Bikini Body Mommy and Diastasis Recti
I did not exercise while I was pregnant at all out of fear. I am usually a runner and from someone who had two miscarriages previously, I would have been content with lying with my legs in the air for nine months if someone would have let me do it; I wasn't moving any extra than I needed to. I know that exercising is safe and this was an irrational fear, but I wasn't taking the chance.
When I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah, I gained almost 65 pounds. This is very much within normal, healthy, range for twins. You can imagine what that extra weight plus having two babies in my uterus did to my body. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I could barely walk around my house or to the mailbox or up and down stairs without being winded, tired, and incredibly sore. My ankles, knees, and thighs were literally giving out from the extra weight in my abdomen area.
After the boys were born, I had to reteach myself how to move and exercise. The pregnancy combined with my C-Section made the recovery much longer than I had thought.
By the fall, I was running again (when I decided to take the time to do it), but this winter had posed a lot of trouble with that. It's not easy to run in this much snow and it surely isn't easy to make yourself run outside when it's 30 below. Needless to say, I haven't ran much :)
When my mom was over the other day, she was telling me about other nurses she works with doing this Bikini Mommy 90 Challenge. These workouts were free on Youtube, fairly short (20 minutes), and led by a mommy trying to re-lose baby weight she had gained. This sounded intriguing to me so I looked into it further.
When looking this Bikini Body Mommy up, I learned that this woman, 31 years old, had three kids. In between her second and third kid, she lost 100 pounds. She's wrote a book, made a meal plan, and swears by the exercises she did. Then, she got pregnant a fourth time. She ended up having a miscarriage 13 weeks in after she had already put on almost 30 pounds. After reading her blog about the experience and crying my eyes out, I instantly bonded with her and wanted to be a part of her transformation back to bikini ready. If she had already helped herself look and feel great, maybe she could do the same for me!
So here I am, 8 days into the 90 day challenge. Her workouts are great, use little or no equipment, and are between 15 and 25 minutes, which is SOOOOO perfect for me. Thinking about making time for a 60 or 90 minute workout like Josh has done with P-90X sounds like I would be setting myself up for failure. I am also enjoying having a real person, who isn't super skinny and ripped, do the workouts right with me. She gets winded, she has to modify, she stumbles. It feels real and authentic. Also, her workouts are no joke; I cried during the fitness test on day 1 because I was shocked at how much I couldn't do. No matter if you're a mommy or not, I would highly recommend doing this 90 day challenge. Josh has done some of the workouts with me and can vouch that they are tough and good.
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. While listening to her talk about how to modify certain exercises depending on what your body is like after pregnancy, she mentioned something called diastasis recti. She talked about how many women have this and don't even know it and how they shouldn't be doing some of the plank exercises she was doing. I made a mental note to look that up. Afterall, I surely didn't want to be doing something that would harm my body.
I found out that diastasis recti is also known as abdominal separation. It happens in about 30% of pregnancies and especially happens to women carrying more than 1 child. Basically your abdomen muscles meet in a small wedge in the middle by your belly button. During pregnancy, when your body is crazy different, those muscles can separate farther causing a bigger ridge in the middle of your stomach area. I knew immediately I had this. If you are a member of my family, you have been grossed out by how many fingers you can stick far far down into the middle of my belly. You may have also been shocked to see how the skin on my stomach actually caves in to form a distinguishable line when I try to do a crunch.
Now I know what can harm this farther and what I can do to heal that area.
This 90 day challenge plus my diastasis recti healing exercises combined with better eating should put me into great shape for spring and summer and just in time for Nolan and Judah's first birthday. Stay tuned :)
Link to Bikini Body Mommy http://bikinibodymommy.com/
Link to Information on diastasis recti, how to test for it, and how to treat it: http://fit2b.us/how-to-check-for-diastasis-hd/
When I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah, I gained almost 65 pounds. This is very much within normal, healthy, range for twins. You can imagine what that extra weight plus having two babies in my uterus did to my body. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I could barely walk around my house or to the mailbox or up and down stairs without being winded, tired, and incredibly sore. My ankles, knees, and thighs were literally giving out from the extra weight in my abdomen area.
After the boys were born, I had to reteach myself how to move and exercise. The pregnancy combined with my C-Section made the recovery much longer than I had thought.
By the fall, I was running again (when I decided to take the time to do it), but this winter had posed a lot of trouble with that. It's not easy to run in this much snow and it surely isn't easy to make yourself run outside when it's 30 below. Needless to say, I haven't ran much :)
When my mom was over the other day, she was telling me about other nurses she works with doing this Bikini Mommy 90 Challenge. These workouts were free on Youtube, fairly short (20 minutes), and led by a mommy trying to re-lose baby weight she had gained. This sounded intriguing to me so I looked into it further.
When looking this Bikini Body Mommy up, I learned that this woman, 31 years old, had three kids. In between her second and third kid, she lost 100 pounds. She's wrote a book, made a meal plan, and swears by the exercises she did. Then, she got pregnant a fourth time. She ended up having a miscarriage 13 weeks in after she had already put on almost 30 pounds. After reading her blog about the experience and crying my eyes out, I instantly bonded with her and wanted to be a part of her transformation back to bikini ready. If she had already helped herself look and feel great, maybe she could do the same for me!
So here I am, 8 days into the 90 day challenge. Her workouts are great, use little or no equipment, and are between 15 and 25 minutes, which is SOOOOO perfect for me. Thinking about making time for a 60 or 90 minute workout like Josh has done with P-90X sounds like I would be setting myself up for failure. I am also enjoying having a real person, who isn't super skinny and ripped, do the workouts right with me. She gets winded, she has to modify, she stumbles. It feels real and authentic. Also, her workouts are no joke; I cried during the fitness test on day 1 because I was shocked at how much I couldn't do. No matter if you're a mommy or not, I would highly recommend doing this 90 day challenge. Josh has done some of the workouts with me and can vouch that they are tough and good.
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. While listening to her talk about how to modify certain exercises depending on what your body is like after pregnancy, she mentioned something called diastasis recti. She talked about how many women have this and don't even know it and how they shouldn't be doing some of the plank exercises she was doing. I made a mental note to look that up. Afterall, I surely didn't want to be doing something that would harm my body.
I found out that diastasis recti is also known as abdominal separation. It happens in about 30% of pregnancies and especially happens to women carrying more than 1 child. Basically your abdomen muscles meet in a small wedge in the middle by your belly button. During pregnancy, when your body is crazy different, those muscles can separate farther causing a bigger ridge in the middle of your stomach area. I knew immediately I had this. If you are a member of my family, you have been grossed out by how many fingers you can stick far far down into the middle of my belly. You may have also been shocked to see how the skin on my stomach actually caves in to form a distinguishable line when I try to do a crunch.
Now I know what can harm this farther and what I can do to heal that area.
This 90 day challenge plus my diastasis recti healing exercises combined with better eating should put me into great shape for spring and summer and just in time for Nolan and Judah's first birthday. Stay tuned :)
Link to Bikini Body Mommy http://bikinibodymommy.com/
Link to Information on diastasis recti, how to test for it, and how to treat it: http://fit2b.us/how-to-check-for-diastasis-hd/
So this is an old post, but what did you think? I'm looking into BBM & her DR exercises:)
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