Help with exercise

[Pippinsqueak]

After 16 months on surviving on sugar as chronically sleep deprived after giving birth, I'm ready to start loosing weight and getting for again.

I'm 12 st 2lbs, ideally would like to loose 2 st, I'm still breastfeeding but obviously not as main source of food for little one.

I used to run but I feel like I am fat too heavy now and need a reinforced sports bra lol but I digress.

I'm looking for an exercise that will help me stretch and strengthen my body but I also need to loose weight.

Is there anyone who can guide me me what sort of exercise I should be looking at.

I know my diet needs over hauling too, I downloaded the noom app but deleted it when they wanted £100 for four month's subscription

I’d do yoga or Pilates. Yoga with Adriene is free on YouTube. I really like her. When the gyms are open, lifting weights is amazing for changing body shape.

Ultimately, diet will mean weight loss though.

Thank you for your reply. People keep saying yoga/Pilates but I've been to a few classes and they seem quite standard. Are there particular types of yoga/Pilates I can look into?

Concentrate on your diet and moving more. 15k daily steps as an average over the week. And do weights for 30mins 3x week. Can be tons of beans or bottles of water if you don’t have weights.

@runningpink that's a good plan. I am going to try it out.

To stretch and strengthen, you’re looking for mobility exercises. Yoga and Pilates are very good, but if you want something a bit more interesting there’s quite a lot of choice online.

It’s a good idea to get strong after having a baby, as you lose a lot of muscle. Our lifestyles leave us with lots of under-used muscles. If you go straight into some repetitive cardio exercise like running you may well injure yourself. Walking can be much better for you if you want to burn calories.

I don’t exercise to lose weight. I do it to get stronger and better at moving. I’d recommend GMB.io for online courses, but there’s loads on YouTube that you can do for free. Tom Merrick has some good mobility routines alongside his body weight stuff.

Good Luck!

Walking and a spin bike, My fitness pal. Then Cat Meffan yoga.

I lost 4st this way after having a baby. 1200 cal a day

Don't make it complicated. Pick things you will stick too.

Look at Lucy Wyndham Reed on YouTube, she has hundreds of different workouts. From 7-20 mins long and so straightforward.
Calorie counting is the best way I've found, I use My Fitness pal. I've lost 10lbs in 4 weeks and I've been eating around 1600 calories a day. I eat what I want as long as it's within 1600 a day.
If you search on google how many calories you need to maintain your weight there are loads of calculators. Whatever it says you need to maintain your weight. Knock a few hundreds calories off so you know you will be in a calorie deficit and the weight should start coming off.
I've tried only eating 1200 calories a day in the past. I was starving and felt restricted and depending on your height and weight just isn't necessary. Of course you will lose it quicker that way but will probably get fed up a lot quicker too.
Also look at The Fitness Chefs post on Instagram, he is great.

Pilates is good for 'stretching and strengthening' (esp your core) but it's not aerobic so won't really help with weight loss and cardiovascular fitness. It's worth doing a session or two a week alongside aerobic exercise to help prevent problems. There are lots of instructors doing online classes at the moment, which tbh I'd recommend rather than YouTube's as it's quite subtle and moves may need modifying for individuals if they have particular issues.

Some form of HIIT can be good for improving your cardiovascular fitness quickly. You may want to leave running till you've lost some weight but fast walking especially if you have any hills may be a lead-in to that if you want to be outdoors.

There is lots of choice online .... personally too much for me. I did well a few years ago just sticking to Jillian Michaels DVDs - in conjunction with an MN support thread (there's usually one on the go).

Re weight loss - either calorie counting or some form of intermittent fasting. There's always support threads on the 5:2 board here if you want to investigate that.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet