When you are pregnant
The rules about working out in pregnancy form a whole book in them, so here the subject is only touched on. The main point is that you can exercise throughout the pregnancy as long as you feel like it and your GP and midwife have said you can. While the advice is to keep fit throughout your pregnancy, the emphasis is on not improving but maintaining fitness. Pregnancy is a 9 month workout in itself. If you decide to exercise during pregnancy, get professional advice after the third month on what you should not and should do.
After your baby is born
How many celebrities do you hear boasting that they went straight back to 400 sit-ups per day within a day of childbirth? Firstly, you should not believe a word of it, and secondly they seem to be going against all health guidelines if they do. However desperate you are to retrieve your figure, you have to wait 6 weeks before you can start gently working out, or 11 weeks if you have had a C-section. After this time, you can start slowly to gradually build up to your old training routine. And get professional advice about which sort of abdominal workouts you should be doing post-baby. An area that causes a lot of silent embarrassment is the pelvic floor muscle. If you have done work on it during those nine months you should not have too much trouble, but get some specific workout set down for you to help prevent leakage.
Lack of motivation
The main piece of advice is to be sensible and always think about your motives for working out and why you do not want to exercise. Be honest with yourself. If you really just can’t be bothered, maybe you are finding your exercise routine boring. If that is the case, it is time you shook up this routine a bit. Try adding new forms of workouts that seems interesting for you such as dance classes, in-line skating or aqua aerobics. Finally, remember how many times you have said that you do not feel like it and come away saying that you are really glad you did that.
