I know you’ll empathise with me. It’s 8 weeks since Aerin arrived and I’ve still got an extra stone in weight sitting mostly around my tummy and backside…nice. I’m still breast-feeding but from past experience I don’t think that really has much impact on my weight aside from making me more hungry!

I know it has ‘only been 8 weeks’ but I’ve decided that I should start trying to tone up and shift some of my mummy tummy. And we all know that at the end of the day losing weight comes down to ‘eat less, exercise more’, so here’s how I’m going to go about it.

Eat Less

As I’m still breast-feeding I’m not going to start calorie counting too strictly but I’ve just come across a fantastic FREE website and iphone app called ‘myfitnesspal.com‘. It’s an interactive food and exercise diary. You tell it how much weight you want to lose and at what rate and it calculates how many calories you need to eat daily to achieve your goal. Then on a daily basis you log what you’re eating and how much exercise you’re doing and you can see really clearly whether you’re going over or under your daily limit.

Like I say, I’m not really trying to cut back on calories yet as I’m still BF’ing. But it’s really interesting to see the amount of calories in what I’m eating. On the not so good side, my large bowl of fruit and fibre for breakfast weighs in at a humungous 410 calories! But to make up for it, dark chocolate is lower cal than I thought…

Wouldn't we all want a bod like this!

Unfortunately much as I’d love to, I haven’t got the time or money to join David Lloyds which is what I did after I had no1 daughter. There’s quite a bit of noise online about a DVD called ‘Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. If you check it out on Amazon it gets fabulous reviews and at under a fiver, has got to be worth a try. The DVD takes just 20 minutes a day so there’s not really any excuse not to do it. It’s also an old-school style circuit training workout, with 2 minutes each of warm up and cool down, plus 3 circuit sets lasting 6 minutes each. The circuits comprise of 3 minutes of strength training, press-ups, squats, lunges etc, using dumb-bells for the arms. Then there’s 2 minutes of cardio, jumping jacks, skipping etc. I have to say that the jumping jacks are doing wonders for my pelvic floor! Lastly in each circuit there’s a minute of abs – crunches, reverse curls.

The workouts also increase in intensity, going from level 1 to level 3 and moving up as you feel able.

I waited until this week to start as I really wanted to commit to doing it for 30 days and giving an honest review at the start and end of that period. I’ve done the workout for 2 days now and am aching a bit in my arms and shoulders, not so much in my legs. It’s hard going as you’re doing it, but as each exercise for just for a short period of time, it’s easier to keep going til the end as you know it will change soon. I’m always glad when I reach the end of the second circuit as it feels like I’m almost done!

Jillian is a teensy bit annoying, but then so are most DVD workout instructors. I do wonder whether I should be using slightly heavier weights but I am actually pretty knackered and wobbly by the end so maybe not.  I suppose that in a few days time I can consider changing up and seeing how that goes.

If nothing else, so far it has made me more aware of my posture but hopefully I’ll start to see some results soon, fingers crossed.