Dear Mark: Pregnant Exercise, Low-Carb and Alcohol Tolerance, Ancestral Sun Dosages, and Knee Mobility
Today is Monday, which heralds another edition of Dear Mark. This week, I’m giving my two cents on what could be causing the widespread incidence of lowered alcohol tolerance in Primal eaters. It’s nice to be a cheap date, but sometimes we want to keep up with everyone else, right? I give a few ideas on exercises for pregnant women who want to remain active without any complications arising, and I discuss whether the amount of sun our ancestral homelands saw play a role in how much sun we should get. Finally, I discuss whether a knee should be mobile or stable, along with a few strategies to have and maintain healthy knees.
Let’s go.
Dear Mark,
I’ve been following your (awesome!) PB Fitness protocol for over a year now. I’m not pregnant at the time but I might be in the future, and I’m starting to wonder how to get on with my Four Essential Movements with a big belly in front of me. Some movements may be no probs, but how about doing pushups if the belly touches the ground right from ‘up’ position? And deep squatting, I’ve got this awkward feeling it might make you accidentally pee yourself due to all the extra pressure on the bladder… So, long story short: How do I subsitute the Five Essential Movements workout to make it suitable for pregnancy?
Thank you so much for all your work and a great webstie!
Anna
Let’s go through each of the movements.
Though I’ve never carried a child in my (nonexistent) womb, I think squats should be okay. I mean, have you seen elite powerlifters? They’re big dudes, some with big bellies (mostly muscle, though), and they have no problem squatting. Besides, squatting is a legitimate birthing position. If you’re worried about peeing yourself, there’s an easy fix: avoid exercising with a full bladder. You’ll want to squat with a fairly wide stance, wide enough to give your belly enough room to pass. Too narrow a stance and you might hit your femurs with your belly (again, see powerlifters, who tend to squat with a super wide stance).
Alternatives include lunges and Bulgarian split squats (featured in this WOW).
Do normal pushups until your belly starts cheating for you. Then, switch to feet elevated pushups. As long as you’re maintaining the rigid plank position through the legs, hips, and torso, elevating your feet will also elevate your belly. Once your belly starts cheating on the feet elevated pushups, move to feet and hands elevated pushups. Parallel (dip) bars work well for these, as do a pair of sturdy, dependable chairs. The key is allowing your belly to move freely through space.
Alternatives include the bench press and the floor press.
Pullups are obviously fine. Just avoid doing pullups on flimsy bars. Enjoy the added resistance!
Be very careful going upside down for handstand pushups. If you’re not comfortable with these, go for the inverted V pushups: keep your feet and hands on the ground and stick your butt in the air to form an upside down V with your body; get your torso as vertical as possible and press using your shoulders as the prime movers. (And, by the way, if I were forced to choose 4 Essential Movements this would be the odd man out.)
If “elbows down” planks makes you belly-cheat, go with “hands down” planks. Fully extend your elbows and place your hands on the floor, as if you were in the top position of a pushup. Hold it. It’s not as tough as the elbow plank, but given the circumstances, that’s okay. Plus, you’ve got added central mass to support, which makes it hard in its own right.
I actually think PBF is perfect for pregnant women, because it’s bodyweight-based, very simple, and scalable to all levels of fitness. Of course, if you did want to increase intensity or handle big weights, you probably still could. Want proof? A fantastic blog – One Fit Mom – actually chronicles the pregnancy of a diehard Crossfitter who, rather than taking it easy, kept up with her workouts. She didn’t exactly break her PRs, but she stayed active and maintained her fitness and most of her strength. She gives lots of recommendations for exercise substitutions. And yes, she kept squatting and deadlifting.
Hi Mark,
I have been wondering about maintaining the Primal Blueprint diet and becoming more sensitive to wine and caffeine. Is there a physiological reason for this observation? Is it because less carb is consumed thus level of tolerance is lowered (considering how much carb can absorb wine/caffeine…)
Thanks for your input!
