Client Spotlight: Kelly 20 Weeks Post Pregnancy Transformation

Kelly and I linked back up after her pregnancy was over and she was released by her doctor to return to training. When we linked up we started back in slowly. I wanted to get a feel for her life with her daughter and all her stressors along with what her hormones were like. Obviously t pregnancy is a very trying time for most women from mental to emotional challenges they face in their new role.

After her pregnancy she decided to utilize an IUD for birth control. Over the last 21 weeks we have managed to sort out some hormonal imbalances through blood work and regain balance. Hormones play quite a role in neurotransmitters along with energy and body composition to name a few. We worked on managing stress above all else. With her being a Type A personality who just gets things done, it was important we work on sleep, when baby would let her, and naps to recover. We worked on workouts she could recover from while supporting her body with more than enough food and micronutrients to suit recovery. It is important to manage stress as a woman due to cortisol stealing from progesterone, a sex hormone secreted by the corpus luteum that is produced after ovulation during the second half of the menstrual cycle. If you do not manage the balance between progesterone and estrogen, you will end up estrogen dominant, and one way that happens is from chronic stress. When you are chronically stressed, cortisol, one of your stress response hormones that is part of your  sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) will leech progesterone to keep making cortisol and this begins the shift towards estrogen dominance. We also had to work on lowering inflammation and gut health. We worked on sealing back up her mucosal lining of her stomach and making those junctions tight again. A few supplements did the trick and gut health became better and healthier as a result.

Now we are on week 21 together and we have dropped 20 lbs, added back muscle, and have her feeling better each week. We are slowly adding more complexity to her workouts and cardio programming as her feedback gives us from week to week. Kelly is the prime example of a mother just finding the way to make her health and fitness a priority. She is very open to all suggestions and the reasons why we are doing what we are doing. I wanted to share her journey so far because it is very common for most women who have given birth and gained weight. There are a lot of factors at play post pregnancy and just taking a slow step by step approach as we did here is one way to get yourself feeling good in terms of how you feel and how you see yourself as a new mother with all the responsibilities you have. You mothers reading this are amazing. Never forget that.