How many of you wish you could bounce back from having a baby like the celebrities we see in magazines do. Hollywood has always portrayed this image of a new mother that’s skinny with perfect hair and has her life together.

Reality (at least my reality) is so farfetched from that. I was never blessed with having that perfect pregnancy look or gaining the average 20 pounds (is that even considered normal these days). No, I gained 80lbs with my first, 50lbs with my second and 40lbs with my last and the smaller weight gain was because I worked out 3- 4 times a week up until my 8th month of pregnancy.

In the past, it took me a full year to lose the baby weight, but with this last pregnancy, I set a goal for myself to lose the weight in six months. Yup, I said it…6 months! I know some of you are probably thinking, six months, that’s too long, but for me, that was a huge test on my body, mind, and soul.

I highly recommend working out throughout your pregnancy because it does help you get back in shape faster.

I started out very slow, just walking at 3.0 speed with 1.0 incline on my treadmill at home for 20 minutes a day when my daughter was about four weeks old.

The biggest problem I ran into while doing this was my family.

In our culture, a mother is supposed to sleep and eat for roughly 40-80 days. Everyone tried to feed me, thinking it would help provide more milk for the baby, even though the amount of milk I was producing was enough. My mother in law would bring me pots full of food and watch me eat; my fridge was always stocked with different meals and my family would consistently remind me to eat. It took a lot of determination, will power, and strength to stick to my weight loss plan.

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With a trainer’s help, I came up with the below workout schedule and implemented it the minute my OBGYN cleared me. It might come in handy for other moms. Between this, the 28-day diet and the military challenge (see picture below) I was able to lose 40 pounds in 5 months:

• Monday-Cardio Day
  1 hour on the elliptical ( if available) or 3 mile run on the treadmill/running outside
• Tuesday- Strength Day- work on arms
  30 push-ups, 30 chair dips, and 30 arm circles  
• Wednesday- Cardio Day
  1 hour on the treadmill or run outside
  Running at 4.5 speed with a 1.0 incline or 3.0 speed with 10.0 incline (My workout buddy walks for almost 2 hours daily with 15.0 incline and loves it. She burns more than 1000k calories doing that)
•  Thursday- Strength Day- work on legs
  40 squats, 40 lunges and 40 second wall sit 
• Friday- Cardio Day
  1 hour on the elliptical (if available) or 3 mile run on the treadmill/running outside
•  Saturday- Strength Day- work on abs and butt
  50 squats/ 50 crunches/ 30 second plank
• Sunday- REST  

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I hope this helps ladies.

As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Yours,