Angela
Interesting question, Angela (and thanks for the thanks). It’s not a new one. We get a lot of reports about Primal eating reducing alcohol tolerance, and while I don’t have a definite answer, I do have a rough inkling as to why alcohol tolerance worsens.
You mention eating fewer carbs – a normal, expected change for most people who adopt Primal eating. The carbs you’re no longer eating weren’t actually soaking up the alcohol; even though I knew guys in college who swore by swallowing hunks of white bread whole to absorb booze and prevent a hangover, it’s the simple presence of food in your stomach that slows the absorption of alcohol, not just carbs in particular. My guess is that breaking down and detoxifying the ethanol you’re imbibing is hard work for a liver that’s already tasked with the creation of glucose from amino acids in a low dietary glucose state (gluconeogenesis). We know that alcohol consumption inhibits gluconeogenesis by decreasing the availability of the “intrahepatic gluconeogenic precursors” by 61%. If alcohol detox and gluconeogenesis are competing for the same raw materials along similar pathways, and if the effects of alcohol increase with inefficient detoxification, it follows that someone drinking alcohol in a gluconeogenic state may be more sensitive to its effects.
If your tolerance to alcohol has become unpleasantly low with a correspondingly low carb intake, a simple fix may be to eat a couple sweet potatoes on days that you’ll be drinking. I don’t have the issue, and I stay around 100-150 grams per day, so I don’t think it takes a huge amount. Anyone else with lowered alcohol tolerance on the Primal Blueprint eating plan?
Hi Mark,
I’ve enjoyed your books and website. I just wanted to quickly comment on the sunlight issue.
Your blog posts discuss how we’ve evolved with sun exposure, and shouldn’t fear it, but don’t seem to remind readers that location matters.
For example I’m a red head, Caucasian of Irish descent, but I live in north Queensland, Australia. Hunter gathers native to this part of the world were black. I’m white and freckled. The amount of sunlight I should expose myself to here is surely a lot less than if I lived in a similar environment to my direct ancestors.
I’m not sure if some of your readers may overlook this if they are also living away from evolutionary roots.
Regards,
Mike
This is a good point, Mike. Not everyone has the same level of innate sun tolerance, and I think ancestry is the major determinant. Sure, lifestyle factors in big time – what you eat (and, perhaps more importantly, what you don’t eat) famously affects your skin’s susceptibility to sun damage – but as for genetic sun tolerance? Where your ancestors grew up and how much sun they were exposed to on a regular basis probably determines how much sun you can tolerate, as a baseline. So for you, a red-headed Irish guy with freckles, a full hour in the midday Australian sun is excessive and probably even harmful.
Although I may not have recommended that readers pay attention to their ancestry when considering sun dosages, I have always maintained that people should avoid burning. My thinking is that as long as you avoid burning (or even developing a nice pink color), sun bathing is beneficial. This usually boils down to getting out of the sun as soon as it starts to feel uncomfortably hot, and I think it naturally dovetails with the ancestry idea. Just as the person with pale skin whose ancestors hailed from foggy climates can safely assume he will tolerate far less UV exposure than the person with dark skin whose ancestors lived on the equator, that same person with the pale skin/ancestors will feel uncomfortably hot sooner and get out of the sun earlier. It’s an important point that deserves explicit mention. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Dear Mark,
I’ve been working through some of the mobility exercises you’ve posted and I was just wondering if you could suggest anything specific regarding the knee. You’ve done posts on feet, ankle, hip, wrist, spine, and shoulder– is there any chance for a knee post in the future? I’m hoping you might have some Primal pointers, especially considering your recovery from your Ultimate mishap. Thanks in advance!
Conor
Well, my knee injury was an acute one, a freak accident caused by impact with the ground. It wasn’t exactly a mobility issue (although I suppose that could have played an indirect role somehow, maybe by impeding proper movement and landing). That said, this is a great question that deserves a response.
