Feel like you are getting nowhere… read on…

When I had my second child, now a strapping 13-year old, I had put on nearly 3 stones in weight – that’s over 40 pounds. Did I feel huge!

With a small baby to take care of, you can’t really trip along to the gym everyday and spend a lot of time preparing nutritious, low calorie meals! So losing baby weight can be particularly difficult. I did learn two important things from that time – to eat more slowly and to take extra exercise whenever I could.

One thing I invested in was a stepper – just a few pounds – and put it a safe place in the living area, away from cooking and trouble. I found it relatively easy to do 10 minutes of stepping three times a day – making a total of 30 minutes. It fitted into my routine really well.

I also ate a lot of fruit – and whole foods such as brown rice, wholemeal pasta and wholemeal bread. Bolstered up with fresh chicken and fish, this gave me the basis of a diet I could maintain when the demands on my time were so great.

Of course, the cellulite was a real problem. Cellulite increases during pregnancy because of the hormones that your body produces. With the extra weight that I had gained, my hips and thighs looked terrible! But, don’t despair. The low fat, high fibre, high whole food and fruit and vegetable diet that is ideal for weight loss is also a very good anti celluite diet. Having less weight around helps, but this sort of eating plan is also good for reducing water retention and keeping toxins and free radicals to a very low level in body tissue.

I was also lucky enough to have an understanding partner and a  mother who babysat for me twice a week and I was able to go swimming at the local pool three or four times a week. That is such good exercise for toning the muscles, burning fat and getting rid of cellulite. Its also such a great stress reliever – it takes you right away from your everyday routine and allows you to really relax.

I really must do more these days – but now the babe can swim better than I can!

Love

Jen x