When you become a parent, your whole world becomes about your baby. Ensuring they are fed, cleaned, happy, and loved is all in a day’s work. It is all too common for women to lose themselves and forget to take care of their health. Feelings of guilt like not spending enough time with the child or simply exhaustion, are all legitimate reasons moms don’t exercise. But many fitness experts dispel that idea. By eating healthy and exercising you will have a clear mind and more energy to be there for yourself and your baby. One mom found that she could incorporate her fitness routine while playing with her daughter. It turned out to be a mommy-daughter time while reaping the benefits of losing weight and getting strong.The 32-year-old gained 54 lbs but she was determined to shed them as soon as possible. When her daughter Honor was only a couple months old, Danielle started going to the gym.
According to Danielle, Honor has been her biggest inspiration to reduce the flab, as she joined her mom and was there when she was doing sit-ups, push-ups, and weightlifting.
After Honor’s birth on September 2014, Danielle started exercising at home and noticed that her little girl was copying all her moves. Honor loves exercising with her mommy so much, she was the one reminding her about working out.
“We were always together so I thought, I’ll do this with her there, and I’d go to the gym and have her there in her car seat. At first she’d barely move, but then I noticed her crawling and she started to copy me,” she reveals.
Danielle tried dieting but she found out that when she did, she couldn’t produce milk for Honor. She put dieting on hold until her daughter was 10 months old and was eating solid foods. Meanwhile she started working out at the gym and at home, playing music that both loved.
“At first Honor couldn’t do any exercises, but as she got stronger, by one she could hang from the pull-up bar, and now she does push-ups, sit-ups, every exercise I do,” Danielle shares. “She doesn’t always do them correctly, or multiples of them, but she does them, and we work out about five times a week. She lifts 2 lb weights too.”
Honor loves exercising so much to the point where she even involves her dolls in their routines. “She’ll have her Disney princess do something then she will,” Danielle laughs.
“Having her made me think about my own insecurities, and now I lead by example, telling her, ‘You don’t have anything if you don’t take care of yourself and be confident in yourself,'” she says.
“She’s two, I’m not going to make her eat fruit and veg all day long,” she explains. “I don’t mind what she eats. We eat healthily primarily, including fruit and green vegetables, chicken and fish, so we’re allowed the occasional treat, like pizza and cake once in a while.”
“People make excuses, like, ‘I can’t because of the baby.’ But I didn’t. In the time it takes to sit down and drink your coffee and watch TV, you could have done something to change your life,” she reveals.
