7 STEPS TO BEING A FIT MOM

1. Start with goal setting.

Being a mom doesn't mean your fittest days are over. Set a new bar for yourself and put it in writing. Dr. Gail Matthews from the Dominican University in California shares that goals are 42 percent more likely to happen if they are written down.

If you want to lose 10 pounds, create an action plan that looks like this: I'm going to cook on Sundays and freeze my food for the week. I'm going to work out before my family wakes up. I'm going to track my measurements, and I'm going to sign up for the 5K race I've always wanted to do.

2. Choose to view health as a marathon — not o sprint.

Rather than working furiously to look good for a one-time event, like a high school reunion or vacation, choose to look and feel your best — all the time.

Think about this: How many fad diets have you been on? Did the results last? What you need is a permanent answer, not a temporary fix. This is why consistent health beats the quick fix every time.

3. Cultivate a winning, fit mindset.

Lasting change happens from the inside out. Ask yourself a new question, "Why not me?" Why can't you get in the best shape of your life?

One summer evening, I was pushing my 18-month-old daughter on the swing, and I was so nervous to tell my husband that I wanted to compete in fitness again. You see, I had turned 40, and as a new mom, it felt almost laughable. But I asked myself a different question: Why not? Wherever you are in your life, you can reinvent yourself. Believe that!

4. Make your training excuseproof.

Carve out a dedicated time for your workouts, and treat this time as an appointmem—but also make sure to
have a go-to routine for emergencies. Being a mom means there will he days when your best intentions are stopped dead in their tracks. So always be armed with a backup plan. For example, if you're stuck at home, you could use intervals to torch calories.

5. Shift your focus on food.

In regard to food choices, make healthy eating a part of your daily life. Cook on Sundays for the week, pack meals and snacks the night before, or find restaurants in your area that specialize in organic produce and clean options.

View food from a healthy perspective and think about what you can eat rather than what you can't. Every day I try to get in a large salad, nuts, fruit, Greek yogurt, steamed veggies and whole grains, and I also enjoy lean protein with every meal. I'm always thinking about what I need to eat versus what I can't eat. Creatie this shift and collect recipes that you'll enjoy eating.

6. Ditch-junk-food weekends.

Are you gaining and losing the same 3 pounds every week... and not making progress toward your fitness goals? Weekends may be the culprit. If you eat clean all week a nd then take the weekends off, your weight-loss efforts have probably stagnated. Enjoy a meal or two, but focus on family activities and bal¬ anced living.

7. Lose the guilt!

You are worth the investment! Moms often struggle with feelings of guilt about taking care of themselves, but remember, a healthy and happy mom makes a healthy and happy family. Moms are often the core of the home and determine the food that is brought into the kitchen. You set the standard, so invest in you and your family's health with the right choices.

There will be setbacks, times when you feel like you just don't have it in you, and you'll want to quit. But this is the time when you'll revisit your goals (and your why) as you stay the course.

Perfection is known as the root cause of procrastination. Refrain from procrastinating because there will never be a perfect time to start getting healthy and fit — that time is today.

WILL MY POSTBABY TUMMY EVER BE FLAT AGAIN?

Don’t give up! It’s not just  about losing pregnancy pounds. Your abdominal muscles and skin have stretched out, and how quickly they bounce back depends on your age, the size of the baby and whether you had a C-section (surgery makes for a longer recovery),  explains Michele S. Olson, Ph.D.,  a FITNESS advisory board member and professor of exercise science at Auburn University at Montgomery. While cardio and a healthy diet are crucial to reducing fat under the skin, you also need the right exercises to work all the muscles in your abs without straining the ones that are already stressed and stretched. Once you get your doc’s OK, forgo crunches in favor of the forearm plank and these two middle whittlers.

20 WAYS TO GET FIT IN A WEEK

It may not always be feasible to hit the gym when we plan but there are plenty of other ways to keep in shape.

1. Stretching  is important element of exercise that many simply ignore. Stretching before exercise can prepare the body for the stress about to come and also help prevent injury after you finish.

2. Try Pilates for core strength. The core is the foundation of all movement, from day to day activities and dance to playing sport, and posture. This results in enabling you to exercise with less risk of injury, further promoting weight loss results.

3. Spice up your life. Add thermogenic spices such as turmeric, ginger, chilli or cayenne to your cooking or herbal teas. These spices help to promote thermogenesis and fat metabolism and should speed up any weight loss results.

