If you’ve been trying to start a family and are having problems conceiving there are many different factors that could be influencing your attempts. We all know that regular exercise is always recommended to everyone in order to keep fit and healthy overall. The thing is though that many don’t realize the specific effects of exercise on fertility.
Is Exercise Good or Bad?
Today most people are obsessed with keeping their weight down, keeping slim and wanting to look good. Because of this, many women are exercising more than ever before. Unfortunately, exercise when done excessively has certain effects on a woman’s ability to become pregnant. Studies conducted revealed that about 40 percent of women who exercise regularly each week are more likely to have problems having children. Most of the women who had problems conceiving felt that they were over compulsive about exercising.
However, on the other hand, if a woman doesn’t get enough exercise, she can suffer from the opposite problem. Obesity is a serious and negative condition. A little more than 10 percent of women with more weight than what is recommended often have a difficult time conceiving. About 30 percent of your estrogen comes from fat cells. If a woman has extra fat cells from extra weight, she will see an increase in production of estrogen, which affects ovulation, menstruation, and fertility. The higher the weight, the more resistant the body becomes to insulin. The body may work to produce more insulin because it mistakenly believes it needs more. High levels of insulin production can prevent ovulation. (This is extremely common in women with PCOS.)
What to Do
How do you solve this catch-22 situation? Exercise is important for keeping your body healthy and allowing the body to work the way it was intended. If you’re overweight, exercise will certainly benefit you. However, if you’re planning to conceive, visit your doctor for more help on making sure you don’t do too much. By keeping your levels of estrogen and insulin where they should be from exercising and you’re at least eliminating this as a potential problem. Don’t ignore exercise’s effect on fertility.
Many couples visit experts to help them when they cannot conceive. About 30 percent of men and women have physical reasons that may hinder their ability to conceive a child. Don’t be quick to jump on the bandwagon of people who think they have to pay thousands of dollars a visit to find out they don’t have any physical or medical reason for not having a child. Once you have eliminated the other possible reasons, then you may need a higher level of expertise but until then do what you can to understand your body so that you can give it what it needs. You’d be amazed by how much power you have when it comes to your health and even your fertility.
Finding a healthy balance is an important requirement for women to keep their fertility rate higher. Too little or too much exercise can adversely affect your chances of conceiving. Take advantage of exercise’s effects on fertility in a positive way. With some careful preconception planning and simple changes, you may be able to keep exercise from stopping you from conceiving.