28th
Aug
From DeJour magazine
So Tracey Anderson the insanely fit fitness guru (who trained Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow) has recently had a baby and this week has given an interview to DuJour magazine talking about how she lost her baby weight 6 weeks after the birth of her daughter and how that pregnant women overindulge and to quote Tracey she says,
“A lot of women use pregnancy as an excuse to let their bodies go, and that’s the worst thing.
I’ve seen so many women who come to me right after [having children] with disaster bodies that have gone through hell, or they come to me years later and say, ‘Oh, my body is like this because I had three kids.”.
Now I personally don’t think this helps the pressure on post pregnant mums or mums who are currently pregnant with their body confidence and image and if I really don’t think mums need the pressure put on them like this.
Tracey has a different life to most mums and I believe it really isn’t necessary to put a message out there about weight loss 6 weeks post birth (which Tracey admits it was really hard to do – as in it didn’t just fall off and she worked out constantly to lose it)
I have Tracey’s post pregnancy DVD as do thousands of other mums and let me tell you it is hard core! And it certainly would not be able to be completed by the average mum who did not have an extremely strong core pre pregnancy and one of the biggest issues with serious post pregnancy exercise injuries is trying to do certain core work and moves before your body has recovered and for each and every mum this is different.
I attempted her DVD around 5 months post my first baby and I found it very hard even though I had always done a lot of exercise and have a strong core.
Tracey has an amazing body which she has worked incredibly hard for - so jumping back into exercise straight after birth would not pose a problem physically for her but take the 90% of other mums out there and the same cannot be said.
My issue is that post pregnancy exercise can be dangerous and using your core before it is ready can lead to all sorts of issues, but mums may see what Tracey have done and think “I can do that too’ and then cause serious injury. As such we have asked our personal trainer and post pregnancy pilates expert to discuss what can happen if we exercise too soon and show what safe exercises can be done and at what time frame (but again it always depends on the individual) and we will be bringing this to you next week from our new fitness trainer on our team.
Also, a point to note is that Tracey is a celebrity fitness trainer and a celebrity in herself so losing weight and being super toned is her livelihood and I think we can assume she has nannies and helpers to free her time up and let her train for however many hours a day she needs to.
Another of the big magazine’s in the US (Editor Lesley Jane Seyomour) commented on this feature and said “Nobody can live to that standard,” Seymour said. “[Celebrities] have $40,000 exercising gurus. You’re not being paid for that. That is not your job. They have to get in shape in two weeks because they’ve got to go on the set. That is not the normal human being.’
And I have to agree. Good on Tracey for getting her awesome body back, but we should absolutely not put that same pressure on ourselves to lose baby weight so soon after having a baby – and it may well be more than 12 months before you feel emotionally and physically ready to lose weight.
And I have to add I detest the term ‘disaster body’ and I can’t help think that Tracey is so out of touch with real mums outside of the celebrity circuit as that is just an awful term and phrase to use. How can any body that has produced babies be referred to as a ‘disaster body”?? Talk about making mums feel bad about their body when they should be embracing what it has achieved and not labeling it as a disaster as it no longer looks like what it did when you were younger.
So don’t let these kind of statements question your own weight loss. Instead if/when you are ready to lose weight do it in a a safe and healthy way and avoid any kind of dramatic or fast weight loss diet which deprives your body of nutrients and puts a dangerous amount of physical strain on your body. Instead aim for steady and safe weight loss with gentle exercise and always be sure to consult with a post pregnancy fitness professional before embarking on an intensive exercise routine post baby
If you are ready to lose weight then the Lose Baby Weight plans offer a healthy and safe exercise and diet routine. And don’t forget to check out our current promotions and discounts page to see what specials we have on this week on our Healthy Mummy product range
Wow how encouraging you are! I mean I’ve lost 10 kgs in6months post baby not trying too hard but yes so unrealistic the pressure put on new Mums to lose that weight so ridiculous how insensitive people can be
Imwith you 100% take your time some lose it faster than others some pressure themselves too but shut out what the world thinks how can you enjoy your baby 100% if you are worrying about body image
i like this you did a good job correcting and going into depth : )
Tracey Anderson seems to ave no idea of ow differently pregnancy affects different people. I weighed 50-55kg before my first born and am petite, never really been into unhealthy foods and did at leat 3 hours walking a day with my dog. When I got pregnant I piled on the kg’s more than 25kg in fact! I couldn’t help it, I was hungry all the time and craved sugar and fat. I continued to walk a lot, and increased my exercise but to little affect. However, my boy weighed 9lbs7oz! A big boy! I was quite worried, but after 5 months I was back in a size 8, and at 8 months I was back to might normal weight. No dieting or extra exercise, just didn’t crave the unhealthy food anymore. For my second pregnancy I thought I could control it better, but no such luck, if I didn’t listen to my body and eat what I felt like, I would feel so sick. This time I gained 30kg! My son tis time weighed 9lbs10oz but was delivered 2 weeks earlier. This time I am not so worried about the weight and am sure it will come off. I am sure though that I am one of those Tracey would label as having a disaster body after birth! But there is no way of knowing how your body with the hormones are going to make you do. After all the priority for the body is to produce a healthy baby! Gosh, if I was one of her former clients I would not be happy with her tone or attitude. Imagine turning up for help, but getting so harshly judged!
I have two of Tracey Anderson’s workout DVDs. The Mat Workout and the Post-Pregnancy Workout. I bought them just after I had my third child, about two years ago. Even then, I disagreed with her method – ‘do this DVD 5-6 times a week’. Anyone who has had any self-education on the subject of exercise knows that different muscle groups need to be worked from one day to the next, and those that were worked today should probably get a good rest tomorrow while you’re concentrating on another muscle group. Still, though, I continued doing her DVDs amidst my other workout DVDs and appreciated that she had gained a lot of weight with her first pregnancy and had worked it all off, so I felt like she was kinda real in a Hollywood/LA-is-a-whole-other-planet way.
I am quite annoyed with the statements published above by her. I have now had four children. There is no chance in hell I am going to have a tight, taut tummy again without surgery, and not because I’m ‘making excuses’, as insinuated by Ms Anderson – in fact, I have lost almost all my baby weight, healthily and at my own pace, 9 months after the birth of my daughter. I had large babies. My skin is stretched. There will always be a bit of sag, a bit of extra skin there. I am appalled at how she is perpetuating the social stigma of extra weight. Skinny does not automatically equal fit. Some women can’t exercise through pregnancy – I had sciatica, which brought excruciating pain if I even crossed my legs, sometimes it would click out when I was just walking and bring me to my knees – it was not an excuse to ‘let myself go’.
The first six weeks after giving birth to a baby, in my opinion, is not the time to be setting aside your newborn while you get to work for hours on end to get rid of your pudge. That’s the time when you’re working out your new baby’s schedule, your new life, trying to get some sleep, trying to help older children bond, cooking, cleaning, pumping, breast or bottle feeding, changing bums and maybe, if you can work out how, fitting in a half hour here and there through the week to do a bit of light postpartum exercise.
So good on you, Tracey Anderson, for losing that weight so quickly. You’ve just joined the leagues of pompous, self-righteous minor celebrities who look down on the day-to-day capabilities of the real mother.