A young mother-of-two has shared a hilarious account of getting her pre-baby body back after having children – and revealed how she got in shape with Pilates.
Mother and parenting blogger Rachelle Rowlings, from Sydney, said she decided to do something about the ‘warm, gooey, jam doughnut wrapped around my torso’ one morning after realising that things ‘needed to change’.
‘I mean, bending to do my shoe laces up after two C-sections and three lamingtons was getting strenuous,’ Rachelle wrote on her Instagram page.
‘I needed a pit stop and a water hand out just to get up the stairs.’
A young mother-of-two has shared a hilarious account of getting her pre-baby body back after having children – and revealed how she got in shape with Pilates (pictured after Pilates)
Sydney-based mother and parenting blogger Rachelle Rowlings said she decided to do something about the ‘warm, gooey, jam doughnut wrapped around my torso’ one morning
Rachelle confessed that while she had always been athletic and a sports captain at school, she ‘did what any normal person would do’ with weight gain and ‘ate her feelings’ while avoiding physical exercise as much as possible.
‘I was miserable and sore and cracking and so unfit,’ she said.
‘I heard breastfeeding would shred me like pulled chicken but I was the one per cent that ended up looking like a melted marshmallow!
‘To be fair, I was downing a crater-sized custard doughnut and washing it down with a 1mt tall Milo every time a baby latched!’
o Rachelle said she got out of bed at 4.30am and went to her first Pilates class, pairing the exercise with a plant-based diet and focusing on toning up her core (pictured on reformer)
‘I heard breastfeeding would shred me like pulled chicken but I was the one per cent that ended up looking like a melted marshmallow!,’ Rachelle (pictured pregnant) said
But then, a day rolled around when the 32-year-old mother-of-two wanted to get out of bed and become ‘the best version of myself’.
So Rachelle said she got out of bed at 4.30am and went to her first Pilates class, pairing the exercise with a plant-based diet and focusing on toning up her core.
‘And I went again. And again. And then all of a sudden it became second nature!,’ she wrote.
‘And I felt like a weight had been physically and mentally lifted.’
While she loved Pilates, Rachelle (pictured) said exercising after having two kids wasn’t always easy, and one day she noticed a five centimetre ab separation in her stomach
While she loved Pilates, Rachelle said exercising after having two kids wasn’t always easy.
One day, during a leg lift in class, she noticed ‘an alien popped through my abdominals’ – which turned out to be a five centimetre ab separation.
It was then that she discovered the Soho Inspired Body studio, where Rachelle slowly closed her ab separation from 5cm to 3cm.
‘She taught me how to do Pilates correctly instead of like a chimp doing arithmetic,’ she said of the instructor.
These days, Rachelle uses fresh, plant-based meal delivery services such as Soulara, Marley Spoon and Delish Deliveries (Rachelle pictured with her kids)
Nowadays, Rachelle is looking and feeling better than ever.
‘It took me 1.5 years after Rumer to put down the extra-large-full-cream-iced-coffee-two-sugars to start this journey,’ she said.
[But] I’m proud of myself for not giving up.’
Rachelle uses fresh, plant-based meal delivery services such as Soulara, Marley Spoon and Delish Deliveries.
She also does regular at-home Pilates workouts from Fluid Form Pilates and studio classes with Melissa Wood Health.
Speaking previously to FEMAIL, Rachelle revealed why she wanted to expose the less-than-glamorous reality behind her Instagram posts
Speaking previously to FEMAIL, Rachelle revealed why she wanted to expose the less-than-glamorous reality behind her Instagram posts.
‘I first came up for the idea for the profile when I was crippled with morning sickness and thought: “There must be other mums like me and going through what I’m going through”.
‘I couldn’t see them anywhere – it was all pretty, filtered photos and similar captions.
‘By the time I had Roman, I was absolutely miserable, even though people were telling me I was in for the best time of my life.
‘No one tells you that you won’t leave the house for six weeks after they’re born, or that your boobs are rock hard and you’ll be up every night.’
‘Everything I write is one hundred per cent true,’ Rachelle told Daily Mail Australia (pictured with her kids)
So, the mum of one started her Instagram profile, which has only gone on to soar in popularity in recent times.
‘Everything I write is one hundred per cent true,’ Rachelle told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Just because I put red lipstick on to go to the bathroom and squeezed my body into Ellery dresses while pregnant, doesn’t mean I’m not falling apart 99 per cent of the time.
‘The best bit of it all is when other young mothers get in touch via my inbox and say thank you.
‘Mums feel like they need to live up to all of these expectations all of the time, but they shouldn’t worry about struggling behind the scenes.’
For Rachelle, while she might apply Aden filters ‘to make me look more tanned’ and post aesthetically good-looking photos, her captions have earned her a loyal following of women who want something different from their social media feeds
For Rachelle, while she might apply Aden filters ‘to make me look more tanned’ and post aesthetically good-looking photos, her captions have earned her a loyal following of women who want something different from their social media feeds.
‘I’ve always been quite over the top, and I never wanted to lose me, even though I’ve now had Roman,’ she said.
‘But just because I look good in my photos, doesn’t mean I didn’t spend the first six weeks of Roman’s life Instagramming from my back yard because I hadn’t left the house.’