#43: One thing tired mums should stop doing to stay consistent with exercising

After my pregnancy I was so impatient to get back to exercising. I was fed up with my mummy tummy and the lowest fitness level I had ever had. I didn’t feel good in my body. All I wanted to do was feel “normal” again. When I started training again I went all in. I went too hard. I overdid it, got fatigued and needed to take another break to recover. In this post I am sharing my story with you and explaining what is the better way to get back to exercising after having a baby (at the age of 40).

#42: Coffee or breakfast first? What to start your day with?

It turns out that neither drinking caffeine beverages (not just coffee) nor intermittent fasting are safe for female hormones during reproductive years, especially for those who already suffer with hormonal imbalances.

Caffeine disrupts female hormones, including insulin, cortisol, estrogen and progesterone and can lead to many health issues.

New Mum, NutritionKarolina ZywickaAugust 12, 2022new mum, tired mum, weight loss, baby belly, baby weight, coffee, intermittent fastingComment

#41: My three favourite summer lunch recipes

Summer is a great time to indulge in seasonal fruits and veggies. They are the best now. Salads, soups, smoothies taste exceptional. Raw or cooked, they are just yummy.

I love cooking and normally I can create something tasty with any ingredients I can find in our fridge. I hardly ever follow recipes and most of the time my food is delicious (except from a few incidents when it was barely edible 😊). But there are days when I don’t feel inspired and no matter how hard I try I cannot come up with anything tasty to eat. For those days I have a few, tasty and easy lunch recipes, for both hot and not so hot summer days.

#40: Three healthy snacks for you and your baby

Sweet, homemade treats , made of wholesome ingredients are not only sweet and delicious but also packed with the abundance of nutrients. In this post I’m sharing with you Freya’s and mine three favourite treat recipes. They are easy to make and very healthy. Perfect for the whole family.

#39: I will start loving myself when…

As women, we are wonderful. Our body is unique, amazing, resilient, adaptive, strong, extremely intelligent and can create a new life. But instead of celebrating our singular qualities we want to be ordinary. We want to look like someone else. It is an issue that affects many women as well as men.

How come so many women still don’t like their bodies? Why did it take me so many years to realise that and start working towards change? I blame Barbie 😊

I don’t want to feel like that anymore. I love the human body and I want to start loving my own body. Will you join me?

New MumKarolina ZywickaJuly 8, 2022new mum, self love, postnatal fitness, new mums, tired mum, acceptance

#38: Why practising self-care is important for new mums?

Rest, nutrition, walking and gentle moves are all part of your self-care routine. You don’t need anything sophisticated to start feeling better and have more energy.

A child’s physical and mental wellbeing depends on the mother’s health.

Investing time in ourselves and taking care of ourselves is investing in our family and healthy happy life. There is no better motivation than that.

New Mum, Training, Nutrition, exercise Karolina ZywickaJuly 1, 2022new mum, postnatal fitness, hormones, female, woman, self careComment

#37: When will I finally lose my baby belly?

I have been asking this question for a while now. Freya is 21 months old and I am still carrying some baby weight especially around my waist. It looks like it takes a while if you’re trying to stay healthy and energised at the same time.

Restorative nutrition and rest are the main elements for a new mum to focus on for as long as possible, especially for as long as you’re breastfeeding.

Hormones are the key to everything.

#36: Why you will lose baby weight faster if you exercise less

For as long as we’re breastfeeding our estrogen levels stay low. The longer we breastfeed the less juicy, less youthful and more tired we feel. On top of that, for as long as our estrogen is low, we won’t only have less energy to exercise, but we will also get less results from our training (estrogen is female testosterone) and we may struggle to lose weight.

If we are not sleeping through the night and breastfeeding, we have to focus on taking care of our body. Hormones control it all. Balancing our hormones, avoiding any unnecessary stressors and keeping our cortisol levels as low as possible is extremely important. Stressed body holds on to its fat, especially in the midsection.

#35: I had a traumatic birth. How to heal after birth trauma?

No matter how you prepare for the birth of your child you cannot control or know exactly how the birth will go. However, women are not always aware, or hardly ever talk and want to admit that they have experienced a traumatic birth. We feel that something isn’t right but we don’t really know what.

Birth trauma includes more than just danger of death to mother or baby. It also includes physical injuries (pelvic tears or c-section) and the perception of danger as well as feelings of extreme fear, aloneness, disrespect, lack of control, or helplessness.

Many women who experience birth injuries and trauma suffer in silence, focusing on their babies and families, not knowing what to do about that.

The good news is that our body can experience healing after experiencing trauma

New MumKarolina ZywickaJune 9, 2022new mum, birth, trauma, postnatal

#34: My postnatal recovery and fitness journey

Postnatal recovery and weight loss looks different for each woman, and we should never compare ourselves to others. Six months after giving birth I was desperate to lose my baby weight. I hoped that by this point I will be back to my pre pregnancy clothes. I had this idea about how my postnatal recovery should look like and the reality didn’t really match it. I kept on trying to get back to training and I failed every single time. Eventually, when Freya was 12 months old I just crashed. Every little thing was making me extremely stressed. I didn’t know what was going on with me but it wasn’t such an unusual thing. Many mums go through extreme fatigue in the first year of giving birth (I don’t mean depression, I mean total exhaustion which also affects mood but isn’t the same as depression).

New MumKarolina ZywickaJune 2, 2022ne, new mum, pregnancy, postnatal, postnatal weight loss, hormones, hormonal balance, female, female trainingComment

#33: The best first exercise for a new mum that you can do 14 days after giving birth

Despite what Mr. Google says you should never start your postnatal recovery with any of these exercises: hip bridge, tricep dip, modified side plank, bird dog or plie squat.

They sound safe, and they will be after a few months, but before you start performing them, you have to first rebuild your muscle-mind connection and strength in your deep abdominal muscles.

Today, many women have distended abdominal muscles years after having children.

If we start exercising before we restore our abdominal muscle-mind connection and rebuild our strength, we risk destabilising the back and the whole body. The risk is even higher after a c-section or pelvic floor injury during birth.

#32: How to start exercising after having a baby

The images of different stars and celebrities looking amazing only 12 weeks after giving birth are extremely encouraging but at the same time misleading. Look at Kate Middletown for example. She looked stunning 8 hours after giving birth to her third child and back to her pre pregnancy body just three months later. That leaves most mum with this unrealistic expectation that postnatal recovery is so fast. It makes us try dieting and extreme exercising too soon, leaving us stressed, fatigued and sometimes even fatter (as our body stores fat when we’re stressed).