Getting Back in Shape After Baby (It's Harder Than I Thought!)

Obviously our bodies and how they deal with pregnancy are all different. I ended up swelling quite significantly gained much more weight than I and my doctor ever thought I would. Luckily my doctor was not concerned and my baby was healthy, but I had a lot of work to do postpartum.

I had not been working out as frequently as I had in the past in the months leading up to me getting pregnant due to an insanely busy work schedule. Then, I wasn’t able to be as active as I had hoped during my pregnancy due to terrible morning (actually all day and night) sickness, my continued crazy busy work schedule, and a terrible thing called PUPPP's at the end of my pregnancy. Therefore, as I mentioned above, I gained a lot of weight.

Then, I had an unplanned, urgent, c-section which consisted of rather intense abdominal surgery and a pretty painful recovery preventing you from lifting anything heavier than your baby until cleared by your doctor. It took a full 6 weeks postpartum for me to even be able to walk around the block without too much pain, so I certainly wasn’t up for any significant activity. But at my 6 week appointment I was cleared by my doctor to resume normal activity and was feeling good enough to start getting back into shape.

I started with going for family walks at first. Then I wanted to try something a little more challenging so I started looking for postpartum workouts on YouTube. YouTube is a great place to look for workout videos because many of them are free and able to be accessed anywhere with an internet connection. The first YouTuber I found who’s workouts looked doable to me was Sarah Dussault of Sarah Fit. She has great postpartum workouts of many different lengths of time, her videos are very easy to follow, and very good for out-of-shape postpartum mamas like myself. I hit a good stride of going for walks and doing her workouts on YouTube while on maternity leave...then I went back to work.

As a registered nurse, I worked as a Clinical Supervisor for a Home Health Nursing Agency, which is a very busy and time-consuming job, especially if you're doing things the right way. One of my co-workers also got married and left for her honeymoon the week I returned to work, which also added additional work to my load, on top of having a newborn and house to keep. Needless to say, exercise quickly fell to the wayside.

I ended up resigning from my job 3 months after returning to work to be a stay-at-home mom (more on this coming soon), and I could not wait to not only get all of the time possible with my baby, but finally be able to take care of myself again as well. I didn’t feel healthy and knew I needed to prioritize my physical and mental health once again to be the best mom and wife I could be.

I was ready to really work hard and was craving some cardio, but didn’t want to get in over my head as I was still very out of shape. This is when I found Amy Kiser Schemper of BodyFit by Amy on Youtube. She has an amazing Postnatal Cardio workout that has all levels of modifications for as she says, “if you had your baby weeks ago or years ago.” She has a whole series of postnatal workouts from after both her c-section and VBAC, and I have continued to follow her videos for the past several months now and have absolutely loved them. Amy has everything from the very basics of stretching postpartum to HIIT workouts to stroller workouts and everything in between. Her videos are as short as 5 minutes and as long at 40 minutes. Amy really has something for everyone, and once you're back in shape, she has many many more videos for any fitness level. I have been really impressed by her channel and her videos and will certainly continue to use her workouts.

Once the weather got nicer we started going for many more family walks. Then I got really brave and decided to try going for a run to the end of the road and back while pushing the jogging stroller. I ran alongside my marathoner husband and super fit black lab and completely surprised myself when I ran the whole mile and a half without stopping. I was shocked, and so so pleased.

I was 10 months postpartum and finally within 10 lbs of being back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Then I had an incident resulting in an injury to both of my feet requiring over a month for them to fully heal to the point where I could exercise and put on shoes again. Though it was a frustrating and unexpected setback, I was happy to see that I hadn’t gained any weight back over that month and was ready to get back at it. I resumed Bodyfit by Amy’s workouts, started doing some of her Mommy & Me workouts, tried to eat better (thanks quarantine), and started going on family walks again. I am a week from our baby being a year old and so close to being back at my pre-pregnancy weight.

But I would love to take it a step further. Of course the number on the scale is not nearly as important as how you feel. I love how I feel when I am fit, so I plan to continue to workout, eat healthier, and make my body as strong as it can be, not only so I can feel good, but so I can set a good example for my son and prepare my body to be as healthy as possible for any future pregnancies I may be blessed enough to have.

I would be remiss if I did not say how thankful I am for this body being able to carry our baby for 9 months, endure an unexpected c-section, and heal fully. I will also say, my body is certainly different than it was pre-baby. My proportions are different, I have more lumps and bumps, saggy skin, plenty of stretch marks, and a c-section scar, but I try to see these things as what allowed me to carry a healthy baby boy who I cannot imagine life without. Our bodies are amazing and can do incredible things. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, postpartum or not, I encourage you to focus on your personal goals, find a workout program that works for you and that you can stick to, and do not worry about any standards the world sets for us. Just try to be the healthiest version of you and take care of the amazing body you have been given.