New Career’s Resolutions

OK, so it’s not a new career exactly, but after almost 10 months of being away from regular work, it kinda feels like it.

Like new year’s, I tend to approach new beginnings with wildly optimistic ideas of how my life is going to go from this point forward.  Some things pan out, others don’t.  (Starting to exercise regularly was one such idea that, fortunately, managed to stick.) So, in the week since I accepted my job offer, here are some resolutions I’ve been kicking around:

• Drink more water.  I just could use a little more in my day.  I plan to keep a bottle in my car and at my work space.
• Swim at least twice a week, ideally three.  Thank heavens the local Masters team has 5am workouts three days a week.  Without ’em, I would have been hard pressed to do any weekday swimming at all.  I did a trial swim-bathe-commute yesterday and confirmed that I should have enough time to make this happen before reporting to work (although it means an 8:30pm bedtime).
• Find a way to bike to work, and do it on a somewhat regular basis.  I have a few thoughts on how I might do this.  I might drive to a park-and-ride and do two short rides a day, or occasionally wake up early and go the entire 35 or so miles in (and take the train back).  Either way, I’m just thrilled that I’m now living somewhere where there is enough bike-friendly weather and infrastructure to make this possible.  I plan on doing a test ride later this week.
• Ride my bike at least three times a week.  If I commute by bike two days a week, this should make this a little easier…but I’m also assured that the glorious weather we’ve been experiencing all summer can’t last, and I’m not sure I have the willpower to ride in the dark AND the wet.  One option might be to dig out the trainer from the garage.
• Run at least twice a week.  Yeah, I have no idea how I’m going to get this in.  But, among other things, I told my husband that I’d run a 10k Turkey Trot with him in a few weeks, so I’d better start figuring something out.
• Eat more veggies.  I hear that the cafeterias at my new campus aren’t half bad.  If they’re even a shadow of the spread they have over at Google, I ought to be able to score me a tasty salad at lunchtime.  Actually sucking it up and packing some vegetables is also an option.
• Work on my flexibility.  I inherited my family’s poor flexibility genes, so I really need to put some conscious effort into this.  Might be a nice wind down before bedtime activity.

Exercising During Pregnancy

Photo credit: Jonny Hunter

On Monday I ran across a story about a mother who gave birth to a healthy, full-term baby shortly after completing the Chicago Marathon this past weekend.  With the blessing of her doctor, she ran and walked the race, finishing in about six and a half hours. Last week, I watched a video that highlighted rock climber Carrie Cooper, who continued to climb (with significant modifications) into her 39th week of pregnancy.

If you check out the comments following these stories, you’ll see that exercising during pregnancy remains a bit controversial. Not long ago, the prevailing advice to pregnant women was to rest, rest, rest.  Now, folks are starting to question whether they’ve been too conservative, and women are trying to understand just what kinds of activities they can safely participate in.

The sad truth is that there is very, very little research in this area.  No doubt that is because studying pregnant women can be an ethically tricky endeavor.  (No one wants to inadvertently screw up some child’s potential while they’re still in utero!)  Most of the research that has been done appears to be by a physician named James Clapp III, who’s gone on to write a book about pregnancy and exercise. Unfortunately, I can’t access his original research OR his book at the moment, but the abstracts of both suggest findings that support continued exercise during pregnancy.

That sentiment is reflected by the most recent guidelines provided by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. (Full disclosure: I can’t access their actual guidelines, so I’m using this summary article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine as my reference.)  While admitting that evidence in this field is lacking, they definitely lean toward encouraging mothers-to-be to remain active.  They even support previously inactive women to begin an exercise program while they’re pregnant.

You might ask, with so little science to back them up, why do they lean in this direction?  Here’s my understanding: physical activity has clear benefits to the health of women who are not pregnant. Why should this change once a woman is bearing a child?  As we’ve seen no evidence that exercise adversely affects the fetus, it seems in everyone’s best interest that physical activity continues throughout a pregnancy.

It’s always a good idea to discuss exercise plans with health care providers, but generally speaking, healthy women who are experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy should be allowed to exercise, using some common-sense guidelines.  The mother should be comfortable while doing the activity: if it hurts, stop.  Also, sports should be modified to minimize the risk of injury.  (Realizing, off course, that life cannot ever be entirely free of risk, so there’s some grey area in there as to what activities should or shouldn’t be deemed “too risky.”)