Exercise

Adequate exercise is important for anyone during pregnancy, but it becomes even more important when insulin issues are added to the mix. Unfortunately, the combination of heavily pregnant + winter + working full time + exercise induced asthma does not easily lend itself toward the recommended half hour a day of light to moderate exercise. By the time I come home from work, it is cold, dark, and I'm exhausted, hungry and in no mood to be mucking about with exercise. And on a really bad day I get bad ligament pains in my belly whenever I try to walk too fast.

To try to overcome this, I recently invested in a pedal exerciser. It's like an exercise bike without the bike seat, wheels or handlebars.


This is a "Folding, Adjustable Pedal Exerciser" by Isokinetics. The general idea was that I'd have it in the living room and use it in the evenings while watching TV with Martin. However, I learned over the weekend that this is not likely to happen very much. For one thing, it squeaks and is probably annoying to any bystanders, and for another thing, there are too many distractions at home of other things I could be doing and enjoying more.

So, I implemented plan B, which is using it at work. I have it under my desk and during my lunch hour, when the office is closed and my coworker goes elsewhere, I have my lunch and then do some pedaling while reading a book. Today was the first day of this plan and it's worked very well. I probably pedaled for between 20 and 35 minutes - had to stop a few times temporarily when faculty members came into the office to check their mailboxes, so I lost count of the total minutes. But definitely an improvement from last week's daytime exercise levels.

Between this, parking on the far side of the parking lot (except in icy conditions), walking up one flight of stairs before taking the elevator, and walking down all eight flights at the end of the day, my midwife is pleased with my improved level of exercise. If it were still nice weather, I'd be more likely to be out on my recumbent trike (no chance of falling off!) and I had hoped to do so last weekend, but our weirdly springlike weather definitely turned into winter on Saturday.