Exercise and Fertility

Thanks to "Med" for her question in my shoutbox, I am posting the answer here as knowledge for all who may be interested.

Med's question goes, "LadyRTC, I got two conflicting messages from "older" people. One camp says women should exercise to boost their fertility. The other says no. Do you know? But I think for men, exercises helps."

I did some research and found some articles talking about the relationship between exercise and infertility.

In a research by Derbyshire (2007), it was found that “reproductive abnormalities are more likely to be present in women at either ends of the energy spectrum (excessively high, or low energy intake). An inadequate energy intake coupled with intense levels of physical activity is known to suppress reproductive function in women.” Basically, it says that women who over-exercise (resulting in a loss of energy), have a higher possibility of being infertile.

In another article, it was reported that “women who are on either side of the weight spectrum, either too thin or too heavy, often have difficulty conceiving. For women who are too thin, either strict dieting or excessive exercise is often the cause of their infertility. For these women, gaining weight or reducing the volume of exercise may reverse infertility. For women who are overweight, obesity can exacerbate infertility. One study showed that weight loss alone reversed infertility. Weight loss may reduce the rate of miscarriage and improve the success of fertility treatment." (Jeffreys & Nordahl, 2002) So basically, obese women who are hoping to become pregnant, should try to lose some weight by exercising in order to become fertile again and women who are too thin, should try to regain some weight by healthy eating coupled with moderate exercising for a fit and healthy body to get fertile.

After reading these, I guess the ultimate answer to the relationship between exercise and fertility is that, moderation is key, be it exercising or your weight; Overexercising, obesity and underweight may result in infertility.

To find out more about what is considered “intense” and “light” exercising, read my other blog entry and take note of 60-70% of maximal heart rate for moderate exercising.

References:

Derbyshire, E. (2007) Taking it a step too far? Physical activity and infertility. Nutritionand Food Science, 37, 5, 313-318

Jeffreys, R. & Nordahl, K. (2002) Preconception, Prenatal, and Postpartum Exercise.Healthy Weight Journal, 16, 3, 36(3p)

Sleep is key to weight loss for new moms (research shows)

I was doing some research for my project and I chanced upon this article which could be of interest for my readers, here it goes:

Dr. Erica Gunderson (PhD), an investigator from Kaiser Permanente Northern California, led a study of 940 women enrolled in Project Viva, a multicentre observational study of prenatal diet and lifestyle, pregnancy outcome and infant health. Dr. Gunderson and colleagues analyzed weight and sleep duration data at six months and one year postpartum.

The study links shorter sleep duration to postpartum weight retention, Dr. Gunderson told the Medical Post. "The findings suggest that getting enough sleep may be as important as a healthy diet and physical activity to helping new mothers return to their pre-pregnancy weight."

Mean weight retention at one year was 0.8 kg. There were 124 women (13%) who retained substantial pregnancy weight (5 kg or more above their prepregnancy weight) at one year postpartum. Sleep duration was divided into four groups: five hours or less, six hours, seven hours and eight hours or more per night.

Mothers who got the least sleep at six months postpartum were the most likely to retain substantial pregnancy weight after one year.

"When the baby is six months old, if they report getting five hours of sleep or less, they have a three-fold risk of substantial weight retention at one year, compared to women who report getting seven hours or more," Dr. Gunderson said.

Those who got less sleep in the second six months than they did in the first six months postpartum were also at significantly increased risk for substantial weight retention, compared with those who got more sleep in the second period. "No matter what amount they said they were getting at six months, if that decreased over time so that at one year they were sleeping less, that doubled the risk."

New mothers, bear this in mind! Get your hubbies to feed the babies at night if they want your figure back!

Reference:

Patricia Nicholson. (2007) Sleep key to weight loss for new moms. Medical Post. Vol. 43, Iss. 40; pg. 1, 2 pgs. Toronto.

Variety Show "Result is All" on Channel 8

Have you watched this variety/advert show before? The chinese title is "美就是一切" on Channel 8, presented by a particular slimming center in Singapore. In the show, they bring a "successfully-slimmed" customer on the show and make the guests guess the answers to the questions about this "success" case.

It was pretty amazing how they can attempt SO HARD to make it look like the "success" case is really "successful". It doesn't take a lot of observation for us to notice that the girl looks so much fatter in person than the pictures she took for the advertisements. The short clips of her said that she had slimmed down 12 kg in 2 months and this is no wonder how she already looked fat during the show-recording! Because a rapid loss of wei

ght like that sends the wrong signal to our body telling us to slow our metabolism, which makes further loss of weight more difficult. This is called the "starvation response".

From the clothes that the girl is wearing for the show (extreme right in the picture above), it's pretty obvious she's trying to hide her regained fats, the flower and thick belt at the tummy, the black tights, the cut sleeve... but none of these could hide her "thick" thigh and arms. I found her photo for the slimming center advert in the newspaper, see the difference for yourself!

Can you believe it is the same body in the show? Kudos to photoshop??!

Also, the supposed "expert" from the slimming center who gives "expert" opinions... sigh... not everything that she has said can be heeded to. One of the things which i heard can be translated that, "water retention is due to hormonal imbalance". Yes, but that is just one of the cause of water retention. In fact, hormonal imbalance is really common amongst females pre and post-menses, so that statement really doesn't mean anything. If there is anyone who really has a doctor-certified water retention problem, the person could possibly be suffering from serious health problems like kidney failure, heart problem, congestion of lymphatic system, ate too much salty food, wrong/too much medication etc. These "diagnosis" by these slimming centers can really potentially cause customers to turn away from real health issues thinking it's a weight problem...