With the knee, we actually want stability – not mobility. Consider that as you go along the kinetic chain of the body and examine the joints that comprise it, their primary functions alternate. First is the thoracic spine (which needs mobility), then the lumbar spine (stability), then the hip (mobility), then the knee (stability), then the ankle (mobility). This is also true starting at the shoulder (mobility and stability), followed by the elbow (stability), and then the wrist (mobility). See how that works?
So in fact we want a stable knee, rather than a mobile one. A stable knee doesn’t bow inward when walking or squatting. It doesn’t collapse on you or buckle beneath you. A good, stable knee is a hinge joint. It definitely shouldn’t be rotating and bending every which way. That’s pathological mobility.
To protect your knee, then, you must maintain good mobility in the other areas, especially those immediately above (hip) and below (ankle). If you lose mobility in the hip or ankle, your knee must compensate for the missing movement. Your knee becomes mobile to make up for the missing mobility above and below, and since the knee isn’t supposed to be mobile, you get pain, and injury, and downtime, and co-pays, and surgery bills. All those hip mobility drills, and the ankle mobility exercises – that’s what you want. Those are the keys to healthy knees.
Bone up on the mobility series (which you’ve already been doing). They’re a good introduction into the world of mobility.
Foam roll your calves, quads, glutes, IT band, hamstrings, and basically everything in and around your hips, knees, and lower body in general. If your knees are hurting, you’re probably tight all over. If the foam roller isn’t getting the job done, graduate to a lacrosse ball.
Familiarize yourself with MobilityWOD. Run a search for “knee” and “hip” and “ankle” and “calf” and pretty much every body part. It’s not the most organized, but everything is good and worth watching. Consider picking up some of the stretch bands they use.
Even if your knees feel great now, by ignoring mobility issues up and downstream, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment – and injury – in the future. Take an active role in the health and movement of your tissues before it’s too late.
That’s it for this week. I have a decent queue of questions built up that I’m trying to get through, but I’m always accepting more – so send ‘em along! Thanks for reading and leave your thoughts in the comment section.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Mark- I am 200hr RYT (yoga instructor) at a Crossfit gym and some things really need to be considered….Pregnant ladies who lift should be very careful at this point to just maintain their weights and strength rather than trying to increase them. The focus is on health NOT PRs.
Squats are a BIG no no below 90 degrees (especially near the end of the term). The other BIG no no are any twists due to the health of the baby.
Another really big thing to be careful of is pregnant ladies are carrying more relaxin in the body, so be mindful of any deep lunges. Women often tend to overwork themselves and then go too far and this can hurt for long periods of time.
No physical activities on your back either!! Do not do anything that sacrifices the belly and putting pressure on it. Any inverted high push ups on the knees are okay.
I would disagree with doing plank holds after a certain point since this is a core exercise and you do not want core pressure on the baby. Do wall sits or squats or a forearm down dog if you want to build and maintain but no core.
Inverting (any handstands or other inversions) are fine ONLY if the mom was practicing these beforehand. Be careful not to do these too close to the end of your pregnancy as the focus should be on allowing the baby to fall for birth rather than keeping the baby in.
Hope this helps!!
I actually disagree with you slightly regarding squats, and I train at a Crossfit as well (although not an instructor). Deep squats are essential to opening up the pelvic canal and aid in a shorter delivery time. Squats open up the pelvic canal by an additional 10-15%, reducing risk of perineum tears. Sitting in a squat position is not only “primal”, but a normal daily practice of many cultures around the world. I sat routinely in a deep squat daily up until the day of my delivery and found that it relieved back pressure, eased tightness in my leg muscles, and better prepared me for labor. In addition, deep squats are recommended by the Bradley method of natural childbirth. Obviously some people shouldn’t do deep squats especially if they’re not accustomed to them. But done properly from the first trimester onward, it is a good practice to do.
I agree that pregnancy is a time to maintain fitness rather than to shoot for heavy lifting PRs, however, I disagree with almost everything else you have written.