4. Go hiking. Often over-looked but hiking is an ideal activity for endurance as it works the largest muscle group - your legs, which in turn helps work the whole body.

5. Don't stand still. Walking up escalators is an Incidental exercise that will enable you to increase the number of steps you take per day. The average recommendation is approximately 10,000 therefore if you have more weight to lose, walking is the best way to get you on the road to results.

6. Deliberate inconvenience. Making life less convenient will provide you with natural exercise and fat-burning activities. Try parking the car away from the shops and walking or cycling to work.

7. Cycling is a great way to exercise, burn fat, tone muscles, and work the heart. Plus it can get you off the sofa and into the great outdoors with the whole family and get a workout at the same time.

8. Use shopping bags like hand weights. Although you may feel a little silly this is perfect for the biceps and doing a few 'reps' with them can help lose those bingo wings.

9. Housework. Normal considered a chore, but with the right mindset it will also raise your heart rate, help with flexibility and give you a nice sense of achievement.

10. Try yoga as it improves flexibility, balance, mobility stamina and strength as well as increasing
cardiovascular performance. An inability to lose weight may stem from stress issues and lack of sleep. Yoga may ease this and promote a better sleeping pattern.

11. Play sport (especially high intensity activities such as squash or tennis). Group sports can be motivating and provide a sense of belonging to a team, in turn providing an extra sense of achievement and motivating you to go further and expand your fitness goals.

12. Get a gym buddy for extra motivation. Working out with someone means you are less likely to cancel on your fitness routine, it also makes it more of a social occasion, therefore more enjoyabie.

13. Lift weight to lose weight. Resistance exercise is vitai to fast-track your weight loss results. it iieips develop lean muscle which wili allow you to burn fat more efficiently, even after you've finished.

14. Get in the garden. Gardening, especially digging, uses your muscles in a different way, proving you don't need to go to the gym to get fit and lose weight.

15. Drink dandelion tea. This is a liver tonic and will eliminate excess fluid, helping the body to burn fat and to reduce bloating. One to two cups per day should do it.

16. Swimming is another activity that can be done with friends or family. It uses majority of musclie
groups in the body helping to promote a lean physique and it can be done all year round, so there's no excuses!

17. Use the stairs. Step up wherever possible, either at home, at work or out shopping. If you want a great looking butt then this is the key

18. Sun warrior plant-based protein is a heaithy protein
powder. It can be used as a meal replacement tool as a way of reducing your calorie intake and it's jam- packed with amino acids, meaning you're getting the right nutrients, making you feel fuller for longer.

19. Write a diet and fitness diary. This is very important for you to be able to track your activities and it means you know exactly what you've eaten, so you can make changes accordingly. Many people fall to lose the weight they want because they eat more than they think and move less.

20. Try high frequency vibration training to help with toning and definition. You don't need to use this type of training every day; often results can be achieved in as little as five minutes per day due to the intense nature of the muscle activation.

BUILD UP YOUR GLUTES WITH THIS HIGH-REP ROUTINE

TRAINING YOUR GLUTES DOESN'T ALWAYS REQUIRE AN HOUR-LONG GYM SESSION, and this 30-minute is proof. Individually, these exercises may not be very complex, but it's their sequence, mega high reps, and oh so many pop squads, that make it a serious butt burner. As you go through the routine, remember to use mind-muscle connection: focusing on pressing through your heels and contracting the muscles will help activate those glute and get you noticeable results. With this workout, you'll want to go easy on the weight load to avoid burning out too quickly. The intensity comes form the plyometric elements and high reps, so keep the dumbbells moderate and focus on perfect form and minimal rest between exercises.

HOW TO: Perform each exercise, one after the other, with minimal rest. Between each exercise, you will be performing 25 pop squats. After completing the entire circuit, rest for 1 minute, go back to the top and repeat the whole thing. Advanced trainers: repeat it twice.

25 MINIUTE WITH MIGHTY MACHINE ROUTINE

Consider the rower your badass-yet-friendly trainer. With each stroke, you melt fat and firm up everything from your shoulders to your calves-but because you're cardio. Plus, the movement helps create posture your mom would be proud of. Although you're rowing with your arms in front ofyou, it's a great counteraction to the hunched-over position many of us are in all day. Your back needs to stay rowing strengthens back muscles that get weakened from desk jobs. The best part: The faster you row, the more intense your workout becomes—so the quick intervals here will get you toned in less time.

