An END to Pregnancy Cankles (and other water retention issues) in 5 Easy Steps!

Spring is well and truly here as this weekend saw the official start of British Summer Time.

The weather has been playing ball too and it's finally time to start thinking about lovely floaty dresses and cropped trousers. The trouble is that the last time you saw your lower limbs you couldn't tell where your calves ended and your feet began! Oh horror of horrors, you've suddenly got CANKLES!

One of my readers recently asked me how to get rid of her Cankles! She's only 27 weeks but is suffering terribly with swollen joints...

Swollen hands and feet are unfortunately all too common in pregnancy. When you fall pregnant your blood volume increases substantially. Your growing uterus puts pressure on your pelvic veins and vena cava (the major vein that receives blood back from your lower limbs), and slows down the bloodflow returning to the torso. This causes blood pooling, which in turn forces water into the tissues of your extremities (hands and feet).

Pregnancy also increases the likelihood of retaining water, which then adds to your Cankle issues!

So what can you do about it?

1. Elevate, elevate, elevate!!!

Yes you finally have a valid excuse for putting your feet up! Whenever you are sitting down, put your feet up on a stool or a pouffe.

If you are lying down, always lie on your left hand side to take the pressure off the vena cava and relieve the pressure.

2. Drink 1 litre of water for every 50lbs of body weight.

Just 2% dehydration can cause heavy water retention. If you are fed up with all the toilet trips, try putting a couple of grains of organic sea salt in a litre bottle to help you absorb the water into your cells better.

3. Get off the processed food!

Processed foods, sugar, caffeine, wheat and processed dairy all behave as toxins in your body. If your system is holding toxins it will automatically retain water to dilute those toxins so that they are not harmful to you or your baby.

Wheat, in particular, is well known for causing pregnancy oedema and oedema can even slow down delivery of your baby if your pelvic tissues are swollen and congested.

4. Get plenty of exercise

Veins have low blood pressure and so we have to use our leg muscles to help push blood back up to the heart. Strengthening your muscles through regular exercise will help your circulation.

You also need to move frequently during the day and avoid long periods of sitting or standing.

Just remember to always elevate your legs after exercising!

5. Get a massage!

Massage is great for aiding circulation and helping move fluid out of congested tissues. Hey, you now have a free pass to ask your partner for a foot massage every night!

To get all of your pregnancy questions answered, post your comments on my blog, or ask me directly through my pregnancy community

Your Pregnancy Questions Answered: Why the 140BPM Heart Rate Rule is Downright Dangerous In Pregnancy!

You may have heard or read that the best way to monitor the intensity of your workout in pregnancy is to keep your heart rate at 140 beats per minute or less, but how would you feel if I told you that this practice would at best give you an ineffective workout and at worst put you at risk of high-blood pressure, fainting and overheating?

The rule of sticking to 140 BPM is an outdated measure of monitoring exercise intensity during pregnancy. Here's why...

Heart rate during pregnancy is not an accurate measure of how hard the body is working because the relationship between heart rate and exercise intensity varies greatly from early pregnancy to mid-pregnancy to late pregnancy. Changes in exercise parameters, duration of session, the type of exercise, how hard it feels, the vascular system, oxygen consumption and fetal heart rate response, all impact what the target heart rate should be.

So, by example, very fit women in the last 10 weeks of pregnancy will struggle to get their heart rate up to the target 140BPM without working very, very hard. Therefore, prescribing a standard target heart rate formula as a safety measure is unwise.

So, how should you monitor your workout?

The best and safest measure by far is the BORG Rating Of Perceived Exertion Scale. This scale measures how hard YOU PERCEIVE YOU ARE WORKING and is therefore subjective and responsive to your state of wellbeing on any given day.

The BORG Scale runs from 1-10 with 1 being no exertion whatsoever to 10 being working flat-out at 100% intensity.

Pregnant women should be exercising at between 5 and 7 on the scale, with 7 being "working somewhat hard".

For a full copy of the scale visit BORG SCALE FOR PREGNANCY and scroll down. The document link is on the left hand side of the page.

For your chance to have your pregnancy health and fitness questions answered, post your comment on my blog, or email me at

Nisha@the9monthclub.com

Pregnancy: Your Questions Answered!

The reason I decided to take my knowledge online was because when I fell pregnant I was at a loss where to begin.

Although I was a fitness professional myself, I found myself sadly dissapointed by the lack of specific, structured advice on health and fitness through pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong, there was loads of information on pregnancy, but it was either all very vague, too medical in nature, or there were a lot of conflicting opinions about. There was no direct guidance that instructed pregnant women on exactly how to achieve the healthiest and fittest pregnancy possible whilst still doing it all safely.

So I find myself writing posts on a weekly basis on things that I experienced during my pregnancy and on topics that friends have asked me about, but it still feels like I am waffling to cyberspace! So I thought about how I could target my posts better to help my pregnant readers with their specific problems.

The answer was staring me in the face - ASK THEM!

So today's post is all about you! What do you want to know about any aspect of your pregnancy health and fitness journey?

It could be nutrition, exercise, relaxation and sleep, hydration... you name it and I will answer it!

Post your questions below and I promise to reply to them all!