Audra Lowe: There are many joys that come along with being a new mom, but losing the baby weight isn't one of them. Fitness guru and author of the Super Fit Mama, Tracey Mallett is here to help out moms out there out. Welcome to the show.
Tracey Mallett: Thanks for having me.
Audra Lowe: And you lost how much weight since your -- your first baby you gained about 55 pounds, right?
Tracey Mallett: Yeah I was a very rude awakening for me. I am like, how did that happen
Audra Lowe: How much of weight did you lose after the baby?
Tracey Mallett: Well I got pregnant with Ambera and I gained 55 pounds. It took me probably, at that time, probably a good 9 months unfortunately but then unfortunately, well not unfortunately, I got pregnant again with my second child, so I went through it again. But the second time around, I really learned my mistakes from the first time and I only gained 30 pounds and got back in shape 4 months right after my second child. So you always learn the second time around what not to do.
Audra Lowe: How do you know what works and what doesn't work, especially you know, the second child, how did you figure out what works for your body?
Tracey Mallett: Basically, it's use this as a like an experiment in my first trimester and to see what I could do. Then as I went through into my second and my third trimester, I, kind of, realized what I could and what I couldn't do and what I couldn't eat and what I could eat. And from that, I gathered all the information and I wrote the book Super Fit Mama, and what I found that helped me the most, which was so amazing, become I am so used -- I am all or nothing kind of girl. I have been doing tons and tons of cardio and I would think that cardio alone would get me back in shape but it's not. Cardio alone is not going to get rid of your body weight.
Audra Lowe: Especially when it comes to the abs because look at this one, she has no stomach whatsoever, just flat, two kids. But let's take a look at the video because you have some great exercises great tips for getting the abs back, and can you explain to us what we are seeing and what's really important there?
Tracey Mallett: Well, as the number one thing that most women want to do is give up the abs fat. After having the baby, the belly flab and one thing that most women make the mistake of is, not understanding what the abdominal do through pregnancy because what happens is, through the hormonal changes, and the force of the baby pushing forward can separate the abdominal. So the abdominal starts separating. So after having the baby, what you want to do, you want to start doing a lot of abdominal exercise to get those abs back in gear, but that separation starts getting little worse, little worse and by going to strenuous activity can make the separation even wider.
So what we have to do is actually disgrace, go back to, really learning the fundamentals of understanding your transverse abdominal which is like a big muscle that wraps around like a corset and the only way you can work that muscles is do exhalation and drawing in and then also doing a towel-abs exercise exercises which I am going, kind of, show you right now but first of all, you want to gauge your separations.
It's very simple. You just get on the floor, you take two fingers, you put it just above your belly button, because what happens, it kind of, separates like a zipper. You lift up as if you are doing a natural crunch and you want to gauge and see how much separation is there. If it's 2 or more fingers in that separation, you will feel it like a well, then that is the time to say, okay, I have got to go back to basics, do not do any strenuous activities, no rotation because that's going to cause the separation to go worse with the torso and start doing the following exercise which is the towel-abs exercise.
Wrap a towel around your mid section, you cross it like this so it's nice and tight, you inhale and exhale, draw in the belly to get the transverse working which is that corset muscle and you pull the towel nice and tight so what it's doing is pulling the abdominal back together again in the functional position where that were before you were pregnant. If you do that 20 times a day, and get those abdominal back to about one finger, then you can start doing all your regular activities but I would recommend doing that first, forward planks, and what is happening is you are using the abdominal, you pull these against the gravity because if you think, through pregnancy, it does -- abdominal get really stretched out. So it's learning to actually pull them in and you can do it right now. You can just inhale, exhale, pull the abdominal in and you can feel that transverse working, right?
Audra Lowe: Yeah, right.
Tracey Mallett: And people forget like if you walk around with your abdominal hanging out like, just guess what, so they are like that. So it's very simple.
Audra Lowe: You have got some great examples in the book too of women who have had babies, they have lost the weight and you go step-by-step through all of the exercises too. So this is a fantastic book, congratulations.
Tracey Mallett: Thank you.
Audra Lowe: Thanks so much for coming to by here too. Alright, now, if you guys are looking for a -- if you are new mom maybe, looking to set the exercise baby weight and resist some of those dreadful cravings, you can pick up a copy of Tracey's book, it is called the Super Fit Mama and it's available now.
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