It is actually *worse* for knee ligaments when people squat to exactly parallel, whereas it is perfectly safe to squat lower (for women who have been squatting prior to pregnancy and have proper technique, and who are experiencing a low-risk, healthy pregnancy).
Twists are not dangerous to the baby. That is an old wive’s tale, same as the one that says reaching over your head can cause the umbilical cord to wrap around the baby’s neck.
I talk extensively about the myth of lying on your back in one of my blog posts, and I explained it briefly in my previous comment.
Plank holds are not only perfectly safe during pregnancy, but highly recommended my most doctors, trainers and exercise physiologists as the most appropriate ab/core exercise for pregnant women. Pregnancy is a time when we want to ensure a strong core. It helps maintain proper posture with the heavy belly on the front, reduces the incidence of back pain, and generally makes the pregnancy much more comfortable. A strong core does not harm or put pressure on the baby. I had visible abs up until the day I delivered my large, healthy boy!
I have to comment from personal experience. (I just wrote a note on my recent lifting while preg) I did planks the whole time. I was careful and modified some of my free weight lifting, but increased weights as long as I was comfortable. I wasn’t in a bikini contest, I was staying fit! Loved free weights while preg. Great for working on stability. My yoga teacher was amazed I could hold the crane and flamingo better than anyone else and I was 8 months along! I credit my core strength and weight lifting. I did stop lifting my 8th month but my Dr said I was the fittest preg woman he’d seen. (And I gained 40 lbs and was HUGE!) But, I was super healthy!!!
Does anyone think that Preg cavewomen sat around and ate bonbons? No, they hunted, squatted, lifted, cooked, etc. their muscles were toned and ready to push when the time came. They also had excellent recovery!!! Another note I can attest to. I had terrible recovery with my 1st child because I had an office job and sat all day. My 2nd and 3rd I stayed fit. The births were great as was recovery. I even got comments from the Nurses that I was recovering very quickly. (Also did the last 2 natural childbirth. Best thing every! I did it both ways and have a very strong option on it, but that’s a soapbox I can get on for a very long time… I won’t do it here.)
I appreciate the critical responses! Pregnant women are not made of glass, and neither are fetuses. I always resented the imposition of strangers’ self-righteous, paternalistic, aggressive “advice” from strangers and supposed authority figures when I was pregnant and nursing. Bottom line, it’s your body, listen to it and use your judgment. I say, if it feels good and healthy to you, and you are well-informed in making your choices, you and the baby will be fine. Avoiding using any abdominal muscles for 9 months or putting any “pressure” on the baby sounds like a terrible way to train for the pushing workout of your life.
My alcohol tolerance is much lower now. I used to drink a lot of red wine. Now, two glasses and I’m pretty tipsy, much more and I’m sick. And I don’t get “happy” tipsy anymore, I just get sleepy and pass out! I also had to cut way back on coffee to one cup a day in the morning, or I can’t sleep at night.
Started low carb 6 months. Now I can’t (physically) drink. I just throw up after 2 glasses of wine. Now I can’t eat anything sweeter than a brambly apple. Not that I don’t want to, I just can’t handle it anymore. The last “carb breakdown” (consisting of a milk chocolate bar) drove me into terrible flu like state for several days afterwards. This morning I’ve eaten a tea spoon of honey (first time in 6 months), and ended up kneeling at the porcelain friend 5 minutes after. I don’t know if I ever want to experiment again. I just don’t seen to be able to handle it anymore
deep squats actually are helpful with labor and birth… Keep at ‘em, definitely.
With my first pregnancy, I did squats up until I went into labor with no problem. I actually did more in my third trimester because I thought it would encourage the baby to move along
As for the push-ups, I did regular form until it hurt my lower back. Then you can just switch to lady push-ups or do them against the wall.
One thing is certain, the better shape you are in, the easier the pregnancy! It’s hard enough having a baby belly, but it grows a lot faster if you don’t get adequate exercise. Plus, I’ve seen some women who can really move with a huge baby belly!
I am 5 months pregnant with my second child right now, and still barely showing. It doesn’t affect my workouts yet.
