The cat’s out of the bag – everyone knows that you’re pregnant now! What a relief!
At least that’s how I felt. Everyone promises that the second trimester is the easiest, and it definitely was that way in my case.
Emotionally, I felt so happy because I was starting to show, and from about 18 weeks onwards I could feel my baby kicking.
To look after myself mentally and emotionally, I would set aside five or 10 minutes or so every day just to connect with my baby.
I’d listen to pregnancy podcasts or meditations just to relax and send positive vibes to my little one. Stress really manifests in the body and if you have a stressful or emotionally-taxing pregnancy, chances are you’ll have a stressed-out baby.
If you try to minimise that stress and be gentle with yourself, both you and baby will come out the other side a bit happier.
My emotions were all over the shop anyway with all the changing hormones! The least I could do for myself was run a bath and listen to positive words for five minutes.
From midway through my fourth- up until my seventh month, I felt fantastic. I had loads of energy and had really successful and productive training sessions.
I was lifting a fraction of the weight that I was shifting pre-pregnancy, but I was just happy to be able to train without wanting to vomit or pass out.
I started having to modify my training. My three biggest changes were – no direct ab work like crunches, an increase in chest and back training, lighter weights and an increase in reps.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLJGhkkDJ1N/?taken-by=zigstergram.fitness
I trained my lower back and glute muscles a lot previously as they were my weaker areas that I wanted to enhance, so if you’re not already strengthening your lower back and glutes – start now. You won’t regret it!
Your butt takes a beating in that final trimester, so any lower back pain that I had could be released through a trip to the physio who massage my bum for an hour.
Food no longer repulsed me, and this is where I started to balance my diet out a bit more. Pre-pregnancy I was prepping for a photoshoot, so my diet was quite bland; lean meats, green veggies and rice for the most part.
In pregnancy, you’re told to vary your diet so that your baby can be exposed to a range of different foods, not just for the beneficial vitamins and minerals, but so they don’t become fussy eaters.
Once a meal is consumed, baby consumes it too. So if I’m having lots of broccoli, my little baby will probably enjoy broccoli too.
The best piece of advice I ever received was to “eat the rainbow” every day. So, try to have red meat, orange squash, yellow bell peppers, green avocado and purple blueberries for example, so that I’m having an array of different foods.
