We chat to Robbie Thompson, the founder of Lean Mums, a new online wellness site dedicated to helping mums with their health and fitness goals. 

Gym bag with a shoe compartment

TELL US A BIT ABOUT LEAN MUMS - WHAT'S THE CONCEPT BEHIND THE BRAND? 

Lean Mums is a membership website providing home workouts, healthy, easy to cook recipes and a supportive online community especially for mums. It’s about showing mums that they can make health and fitness a part of their lives and making that as easy and stress free as possible.

As well as helping mums look better, our members all benefit from feeling better too. They have more self-confidence, have a sense of accomplishment and take that positivity into their roles as mums, partners, friends etc.

WHAT ARE THE BEST EXERCISES FOR NEW MUMS?

 Training during your pregnancy should be about energizing you rather than exhausting you. The right workouts and exercises should help to keep you strong and moving well throughout your pregnancy. Functional exercises that assist with your everyday tasks will be really useful.

My top 3 would be:

The Seat Squat

You sit down onto a seat in a controlled movement and then use your leg muscles to stand back up. This is functional because you’ll be doing this movement multiple times a day so getting those muscles stronger will definitely help. You can adjust the height of the seat using cushions to make this easier or remove them to make it more difficult.

Elevated Kneeling Dumbbell Row

You do this using one dumbbell at a time and have your arm elevated to take the pressure off your lower back. It’s great for strengthening the muscles in your upper back but it’s functional because you are going to need to lift things so keeping those muscles strong is important. You can use a bottle or tin of beans if you don’t have a dumbbell.

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

This is a brilliant exercise for the muscles in the back of your legs, particularly your glutes (bum). Keeping these strong will help to protect your lower back.

Holding two light dumbbells in front of you (you can also use bottles of water or tins of beans) slowly slide them down your legs and push your bum back. It’s important to keep your back straight. Slowly lower until you feel a stretch in the back of your legs and then squeeze your bum muscles to come back up.

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 FIVE EXERCISE TIPS FOR NEW MUMS?

  1. Take your time and look to slowly increase how hard you are training. Just as you gradually reduced the intensity during your pregnancy, you should aim to slowly increase it again. Make sure you get the okay from your GP first.
  2. Try to target your legs as much as possible. Exercises like squats and lunges are brilliant for getting you working hard and burning fat!
  3. Focus on core rather than ab exercises. This means instead of doing thousands of crunches instead do exercises like planks and side planks which will help strengthen your mid section.
  4. Do what makes you feel good! Find a type of exercise you enjoy, that way you’ll be more likely to stick with it.
  5. Don’t forget about your diet. If you want to change your body it’s as much about what you are eating as the exercise you are doing. Make sure you are eating enough good quality food to help you train, recover from workouts and of course have enough energy for your everyday tasks as a new mum!

NEW MUMS HAVE 0 TIME - WHAT ARE YOUR TIPS FOR INCORPORATING HEALTHY EATING AND EXERCISE? 

  • Exercise at a time that suits you and you have most energy
  • Don’t try to do it all at once, try doing a little exercise, and then maybe look to have a healthy evening meal. Bit by bit you’ll start to make healthy eating and exercise a part of your lifestyle.
  • Remember that a little exercise can energise you and have a massive effect on your mood. Doing a light workout might be exactly what you need to get the endorphins flowing. If you feel better that means you can give more to your role as a new mum.
  • Enjoy your exercise time. You’ve just taken on this massive role as a mum and you feel like that takes up all of your time. It’s important that you still give yourself time to do the things that you enjoy and make you feel good, you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 5 TIME-SAVING MEALS / MEAL TIPS FOR MUMS? 

  1. Use the slow cooker to make life easier. You can just throw all of the ingredients in and leave it until it’s done. Check out the Lean Mums Slow Cooker Fajitas and Chicken Casserole recipe videos.
  2. When you're cooking meals, cook other things in bulk that you can keep in the fridge, like chicken. Having some cooked chicken already prepared means you can just throw it into a salad or sandwich for lunch without the need to cook.
  3. Plan your meals and do one big shop for those ingredients. Having everything you need for all of your meals will make meal prep much easier and saves unnecessary trips to the shops. Online shopping makes this process a breeze and will also simplfy your life. 
  4. Cook extra portions of meals and stick them in tubberware in the freezer, that way you can grab a meal quickly.
  5. Use things like frozen veg and microwave rice to make preparing meals quicker (and save on the washing up!)

WHAT 5 THINGS COULD YOU NOT LIVE WITHOUT?

Friends and family, exercise, books, sunshine, coffee!

Want to get a month's free access to Lean Mums? Just use the code FREEMONTH17 at https://leanmums.com/join-today/ 

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