Sun exposure: I’ve always followed that general rule. As long as i don’t get red I know I am doing fine and dandy. Build up a nice tan so you can be out in the sun longer. Be patient with it!
My hangovers are terrible now. Mainly just a headache that won’t quit. But, I’ve also noticed that if I just walk around for half an hour and eat, the headache literally vanishes.
Re: Pregnancy Exercise: tips from a former primal preggo:
do push-ups against a wall – great arm workout with little to no strain whatsoever.
Be careful doing squats in your 2nd & 3rd trimester, as squats can actually help bring on labor, but are awesome during labor, and help open the pelvis.
I would like to comment on the knee article. Yep stability is needed but a certain amount of appropriate mobility in all the tri planes including internal and external rotation needs to allowed in training. All areas of the body should have stability with mobility but relative to the ground reaction. The spiralling movement created from contact, say for instance in gait will in turn cause a ripple effect until it is counterbalanced somewhere in the mid section of the body, where depends on force speed etc and also the ROM a person has. I look for sequence, a flow. Stability is happening all the time in movement and you are right to much or to little stability or mobility, from in any part of the body will end in another area/ part having to take more or less of the 3dimensional movement. As my teacher Gary Gray says if the hips rant moving the bodys not grooving.
I don’t drink any longer because it makes me want to eat very non-primal foods like potato chips in very large, self-hate quantities. That being said, when I do have a cocktail again, I’m sure it will taste fantastic. I prefer straight Hendrick’s gin – I’ve read that the more clear the booze, the less toxins to terrorize you the next day.
Also I think that I prefer how caffeine makes me feel now that I’m primal – a ‘bulletproof’ espresso in the morning and I’m good for hours. Much better than those sugar-bomb-mochas I used to drink every day (even twice a day).
My midwife has warned me against any movements that involve inverting my torso late in pregnancy. She thinks it can encourage/enable the baby to flip to a breech position from its current ideal head-down state. I’m not sure if this is supported by the evidence, but it seemed worth throwing out there, since there are two things on the list that might invert the torso. Anyone know if this is a valid concern?
Inversions are often also used to flip babies *into* the cephalic (head-down) position!
It is extremely uncommon for babies to flip back to breech once they have gone cephalic, as there’s not a whole lot of room for acrobatics in there, and their head usually gets locked and loaded into the pelvis. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility…
I was just thinking about the sun exposure information over the past day or two. I remember studying about the Inuit Indians, they sent the children out in the sun for recess when they were at school and a 5″ x 5″ patch of skin was all that was exposed, and studies said they had their vitamin D requirement filled…..But now I wonder if the Vitamin D in the fatty fish they ate had more to do with them keeping up their Vitamin D requirement.
I noticed when we went to Mexico on vacation recently, I did get pretty pink (not “burned”, though) but amazing to me I didn’t peel. No peeling at all! That’s never happened to me before. Don’t know what that means. And the only thing I used as “lotion” is coconut oil.
I found that drinking alcohol and how it made me feel afterward (bad) stood in stark contrast with how going Primal made me feel (good).
The better I felt from being Primal, the less inclined I was to give up the good feeling in exchange for getting to have some wine.
So I decided to see what it would be like without the wine. And by the end of a 30 day trial period, I didn’t want it anymore. I’m glad I tried it, because before I did, I thought I “enjoyed” wine. The trial made me realize it wasn’t as much about enjoying something as it was about being used to it. Once I stopped, I didn’t miss it. That was well over a year ago.
I don’t expect most people to go this route, and for those with low tolerance, if the sweet potatoes idea helps, that’s good. But I have to say, eating carbs so you can drink carbs seems a little incongruous with what Primal’s all about.
Ah, I’m glad for the ancestry/sun stuff. I’m also a pale person in Australia (albeit far more south). Another thing to worry about as a white person in places like this is the hole in the ozone, which makes the sun even more harmful to us.
