Can Losing Weight Increase Your Chances of Getting Pregnant?

Can Losing Weight Increase Your Chances of Getting Pregnant?

It might be surprising for many people that being on the wrong side of an ideal body weight can have a negative impact on your fertility. Obesity can create changes in the hormonal balance of your body and can affect the menstrual cycle and ovulation. If the menstrual cycle and ovulation are not normal, it will reduce your chances of getting pregnant.

If losing excess weight for getting pregnant isn’t convincing you, let us look at the many ways excess body weight can interfere with your fertility.

  • In obese women , excess body fat is associated with chronic oligoanovulation and infertility due to increased insulin levels and increased androgen concentration (male hormone)
  • There is now emerging evidence that male obesity impacts negatively on male reproductive potential not only reducing sperm quality, but in particular altering the physical and molecular structure of germ cells in the testes and ultimately mature sperm

How to Lose Your Excess Weight?

If your BMI is 25 or more, your doctor will ask you to lose some weight in order to regulate ovulation and boost fertility. 150 minutes of activity per week in a way to include it easily into your lifestyle is advisable. However, your gynaecologist must approve all the exercises you want to do. Excessive exercising can also have adverse effects as it will put more stress on your body and will eventually interrupt with your ovulation.

Things to Remember Before Dieting

In a desperate measure to lose weight, people will start to attempt all kinds of fad diets. But restricting yourself completely of one food group might have more harmful effects than you think. For example, a diet with a restrictive intake of carbohydrates will slowly act as a barrier to pregnancy since they do not contain a sufficient amount of natural folic acid.