“Wow, your butt is so big!” – there really is never an acceptable time to comment on a person’s figure unless you are good friends or they have asked your opinion. So imagine Sara Haley’s shock when she found herself to be the subject of a bullying campaign in her gym.
Sara Haley is a personal trainer who just happens to be 35 weeks pregnant. She is still visiting the gym for a daily workout but has found recently that more and more people are being very critical about her gym visits – and the criticism is far from being constructive. She spoke with the New York Daily News about her experience.
“There is a lot of rude comments made and sometimes it’s like going back to high school, where people gang up and make nasty comments.”
One fellow gym goer told her “Those stretch marks are the worst I have ever seen!” and another commented on how fat her butt had become. These are of course totally normal physical changes that befall all pregnant women. However, unlike most pregnant women, Sara knows that she does not have to hide her body away and stop exercising; instead she continues to workout, at a reduce rate with modified exercises obviously, to stay in fit and healthy.
This all begs the question, why are so many people in the Santa Monica gym that Sara attends so abusive and intolerant to her? Why do some people think that pregnancy is some sort of disease and all pregnant women should keep well away?
Sara is definitely doing the right thing by staying active during pregnancy. Fitter women tend to cope with both pregnancy and child birth better than those who are not fit. They also recover their body shape following birth much faster. Sara is still performing a daily workout of push-ups, step-ups, tricep dips, dead lifts and lunges. Only last week she was voted one of the leading fitness trainers by Shape magazine; she will no doubt be in a position to make it onto that list again next year.
If you have recently had a baby and are wanting to get in shape again check out our article How to lose baby fat – Mom’s workouts.