The best weight loss exercises for mums!

Being a mum is a tough job, but the most rewarding! I also believe, ‘Happy Mum, Happy Family’! If you are feeling good about yourself, if you have lots of energy and if you are eating well, you are more likely to be happy in general, which will reflect on your kids and your partner – plus you will lose weight and that annoying stomach fat!.
Before you start any exercise you need to think about the following:

  • If you are a new mum and just getting back into exercise after birth, it is best to have a check-up from your GP or obstetrician to ensure you are OK to exercise. You don’t want to rush back into it, if it means you will do long term damage.  I wouldn’t be doing any of these exercises before your 6 weeks check up.
  • Make sure you have a good, supportive sports bra.
  • Ensure you wear the correct footwear.  You can’t expect to get results when wearing incorrect shoes. You won’t activate the right muscles and you won’t get as much out of the exercises. Back pain, knee pain hip pain etc, can sometimes be a cause of wearing the wrong shoes. Make the investment, so you can exercise properly and get the best results you can. Go get professionally fitted. It’s worth the investment.
  • If you haven’t exercised in a while or are pregnant, take it easy to start with and make sure you also have the OK to exercise from your doctor.
  • Make sure you keep your pelvic floors turned on and don’t forget to always pull your belly button back towards your spine and hold it there – ALL THE TIME, not just when you are exercising!
  • Make sure you wear comfy clothes
  • Make sure you have a bottle of water with you to stay hydrated
  • Wear sunscreen & a hat!
  • Have fun, if you have the kids with you, make it a game!

Now that all that is out of the way, let’s get on with the exercises!

So how can exercise help?

Exercise can:

  • Give you more energy
  • Help you burn calories, even after you have finished exercising
  • Be incidental  – at home, out & about, even with the kids
  • Be a great stress reliever
  • Give you Vitamin D, fresh air and a clearer head if you are doing it outside!
What exercises are best for me?
  • Cardio training– walking, running, skipping, swimming, riding – you don’t need expensive gym memberships to do any of these things.
    • Walk with the pram, push it up some hills, walk faster and then slower with it
    • Go running with or without the pram. If you don’t have the pram mix it up with shorter/faster runs and then longer/slower runs. Ensure you do some interval training as well – as that is the best cardio exercise to burn calories. Interval training is when you sprint as fast as you can for either a distance (say from 1 lamp post to the 5th lamp post) or for a set amount of time – 1min – but you want to be really out of breath and can’t sprint any longer. Then you recover, get your heart rate back down to a comfortable level.  And then repeat. This is a great workout to do if you are short of time – eg 20mins of intervals can be equivalent to 40mins of just jogging. Challenge yourself with time and distance. Do the same route for 2-3 weeks, but then try and do it faster!
    • Skipping – buy a skipping rope and skip! Do it with the kids. Skip fast, skip slow. I bet you haven’t done it since you were a kid.
    • Swimming – at the local pool, or at the beach. Do some fast laps, do some slow laps, get a kick board and do some kicking.
    • Riding – if you have a bike, put your helmet on and go riding – make the gears harder and then easier, go up and down hills if you live near some.
    • Strength training – this will help to tone you up – to get great legs, a tight bum, great shoulders, arms & tummy – but you won’t bulk up unless you are doing loads of heavy weights for hours a day! Strength or conditioning training is SO importance for burning calories. The more muscle you build (not bulk out!), the more calories you will burn after exercising. Your muscles work harder, when you are challenging them, which in turn burns more calories! When doing strength training, you don’t want to stop when it starts to hurt. That is your muscles switching on. You want to keep doing the exercise – the burning sensation is good – it means your muscles are working and the results will start to kick in. When training yourself, just think when I can’t possibly do any more ‘squats’, cause it hurts SO much, then just do 5 more! And really go for it.

Thank you to Amanda from www.blueskyfitness.com.au for writing this article – and if you are in Bayside, Melbourne, come and try one of Amanda’s workouts. Your first session is FREE.

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