With every New Year comes a new set of resolutions! So many people like to get back into shape after the holidays and just because you’re pregnant, it doesn’t mean you can’t join in on the exercise fun! While it’s great to stay fit, there are definitely a few exercises that you will want to avoid to keep baby safe. Watch to find out which workouts are best to steer clear of when you are expecting.

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You’ve heard the terms: sympathy weight, fatherhood fifteen, paternity pounds, dad dough, child chunk (okay, I made that last one up). Whatever you call it, no cute little turn of phrase, play on words or awesome alliteration makes it more acceptable that most new dads pack on weight after they have kids. And you don’t need a psych degree to figure out why this happens.

Between the cravings you end up sharing during pregnancy (for my better half, it was Italian food, Swedish fish and ice cream), the stress, the lack of sleep and the lack of time to exercise after baby arrives, it’s no wonder some guys develop man boobs faster than their wives develop nursing boobs. The question is: As a dad, what are you going to do to stop this from happening to you? (And if you’re a woman reading this, what are you going to do to help your husband?)

For me, this wasn’t an easy question. As someone who has made a career out of writing for magazines like Men’s Fitness and Men’s Health, I’d always taken my workout time for granted. I lifted weights regularly, played basketball a few times a week, swam on a Master’s team, and more. I was probably naive to think that I’d be able to maintain even half of my activities after the arrival of my first daughter, but when it turned out that during the first month or so of being a dad, I was maintaining exactly zero of them, it was a shock to my system. Couple that with the fact that I had the sleeping hours of a first-year med student and I was eating fast food like I was back in college. I was in trouble.

I hit this point about three weeks after the birth of my daughter and that’s when I decided I needed to come up with a plan to somehow squeeze exercise into my new dad life. I needed to get my blood moving so I didn’t feel tired and weak all the time. In order to do this and have any success with it, my plan had to meet these criteria:

1)      It had to fit into my existing schedule.

2)      No equipment would be required.

3)      I would have to be able to get other things done simultaneously.

4)      I’d have to burn calories or build muscle and not burn any time.

5)      The exercises had to be simple and effective.

After examining my schedule, taking stock of my daily activities and poring over a bunch of the fitness articles (ones I’d written!), I developed a plan that worked for me, and that I think every guy can follow to stay in shape. It’s not P90X. It’s not the Insanity workout. It won’t rebuild your body. It is simply a common-sense fitness plan to help you bridge the gap between your “I’m in great shape and about to have a kid” days and your “my kid sleeps all night and I sort of have my life back” days. Ideally, this will help you avoid the “I haven’t worked out or slept in three months, I eat like crap and I’ve gained 15 pounds” days.

The exercises and workouts I came up with are practical and they work. For instance, when you burp your baby, don’t just sit on the couch, do some Burp Lunges across your family room. They’re slow, great for your lower body and core, and they might even help induce the belch you’ve been praying for the last 10 minutes. Or next time you have your child in your Baby Bjorn, do a set of 10-15 body squats as soon as you strap her in. Making these kinds of things habits will turn everyday activities into calorie burners and muscle builders.

I wrote about these ideas and literally dozens more (along with lots of advice) in a book called The Dadvantage: Stay in Shape on No Sleep, with No Time and No Equipment. The book debuted this week in the Top 10 of Amazon’s ‘Fatherhood’ section and it has been climbing every day. No hard sell here. Just thought it might help some other dads out there. If you want to give it a shot (it’s short, meant to be read in one or two sittings) check it out.

Good luck!

New mom Jessica Simpson is ready to get back her pre-baby body. Her game plan? The singer tweeted recently, “so excited to be part of the Weight Watchers family.” Jessica told PEOPLE that she wants her diet to be more of a lifestyle, because she was a yo-yo dieter in the past. But while she wants to lose the baby weight, she’s being realistic about her goals. She told the magazine, “There’s not a goal weight – I just want to feel normal and fixate on inches. I really want to set small goals, so I’m constantly reaching goals and not looking at something far ahead.”

We wonder if we’ll be seeing some Weight Watchers commercials with Jessica and current Weight Watchers spokesperson Jennifer Hudson!

What do you think of Jessica’s weight loss plan? How did you lose the baby weight? Or how do you plan on getting back in shape?

Plus, more from The Bump:

Jessica Simpson’s Memorable Pregnancy

How to Lose the Baby Weight Without Really Trying

10 Minute Workouts to do While Baby Naps

Pregnant women have an excuse to eat whatever and however much they want, right? Nope, according to a new study conducted at Queen Mary, University of London and published in BMJ. Researchers noted that gaining too much weight during pregnancy can put a woman and her baby at higher risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, miscarriage, birth defects, blood clots, preeclampsia and (maternal and infant) death. They decided to see what was more effective in preventing those complications: diet, exercise or a combination of the two.

To do that, they observed data on over 7,000 women, including the amount of weight they gained during pregnancy and whether or not they had any health complications. They found that exercise, diet — limiting calorie intake; balancing protein, carbohydrates and fat; and eating foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables — and a combo of diet and exercise kept the women’s weight gain in check. But eating right was more effective than exercise in preventing certain complications: The women who watched their calorie intake were 33 percent less likely to develop preeclampsia, 60 percent less likely to have diabetes, 70 percent less likely to develop gestational high blood pressure and 32 percent less likely to deliver their babies preterm. The babies’ birth weights were not affected by the limits in calories.

You do need extra calories during pregnancy, but only about 300 more than you did pre-pregnancy if you’re in an average weight range, according to the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists. This study adds just one more reason you should stick to that recommendation and not overdo it. Find out how much weight is the right amount to gain for your body type here.

How much weight did you gain during pregnancy? How do you think that affected your health while expecting?

Plus, more from The Bump:

The Obsession With Pregnancy Weight Gain

What to Eat While You’re Pregnant

7 Healthy Meal Ideas for Pregnancy

You might want to take it a little easier at the gym if you’re trying to get pregnant. We’ve covered how exercise affects fertility before, but now a new study published in Fertility and Sterility provides further proof that moderate exercise is good for fertility, but over-exercising may slow down the baby-making process.

In the study, researchers looked at 3,500 Danish women over the span of a year, according to Reuters. These women were between the ages of 18 and 40, were actively trying to get pregnant and weren’t receiving fertility treatments. The women were asked how many hours a week they worked out and also what their exercise routine involved. About 70 percent of the women became pregnant during the study and researchers found that moderate exercise helped most of them get pregnant faster — those who spent five hours a week doing moderate exercise were 18 percent more likely to become pregnant than women who exercised fewer hours a week. And for the women who had a strenuous exercise routine, they were 32 percent less likely to have gotten pregnant in that time period. Weight and body mass index were not a factor in these findings.

The researchers admit that they need to do more research since the women self-reported their exercise routines, and could have misjudged the intensity of their workouts. It’s still uncertain why strenuous exercise may affect a woman’s chance of getting pregnant, although some theories are that the lack of body fat can cause women to have irregular periods and that exercise may affect how the egg implants in a woman’s uterus.

How often do you exercise? If you’re trying to get pregnant, have you modified your fitness routine?