5 REASONS TO INVEST IN YOURSELF PRE-PREGNANCY

When creating GLOW, our founder, Giorgina Slotar quite literally drew a circle divided into three equal parts. (Bear with us). The top part of the circle focused on pre-pregnancy, the next became pregnancy, and the final section was destined to be postpartum. These formed a cycle, with postpartum heading back into the pre-pregnancy phase again.

It all starts with you…

YOU are the pre-pregnancy phase. As the life source to yourself, you are the most important person to prioritise before going into the phases that follow. If you’re going to meet the demands of each phase (pregnancy and postpartum), you need to lay the right foundation during the pre-pregnancy phase.

Need a little more convincing? Here are our top five reasons to invest in pre-pregnancy:

Our three-prong approach sets us apart. It’s what makes GLOW different from the other apps focused only on pregnancy and postpartum. Don’t get us wrong, there are so many great ones out there. Sadly, we find they’re missing the crucial point of educating women on the importance of investing in and putting ourselves and our health first prior to considering a family. Why? When you do this, not only are you both mentally and physically preparing yourself for this next phase, but you are investing and creating your own internal support structure that will see you through your pregnancy and postpartum, too.

1. Your PRE baby health = your POST baby health

Investing in your pre-pregnancy health and wellness is essentially opening the most important savings account you’ll ever own… a health investment account!

Any sweat “equity” you invest pre-pregnancy builds a cardiovascular and strength blueprint for you to draw from in the coming stages. Think of each workout and nutritious meal as a deposit into this very important account. As you enter your postpartum journey, when you are ready to start your recovery journey, it’ll be more manageable as you get back into exercise. You’ll also be able to recover from exercise with ease and continue to build (yes, build) upon the health platform that you’ve already created pre-pregnancy. As for all of those deposits that you made pre-pregnancy, you don’t lose those either. They’re ready and waiting for you to cash in on postpartum to make the transition into motherhood so much easier as they are going to be your fallback in the weeks that you shouldn’t even be contemplating exercise.

Your sweat “equity” will make you less prone to soreness and injury, so the more exercise you do pre-pregnancy, the more memory you can bank and the easier it becomes to make deposits during pregnancy and beyond.

2. You increase your chances of conceiving

When you get into the best and healthiest shape prior to thinking about trying to conceive, it allows your body the chance to actually prioritize conception. Our bodies are creatures of survival and if you are unwell or even just simply not in your best health – it becomes your body’s first priority to deal with whatever stress it is under: illness, fatigue due to incorrect nutrition, lack of sleep and even over-training to name a few. So developing a healthy, balanced and sustainable approach is key.

3. You can create the healthiest home for your baby to develop in

Your little one’s foundation of health starts within his or her very first home – your womb. Creating a healthy home for your little one to grow in for the first 9 months of development is simply crucial. So even if getting into shape and health isn’t first on your list of personal priorities, it should be number one on your priority list for your future baby.

4. You are able to continue exercising throughout your pregnancy

We see it often with women that fall pregnant and have led pretty sedentary lives up until their pregnancy. They suddenly get a bee in their bonnet to “hit the gym” now that they are expecting, as they are worried about gaining too much weight throughout their pregnancy. This is a very important point to come to terms with: you can only continue to train at the level you were training at PRIOR to falling pregnant. Therefore, if you were not training prior to pregnancy, you should not train hard during. This doesn’t mean that you can’t do low-key exercises such as walking and supervised pilates, but you cannot suddenly start hitting the gym full steam ahead. If you have established a healthy exercise routine prior to pregnancy, providing you have no complications, you can train right up until the end at a maintenance level if you are comfortable and energetic enough!

*Maintenance level: No harder than you were training prior to pregnancy, while making the correct adjustments as you move through your trimesters. This is why the GLOW pregnancy programme is broken down into trimesters: to account for the changes your body goes through at each stage.

5. You will feel better about yourself during pregnancy, reducing your chances of postpartum depression

Being able to train throughout pregnancy will increase your mood, due to the positive release of endorphins. These will encourage healthier eating habits and enable greater control when it comes to gaining unnecessary weight throughout your pregnancy. This makes it easier to get your strength back postpartum, reducing your chances of postpartum depression, often linked to a mother’s lack of self-esteem post pregnancy due to changes in our bodies and a feeling of not knowing ourselves anymore.

Become the best version of yourself at every phase with GLOW

Ready to embrace your strength, enjoy greater health and prepare yourself for the greatest journey of all? It’s time to get GLOWing. Unlock your free trial now and join our all-inclusive community today.