Love the body you’ve got: the 3 most-important goals of post-natal fitness

12/31/2014

Ever have days like this? You’re looking in your closet for something to wear and you realize nothing fits you yet. Yikes! Your baby is 6-months old and you are still wearing maternity clothes or yoga pants. How can it be?

“I thought nursing would make the pounds drop off? I’m a nursing machine. I’m hungry all the time but I never have time to eat.  Why am I still carrying all this baby weight?”

If you had unlimited financial resources, you could hire a personal trainer to take you through your paces daily, a personal chef to prepare healthful meals and snacks, a caregiver to watch the baby while you work out and a night nurse so you can get some sleep.  You too could have a red-carpet-ready body 4 months post-delivery. But that is the stuff of Hollywood, not of real life.

The truth is it takes most women nine months to one year to lose the baby weight – longer if you get pregnant again. Being stressed about weight loss, along with all the other stressors of motherhood, is a recipe for frustration. Instead of making weight loss the focus of your post-natal fitness program, focus instead on these straightforward, attainable goals that will get you feeling better and healthier fast.

1.  Pull up your privates and strengthen your pelvic floor.

Strengthen your pelvic floor muscles with enhanced Keigel exercises and Pilates exercises incorporating squats and lunges. Your pelvic floor muscles are highly stressed during pregnancy and labour and are often damaged during delivery. It is important to rehabilitate your pelvic floor because those muscles play a vital role in healthy sexual function, urinary and anal continence, and core support of your spine and pelvis.

2.  Walk the plank for perfect posture and full body conditioning.

Add planks to your workout routine to strengthen and tone your shoulder and back muscles and improve your posture and to counteract the hours of feeding baby – not to mention texting. Planks also challenge your abs, hips, legs and arms for fully body conditioning.

3.  Get outside and socialize.

Put baby in a sling or stroller and get outside and get walking. Meet your moms’ group for an hour walk before hitting the local coffee shop. Not only will you get a good workout, but socializing with other new moms is important to keep you from feeling isolated and contributes to good mental health. Plus the babies love the movement!

Focus on these simple exercise goals and you will get stronger and feel better. The increased muscle tone will increase your ability to lose weight. But in the meantime, love the body you’ve got. It just did an amazing job!

Barbara Grant is the founder and president of Retrofit Pilates and a mother of two. Follow her Confessions of a Body Addict: Keeping fit and sane while raising a family, running a business, and creeping up on 50.