I was lucky enough to have two great pregnancies. I had morning sickness with both, which I’m not going to lie was fairly awful at times- especially puking all over myself including my last clean pair of work trousers minutes before I was due at the office.

However, there were great days too. Even when I felt tired or overwhelmed, I worked out. I saw a personal trainer once a week (it seemed a fair trade for my previous wine budget) and I tried where possible to train in between.

Training in my first pregnancy was a lot easier because there was more time- swimming, running, weight lifting and cycling were easy to do during the week. With Edward I already had limited time because we had Amber, so I took the plunge and tried a home DVD workout.

I found Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred was perfect; 30 minutes of exercise and four stages of difficulty. On top of my PT session and running at the weekend this really maintained by fitness levels. I definitely pushed to the max, but I always felt confident that I was within the boundaries of my heart rate monitor and I listened to my body.

If you have trained pre pregnancy my advice is to stick with what feels right, for as long as you can. There is plenty of research to suggest that fit pregnancies lead to good birth experiences and better recovery. I found recovery time to be especially important to me because I had a short maternity leave.

On top of all of this there is absolutely no doubt that my nutrition was a vital part of my positive experience. During my pregnancy with Amber I put around two stone on. I was very fit but I just hadn’t nailed the nutrition. Perfecting this in time for number two, I put just under one stone on and lost 17lb within five months post pregnancy. I believe in the notion that 70% of your make up is based on nutrition.
If you are pregnant or breast feeding you can follow my plans, clean eating is a perfect way to get set up for a healthy family lifestyle. Please join us.