No fear of getting burnt in Sydney at the moment. It’s the coldest, greyest summer start in 50 years. Good weather to build alcohol tolerance, though!
Nobody’s mentioned less tolerance for caffeine (although the question did include that). I was a regular tea drinker and occasional coffee drinker for decades, but after going primal, all I can tolerate now is decaf. I thought I was immune to the effects of caffeine, but now I get heart-pounding jitters that last for hours if I drink it.
My son is now 1. All through my pregnancy I did yoga 2 x a week and lifted free weights for 2 days. I’d get some great looks in the gym. I was careful to alter some lifts that put too much pressure on my stomach or groin such as incline presses as I got further along. But, I lifted and actually increased my weights every week until 6 months and then kept them the same until 8 months when lifting became hard. I did the yoga until about 3 weeks before I was due. (By then I’d gained 40 lbs and my body wasn’t moving a whole lot) My Dr said I was the fittest preg woman he’d had. He encouraged me the whole time. This was my 3rd child and by far the easiest pregnancy. I ate well the whole time with carbs around 150 a day, but 40 lbs is just hard on a body. But, I was only exhausted the last 2 weeks. (Very good by most women’s standards)
I’ve heard that you shouldnt do explicitly abdominal exercises while pregnant because tight abdominals press on the uterus or something. Writing it just now it sounds silly but I know that my mother has said that she was told pregnant women shouldnt do ab exercises and my boyfriend’s mother was told that my boyfriend was born with a squished (not in those words) ankle because he didnt have enough room to grow in-uterine because she did heaps of yoga ab stuff while pregnant. Thoughts?
Old wives tale, for sure
All I have to say about the caffeine intolerance is, weird! For a while I was drinking multiple cups of coffee a day and wishing I felt it more, but I must admit I think I was in a state of adrenal fatigue while training for CrossFit Regionals Comp. Either way, I haven’t noticed as much of an intolerance to caffeine as I have alcohol. Actually reading this post put the pieces together as to why I’ve had such bad hangover any time I’ve drank over the past 6 months or so. Headaches, grumpiness, overall fatigue and hating the day. Not overdoing it is definitely the answer! And actually, it seems much better if I stick to ONLY tequila, not mixing alcohols and especially not red wine.
I have lower tolerance to both alcohol and caffeine. If I am very low carb, less than a glass of red wine will have me feeling the effects in minutes. It’s pretty crazy, actually, and kind of annoying if I am cooking or want to be able to read or focus shortly after a few sips! I also never had hangovers in the past, but I had a bad one just two weeks ago from too many glasses of red wine and a glass of champagne. I blamed it on the volume and the champagne, but I am wondering if my overall tolerance is just lower.
As far as caffeine goes, I used to be able to have it later in the day no problem, but now it makes me go into to super speed. My boyfriend has even commented on my odd behavior and essentially banned me from having any coffee later in the eve because I won’t stop talking a mile a minute!
What is really odd is that in the past week or so I am noticing that I just don’t even tolerate coffee well anymore–even my regular morning cup. It seems to make my stomach feel all acidic and irritated. So I can’t even finish a cup of it lately(I tended to drink Americanos or drip every morning with cream). I am seriously considering giving it up as now I am starting to build an aversion to it based on the previous week or so’s experiences. It just does not even sound good…
Broth is my fall back. Whole pots of green tea at sushi dinners seem to be fine, though…
One December 29th or so it will be a year since I went primal so these are both newer developments.
Yes to lowered alcohol tolerance for both my wife and I since changing our WOE.
Of course, for those complaining of increased hangovers – it might be good to remember that the stuff is poisonous. I’m not a tea-totaller, but erhaps a good hangover is a nice reminder to be good to your precious liver.
I’ve found the complete opposite with the alcohol tolerance! Since I’ve gone….mostly….Primal (20%+), I’ve found I can drink very regularly (sometimes a scotch bottle a weekend) and not get a hangover or even that drunk. That said I primarily drink scotch with soda water, and keep it spaced out. Coke/sugar drinks give me an increased hangover. I just assumed it was less fat in my liver and thus better processing the alcohol….perhaps not!
