The physical nature of mum-life.   If you’ve ever pushed a toddler in a pram with a baby strapped to you, or carried a child to nursery who refuses to scoot, held a crying baby for hours or run around oft play with a toddler…you’ll know that being a mum is physical work. Lack of rest, all that LIFTING and holding the same positions for hours on end, takes its toll. However, being physically strong can help make your day-to-day tasks that little bit easier as a new mum.  The stronger you are, the easier life gets and that extra strength gives you that push to keep going when you think ..read more

As I’m coming to the end of my second pregnancy, I thought I’d highlight a few of my top health hacks that have got me through the last nine months (feeling good - I mean it's all relative)! Pregnancy is not meant to be easy. You're growing a human being which is always going to be hard work, but hopefully some of these will help you navigate your own pregnancy feeling healthy, energised and confident in your body... https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0daf37_2143f5d7c27743a0ad0213f0b2e342f7/1080p/mp4/file.mp4 Supplements - I’ve been ‘taking supplements’ for years however my consistency hasn’t ..read more

Let's have BOTH. If you saw our instagram recently you'll have seen we posted about three reasons to include more protein in your postnatal diet. If you didn’t catch it, I’ve summarised below: Your birth recovery - protein literally rebuilds the cell in your body so plays a huge part in recovery from pregnancy and birth. Your training - protein is required to build and repair your muscle fibres after training. Eating enough to support your training is vital if you want to get stronger and grow muscle. Your fat loss goals - if fat loss is one of your postnatal training goals, protein has the ..read more

The postnatal recovery period isn’t easy for any new mum. Recovery from birth, rebuilding strength, regaining fitness, losing your pregnancy weight. Whatever your specific postnatal goals are, these things all take time. We’re surrounded by images of artificial perfection providing us with unrealistic expectations of ‘snapping back’. But for most of us, this is far from the case. Time is in short supply and we have to learn to slow down, reduce our expectations and take things at our own pace. We have to allow ourselves the time and space to recover from pregnancy and birth first. We need tim ..read more

Whatever your goals are in life, getting to where you want to be requires work. The extent of that work will vary from goal to goal, but ultimately nothing happens without some form of consistent action on your part. You don’t build strong muscles by going to the gym once and doing a hundred reps on every single piece of equipment. Progress requires time, patience, consistency and structure. Progress comes from breaking action down into consistent habits. The good news is that when you just take it day by day, decision by decision, workout by workout. When you just keep taking the steps in the ..read more

I had a gorgeous (and very hot) week in Scotland last week. Holiday season has definitely started and I have lots of clients currently trying to balance their training goals with their holiday plans. Training on holiday is a question I’ve been discussing with my client’s a fair bit. Do you, or should you train on holiday? As a firm believer that life is for enjoyment, I’m not a coach that will ever force my clients to stick to their plans on holiday. The only caveat to this being if their goals are so time sensitive and important that they can’t afford to take time off. But this is rare and i ..read more

After the birth of my baby, my husband informed me, fairly sternly, that I wasn’t allowed to lift weights for eight weeks. I’ll be honest the thought of working out during those eight weeks rarely crossed my mind, so it was fairly easy to stay in line. My birth experience had been pretty tough and after an emergency caesarian and almost a week in hospital (during Covid) with a baby in NICU I was just so glad to be home in my recovery bubble. Of course I missed training and that feeling of strength, but at that point I felt so far from that person, I wasn’t about to rush back. Going for walks a ..read more

That point where you’re forced to let go and say no. I’ve always lived a fairly fast-paced life, fitting as much as possible into each day and making the most of life! But, over the years my breaking point has cropped up now and again, for me it usually goes like this... I’ll be getting ready to go out, usually forcing myself to the point where I’m showered, make-up is done and I'm about to get dressed. The breakdown occurs at the point of getting dressed, either because I can’t find anything to wear and it tips me over the edge or because I have something to wear but physically can’t bring my ..read more

Growing a human being, with another small human being running around...is harder. Once you become a mum you relinquish control over your recovery time. Your free time goes from hours a day to a few minutes here and there. Rest and sleep are both 100% dictated by someone else. You are no longer in control of those precious seven (eight if you're lucky) hours which are increasingly more important in your first trimester. Balancing this with another on the way is….well, I wouldn't call it balance. It’s survival. Mental and physical. Trying to hold everything together whilst all you want to do is ..read more

I say this a lot. Time is precious as a new mum so one thing you don’t want is to spend a lot of time training, but not actually getting the results you want. You could train every day of the week, but if you’re doing the wrong things the result won’t come, or they might come but very, very slowly! Obviously people train for many different reasons and there is and should be no pressure to do anything to change your postnatal body. You’ve been through a lot so it’s important to recognise that. But, often the postnatal period leaves us with a body we don’t recognise. A lot of women do want to c ..read more