Martina’s fit pregnancy

The photo on the right is about 6 months before I got pregnant the first time. I am 26 years old (in the photo), 5′ 6″ and weighed 120 lbs. My workouts consisted of 3 – 5 times per week. Cardio was either stairmaster or running with my dogs, 30 minutes each and also split routine of weight training lasting about 45 minutes. Upper body and lower body on alternating days. In the summer I prefer to run or ride my bike outside whenever possible, and do sports.

In 1996 I went to Los Angeles and competed in the Galaxy fitness competition and placed in the top half of 300 girls. I was pretty pleased.

During my pregnancy I gained approximately 30lbs. and worked out 2-3 times per week. During the first trimester I didn’t train at all because I was too tired, the second trimester I worked out basically 10 min. cardio and 20 min. light weights and gentle stretching. The last trimester I had to stop working out because I was too tired.

After my first baby Karman, I was at 128lbs in about 4 weeks and didn’t start working out again until about 6 months later. My shape was easily maintained just through breastfeeding and keeping up with the baby.

This photo is me at 8 1/2 months pregnant. This was my second pregnancy; my other daughter is now 19 months old. I went from 128lbs. to 160 lbs (160 is my weight in the photo). I was eating four good meals a day plus some snacks and almost no junk foods, as I didn’t really crave anything out of the ordinary. My workouts were down to two per week consisting of 1 hour of walking on a daily basis, plus 5 minutes of stairmaster and a 20 minute all over body weight training workout, with very gentle stretching at the end.

I went into labour on a Monday morning and was out raking the lawn and cutting the grass that afternoon. That evening the contractions became stronger and we headed to the hospital around 7:00 p.m. and our new daughter Tyra was born at 9:15p.m. My actual “hard” labour was about 1 1/2 hours and the pushing stage took about 20 minutes and she was born. I didn’t use any drugs, only laughing gas to help ease the last few contractions.

My daughter is now 5 weeks old and I am back in the gym twice a week doing 20 minutes of stairmaster and 20 minutes weights and stretching. My recovery from this delivery has been amazingly fast. My weight is down to 140 lbs. and everything is going just fine. I think I owe it all to being extremely fit. The pregnancies were both great, deliveries short, and the recoveries have been incredibly fast.