To answer lilla’s question: “Did you keep working out with Zuzka for a while after you found out [you were pregnant]? And if yes, for how long?”

I am generally a very active person. Before I got pregnant I had already started training for a marathon, I was learning how to dance tango and went salsa dancing. In the morning before work I did some yoga (yogatic) and a short homeworkout (bodyrock / zuzka light) two or three times a week. Generally I did some kind of activity on a daily basis.

During my first month of pregnancy, I did exactly two workouts and three yoga sessions. I went dancing once and didn’t run at all.

Going into my pregnancy I was very naïve and thought that the pregnancy would effect me proportionally to the size of my growing belly. However your body starts changing from day one. And even though I couldn’t see any physical changes yet, the hormonal changes had a huge effect on me. I just did not feel like working out any more, so I didn’t. And after getting noxious from too many spins in salsa, I also dropped out of dancing.

In my third month I got back to working out again and continued until month seven. However I only followed two original workouts (Fierce Friday Workout & ZWOW #40 Burn It Off) and then I got annoyed with going through all workouts, trying to find one with exercises suitable for pregnancy and started creating my own workouts based on exercises I knew were safe. I will write another post soon about what to consider when working out during your first trimester.

But this is just my experience, maybe you feel great during your first months and can continue with whatever exercise you are doing now. I think most important is to just listen to your body. See what you feel like and go with what makes you feel good and happy about being pregnant. For instance if you get frustrated because you are only reminded of what you used to be able to do, then do something completely different. For me it was very difficult to run so slow, so instead I started going swimming. Even if you don’t follow any workouts at all, at some point just walking around with the extra weight full time will become an increasingly challenging exercise. So try not to make any great plans beforehand or set goals you need to achieve during your pregnancy, but welcome the changes you are going through and the new challenges and experiences that go with it.