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Pregnant women use almost as much energy as an endurance athlete, study says


Pregnancy needs a lot of energy (Picture: Getty)

If you’ve had a baby, you know that pregnancy can take a toll on your body.

Back pain, swollen ankles and morning sickness are just some of the things you have to go through to welcome your baby.

Well according to a new study, pregnant women use almost as much energy as an endurance athlete.

In the study, published this week in Science Advances, scientists found that the maximum energy expenditure among endurance athletes was only slightly higher than metabolic rates women sustain during pregnancy.

The study would that the cap of physical endurance was 2.5 times the body’s resting metabolic rate, which is about 4,000 calories burnt a day for most people.

Beyond that point, human bodies are unable to digest, absorb and process enough calories in the long term.

When a woman is pregnant, her energy use peaks at 2.2 the resting metabolic rate, which is pretty close to the limit.

To measure the rate, the scientists studied runners taking part in the Race Across America. They ran 3,080 miles between California and Washington over the course of 140 days – that’s six marathons a week.

Before the race, they recorded the resting metabolic rate and then continued to take it throughout the race.

As the race went on, it became harder for the participants to burn the calories.

One of the authors, Dr Herman Pontzer, from Duke University, told BBC News: ‘You can do really intense stuff for a couple of days, but if you want to last longer then you have to dial it back.’

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