3 STOP WORKOUT MISTAKES

MISTAKE #1 Being afraid of "men's" weights

Many barbell arid free-weight moves mimic everyday ones (carrying bags, picking upachild, openinga door) the way machine-based moves that tend to isolate a single muscle can't. Don't worry about bulking up: Most women don't have near the amount of testosterone needed to build big. bulky muscles.

THE FIX: Grab 12-pounders instead of 5s (but don't be afraid of 20s if you have the strength!). Try deadlifts with a barbell versus dumbbells. It's okay if you need to do fewer reps. Adding weight will tone you up in less time.

MISTAKE #2 Bad squat form

Squats areone of the best glute and quad sculptors because they engage a large amount of muscle. But I see my clients making two key errors when it comes to squats; First, they put their weight on their toes instead of in their heels. This puts stress on the knees and makes you unstable. Second, they stand with their feet too close together. Women are built differently than men and their hips tend to angle forward. This anterior tilt can lead to muscle imbalances as well.

THE FIX: Wiggle your toes at the bottom of a squat to make sure your weight is in your heels. Press through your heels as you rise up. Also, stand with your feet slightly wider than your hips with your toes slightly turned out. This will shift your weight back and counteract that pelvic tilt.

MISTAKE #3 Using crunches to fight belly fat

Crunches firm the muscle that lies underneath fat-they don't actually melt away fat. To see a difference, you
need to burn or cut the extra calories.

THE FIX: Abs are made in the kitchen. Make sure you have more calories going out than coming in. Trade
crunches for exercises that engage your entire core—the front, back, and sides of your torso— like planks. Also, work your lower body. Moves that target large muscle groups like your buttand thighs help increase calorie burn and your metabolism after a session, which ultimately helps slim down your waist.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CELLULITE

It used to be the case that doctors claimed cellulite was exactly the same as any other fat on our bodies and, like normal fat, coutd be combated with exercise and a healthy diet. These days, however, thanks to advances in science, we know that the dreaded orange peel textured lumpiness we see on our thighs, butt, and even our arms and belly, isn't ordinary fat at all, but the result of fat cells found underneath the top layer of the skin being squeezed between the bands of connective tissue which attach muscle to your skin.

Weak, damaged fat cells can cause fatty tissue to lie unevenly, while the strong fibres that anchor fatty tissue to the layers of skin above can pull at the pockets of fat, creating that dimpled effect too. While the structure of men's connective tissue is angled, women's connective tissue is vertical, which is the reason why our fat cells can bulge through.

So it seems women - including many of the world's slimmest, fittest supermodels and Olympic athletes - are simply destined to have cellulite. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything to get rid of it once you understand the causes.

POOR CIRCULATION
When blood flow slows, collagen separates, allowing fat to come to the surface of the skin and create an orange peel effect. While poor circulation is primarily genetic, there's much you can do to give it a boost. including regular exercise, and your new secret weapon: daily body brushing (see    ? opposite for advice on how to do it properly).

Because exercise and body brushing help stimulate your metabolism and warm your skin as well as boosting your circulation, you should apply any cellulite products directly after these activities so their dimple-fighting ingredients are better absorbed.

YO-YO DIETING

Research shows that women store fat six times more readily on their lower body than their upper body. But the lower body is far less keen on letting go of that fat. So if you lose seven pounds, six go from the top and just one goes from the bottom. When you put it on again (as yo-yo dieters always do), six go to the bottom and one goes to the top.

And the pattern only intensifies if you go on dieting in this way. Following a sensible healthy eating plan where you eat at regular intervals - like the one in this book - can help normalise your blood sugar levels, prevent binges, and stop you from piling lost weight back on.

JUNK FOOD
Refined and processed foods, those that contain sweeteners, additives and chemicals, plus dairy, sugar and high fat products are all thought to contribute to cellulite. One major thought is that some of the chemicals in these foods act as oestrogen mimics to disrupt the smooth running of the female body. And worse, junk
food seriously lacks essential nutrients, including those antioxidant vitamins and trace minerals known to counteract cellulite.

Try to eat fresh fruit and veg to aid poor digestion and eliminate waste (both of which exacerbate cellulite),  and if you can't ditch all toxins, drink plenty of water every day to help flush them out.