07/06/2019
Yes they are! Tell your pregnant friends how incredible they are!
A helpful reminder to anyone who needs it: Pregnant women are INCREDIBLE.
According to new research, women who are expecting are living at the edge of human endurance – on a level comparable to someone who’s completed the Tour de France.
Yep, scientists at Duke University in the US have discovered that women carrying babies are operating at the limit of what a human body can cope with, in a way that’s comparable to elite endurance sport.
The limit of what a body can deal with was investigated by analysing elite sporting events, including the Tour and a 3,000 mile run. The data showed that the maximum energy expenditure a body can cope with is 2.5 times the body's resting metabolic rate, or 4,000 calories a day for an average person.
When you’re pregnant, your energy use peaks at 2.2 times your resting metabolic rate.
TL; DR: There is a ceiling to the amount of energy that humans can plough through, and it’s pushed by pregnancy, as well as by crazy intense athletes.
