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Exercise & Fertility: Is There a Link?

Team AckoFeb 8, 2024

Regular exercise has immense benefits. It boosts one’s energy levels, promotes better sleep, helps in maintaining ideal weight, and improves mood and overall quality of well being. On the other hand, lack of exercise has a negative impact on one’s overall health. Making matters worse is causing infertility issues.

Contents

The questions to be discussed here are:
The takeaway

The questions to be discussed here are:

Does exercise boost fertility? What should be kept in mind while planning out an exercise regime that increases your chances to get pregnant? What are the tips for being active?

Your weight and fertility

A healthy ideal weight boosts fertility. Being overweight or underweight, both hinder conception. In case you are overweight, high level of insulin forces the pituitary gland to pump more hormones while being underweight, causes low estrogen levels, both affecting ovulation and hence conception.

Exercise and fertility

Exercise before pregnancy as well as during early pregnancy is beneficial. It’s a tremendous stress buster. Regular moderate exercise helps in getting you to a healthy body weight, thereby increasing your chances to get pregnant. The hormonal balance is restored and menstrual cycles get regular. This helps in predicting ovulation time and hence, conception chances become high.

While working towards a healthy body weight, choose an activity, which makes you breathe faster, feel warmer and raises your heart beat. The activity should allow you to talk and not make you feel breathless. This level of activity is moderate. Whether you are underweight or overweight, it's important to follow a regular and right exercise regime. Consulting your doctor and a fitness coach would be of great help while trying to get healthier.

If you have not been active before, start building stamina. You can work out a combination of moderate and vigorous aerobic exercises a week along with strength exercises 2 or more days a week. Activities like swimming, brisk walking are good choices. If you have been doing vigorous exercise, bring down the exercise level to moderate level. The key is to getting healthier by doing the right exercise regularly.

Besides following a regular exercise routine, you can try walking to work, walking to your colleague’s desk instead of mailing. You can also set a reminder on your phone to stand up regularly. During lunch break, go for a 2 minute stroll after lunch. There are also apps available which count the number of steps walked during the day.

The takeaway

From the above, we can conclude the chances of getting pregnant go up considerably when you achieve the ideal weight. By eating the right balanced diet and exercising regularly, you are taking care of yourself and preparing your body for conception and the challenges of early pregnancy.

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