. I’ve never done this before, I’m just learning, and now at 6 months, I am finally content and  comfortable with being pregnant.

When it comes to fitness, I have taken it down several levels. No bikram yoga, heavy lifting, or marathon training for me, my fitness goals have changed from setting a new PR in my next race, to bringing a child safely into the world.

Although, I have taken it down a notch, there has been a lot of things I have been doing to stay active during this pregnancy. I have been taking long walks with my dogs. I have been focusing on body weight exercises, and doing similar weight lifting routines as before with lighter weights. You haven’t seen me in the gym though. I have been doing all of these exercises, outside near the running trail.  I also took on swimming, and now that the outdoor pool is opening soon, I plan to swim every morning. I also plan on getting a hike in at Great Falls.

But out of everything,  over the last month, I have been doing Prenatal yoga, and it has ironically become my favorite thing.

My running buddy, L, just had another baby, and when I mentioned I was going to try prenatal yoga, her response was… “Oh, you aren’t going to like it.” She thought, because I am use to more intense work outs, I would be bored.

Well for the last month, I have been going to prenatal yoga. I have tried two different studios in my neighborhood, JourneYoga and Mind the Mat, and I have to say, I love it.

prenatal yoga

The opportunities to train for a marathon are endless…

There will be plenty of times to get my sweat on at Bikram…

I can always hit the gym to lift heavy…

But what other time in my life will I be able to participate in prenatal yoga? Only when I’m pregnant. So now is the time to be in a yoga room, with a community of mamma’s to be. All of us safely practicing deep hip openers, that will prepare us for labor. All of us, with the same, priority and goal.

To all the mom’s out there – What is your favorite prenatal workout? How did you stay fit and healthy during pregnancy?

© sweat1xdaily2015