Getting Fit After Having A Baby This Summer

 
 
I have news for you. BIG news. Nobody has ever heard this news before. This is largely what makes it news, as opposed to….olds. Here it is…. Ready?
 
When you are pregnant you put on weight.
 
 
 
I know!!!! Butt weight – sorry, typo. But wait! There is more… Despite what you might read in very reliable magazine articles about women who put on their size 8 jeans on the way home from the delivery room, this so-called ‘baby-weight’ does NOT fall off again, the second you start breastfeeding, or pick up a hoover.
 
In fact, it wants to stay there for as long as it possibly can, glued to you like…fat glue.
 
The only way to shift baby weight – assuming you would like to – and get fit again, is to do some exercise. And when I say ‘some’, I mean…quite a lot, spread over several months. It doesn’t ‘just fall off’. It’s not easy. And nobody should ever pretend that it is.
 
But the good news is that if you’re reading this in the summer, then this is a great time to get out there and start working on your general fitness levels and getting back to the ‘old you’… while spending time with your baby.
 
Summer is, of course, a fairly unforgiving season for anyone who feels less than confident about their body. Micro-shorts, bikinis and floaty summer dresses were not exactly designed with breast-feeding or a post-baby tummy in mind.
 
BUT… the warmer weather and longer days mean loads of opportunities for long walks pushing a sleeping baby in a pram, and even jogging with your baby. Prams and buggies these days have better suspension than the Golden Gate Bridge, and it’s completely normal to see new mums out power-walking or jogging through the park pushing a happy baby, looking up at the trees.
 
There are exercise groups that meet in parks to do everything from gentle yoga to hard-core boot camps run by ripped ex-marines, who shout at you until you CRY the fat away… If you’re into that kind of thing.
 
Summer is also a great time for swimming, especially if you’re lucky enough to live near a beautiful lido, or a river or lake where it’s safe to swim. This, of course, requires some form of childcare, as it’s not a good idea at ALL to go for a swim while your baby is asleep, and assume they will stay sleeping. They won’t.
 
The thing with exercise, especially weight-loss after a baby, is to build it into your weekly schedule. Have three days a week where exercise is IN the diary, booked, planned, organised, and HAPPENING.
 
Some people find this easiest if they have a babysitter or childminder booked in for these times, as then there’s no excuse at all not to do it. So…DO IT! Find one. And use the time to make yourself feel good.
 
The health benefits, both physical and mental, of regular exercise are so well documented you’d have to have been living in a hole in ground in Outer Mongolia not to know about them. And I’m pretty sure they have Wi-Fi in Mongolia now, so you really have NO excuse not to know.
 
Use the summer months, use the long evenings and calm early mornings, lunch breaks or weekends, to get out, see the sun, breathe, move, tone up, work out, and get fit.
 
It WILL happen. And it feels great as it does.