NSM Review: Body Beyond Birth

Felicity Gatfield lives in St Ives and is mum to Madison, 3 years and Jordan, 6 months. She gave birth to her second child in June, and was determined to return to her pre-baby weight. When the opportunity to review the 12-week online program Body Beyond Birth came up, she jumped at the chance. Here, she shares her experiences: 

I have had the absolute pleasure of being able to review a new fitness program called from Body Beyond Birth. It is an online fitness program that contains step-by-step videos explaining and demonstrating various exercises especially designed for mums.

After having my second child, I put on 20kg,  just like with my first, and was very keen to get rid of the excess weight as soon as possible! My second baby was another caesarean, and after carrying 4.1kg babies, I had a 6cm abdominal separation. I didn’t want to be going to any gym classes just yet, as I feared that these exercises would only make the separation worse.

With the Body Beyond Birth program I was able to do the workout when both my children were asleep or playing, rather than taking them to a crèche. That was a big bonus! Although I enjoy going to the gym, it can get tedious if you do the same exercise each time. Body Beyond Birth mixes the exercises up and focuses on different areas of the body each week. This makes it very interesting, and made me want to keep continuing with the program.

When you log in to Body Beyond Birth, there are new exercises to do each week. There are also yoga and workshops videos on how to improve your pelvic floor muscles, and information about abdominal muscle separation (which i definitely needed). The exercise videos were very easy to follow, and didn’t leave you feeling lost as to what you were really meant to be doing like other exercise videos I have tried in the past.

There is also a section on nutrition, which provides detailed calorie portion plans, as well as a breastfeeding portion plan, to make sure you are consuming the correct amount of calories while feeding. I found that fantastic, as many other nutrition sites or weight loss guides don’t take into consideration breastfeeding mums, which can make the calorie intake completely inaccurate.

There is a Body Beyond Birth community, so you can connect with others doing the program, which is great for motivation and makes you determined to keep going knowing there are others doing the program with you.

I would 100% recommend this program to any new mum. I now have about 6kg to go until I reach my pre-pregnancy weight. I’m going to keep up the exercises from this program so I can reach my goal weight.

This is a must for any new (and old) mum! 

Co-Founders: Jackie Steele and Becky Dyer

Body Beyond Birth is 12 weeks of training, 20 minutes a day, designed just for mothers, by mothers. 

• Physiotherapist designed for injury-free results
• Improves core abdominal strength to flatten your tummy
• Treats abdominal separations with Pilates-based exercise
• Helps you stop peeing when you laugh or sneeze with pelvic floor education and exercise
• Assists with weight loss and chisels your waist with our expert nutritional advice
• Reduces low back pain with our physiotherapist prescribed core strengthening exercises