Being short, and mostly primal/paleo, means only one glass of wine for me, too, unless it’s a party over several hours. Then, as long as I alternate a glass of water with glasses of wine, and follow the last glass of wine with a glass of water, then I have no problems. Even given that, I generally can only tolerate 2 glasses of wine! Talk about a cheap date! Back in the pre-primal days, I would easily have 3 or 4 glasses of wine at a party, and only suffer if I didn’t follow it up with water before bed.
Mark, you say you stay at 100 to 150 grams per day: but of what. A bottle of wine is 74 grams of alcohol according to nutritiondata.self.com. I like a couple of 6oz glasses of wine a day myself, which doesn’t cause any problems for me on a low carb/primal diet.
Did Mark maybe mean 100-150 grams of carbs?
Nope, according to the same source, a bottle of wine has 17.6 grams of carbohydrates,4.4 of which are sugar.
?
17.6 is less than 150…
Hi all, Love the site, love the comments..
Just a short story about sun and Australia. I live on the Sunshine Coast, and we often get very hot days around 35-40 deg is summer (Celsius). Im olive skinned, and can easily burn badly in ten to fifteen mins here even on a day where it is about 25 deg.
A few years ago I went to Minnesota in summer and went to a fair where I sat in the midday sun watching a show for two hours on what was later reported to be the hottest day since 1901. People died in their homes on this day – I saw it on the nightly news. I do not remember the temp (it was in F so didnt mean anything to me) but I assume it was damn hot. However it didnt “feel” hot to me. There was no “sting” in the heat. It didn’t hurt me to sit in it for hours at all.
So for all those attempting sun exposure in Australia – please take it slowly. Its a totally different heat down under. Ive been all over the world and never felt sun like it anywhere else.
I got burned recently on my arm from inside my tinted windows car.
Jane
Since eating lower carb, I’ve not really noticed a difference in the intoxicating effects of alcohol, although this is not saying much in that I rarely drink more than 1-2 beers in a night anyway. However, I HAVE noticed that I will wake up after 3-4 hours of good sleep, and only sleep very restlessly the remainder of the night. If I drink my yummy ale a few hours before bed, as I’m cooking dinner, I dont have the same problem.
From the perspective of a Midwife, I think modification of movements are a fine way to go as long as you are listening to what your body (and your baby) are telling you.
I’ve seen moms who work out to the day they deliver and do really well and I’ve also seen mom’s crash and burn, mostly because they felt the “need” to exercise and ignored their bodies ques to slow down and rest more.
Please, listen to your body. If it is telling you to rest and not work out (aside from a gentle swim or walk) then honouring that is really important. Pregnancy isn’t the time to push your limits or find new personal bests, it’s the time to grow a beautiful baby, eat healthy food and connect with your body.
On another note, as you progress week by week, your body produces more of a hormone called relaxin, which makes your joints flexible (so baby can fit through the pelvis) and predisposes you to injury. Use proper form and if you feel ‘wobbly’ then stop. Taking care of a new baby with a busted ACL is not fun ;0
Wow, thanks for the timely post on exercising while pregnant! I have just started following the primal lifestyle and actually got pg during the challenge this fall. (I credit the challenge with my increased fertility that month
). I was pretty ill the first trimester and now that I’m feeling great in the second trimester, I’m ready to jump back into an exercise routine. I’m definitely checking out One Fit Mom and will also try some recommendations here.
I have become completely alcohol intolerant since going primal about 5 months ago. Living in Ireland this isn’t necessarily a good thing as social events tend to involve a alot of drink. I am not a heavy drinker but if I have more than a few glasses I start getting drunk and the ‘snowball’ effect can come into play. Leaving me in a aterrible state for several days afterwards.
I think it’s primarily down to a lower body mass as I’ve lost weight. I’m laughing at the comments above from people of Irish descent. People living in Ireland don’t know what sun is especially this time of year!