Natalie Jill, a fitness trainer, explains how new mothers can rebuild core strength after pregnancy. She emphasizes clean eating with balanced macros, high-intensity cardio to burn fat, and stability-ball crunches to strengthen abs while protecting the lower back.
Questions this video answers
Nataliejillfitness.com
About 200 crunches total, broken into sets of 25–50 at a time.
Chapters
Welcome back. We have Natalie Dill with us today. We're so excited, and she's gonna show us, especially new moms, how to get our tummies back in shape after baby. We're so glad to have you hear this.
Thank you for having me.
This is great. You know, do we want to say first to new moms? You know, it's a lot of. It does take some work and it takes some time. Be patient with yourself. Don't. You know, sometimes I think there's a lot of pressure.
Absolutely. Yeah. And then there's the excuse. People say, I've had a baby, so I can't get my abs back. I can't get a flat stomach. And that's just not true. Ye. You know what?
I thought that, too.
I just felt, well, it's never going to happen for me again. But you're going to show us how to do it really easily so you won't take too much time away from baby. But there are some important things to remember. So where are we going to start, Natalie?
Well, the first thing is you have to recognize that you cannot spot reduce. So I can show you some great things today, and I'm going to talk about some great things. But you can't spot reduce. Abs, abdominals, a flat stomach. That comes from diet, clean eating and burning off that fat. Because you can do a lot of work, develop those ab muscles, but you've got a layer of fat on top of it. They're not going to show.
Okay. So you got to do. You got to get rid of the fat.
You've got to get rid of the.
Fat by watching what you eat.
Exactly. So first thing is clean eating. You've got to make sure you're eating the right balance of protein, carbs, and fat and not too much so you don't store any extra fat. And then you've got to get your heart rate up and burn it off with high intensity cardio.
Right. It's simple, but it takes some effort to do it.
Absolutely. But when I see people reading on the machine, that's really not what you need to be doing. It's sweating, getting your heart rate up, high intensity.
Okay, Big thing.
Next thing is this stability ball. Huge fan of a stability ball. And let me tell you why. My favorite exercise, especially for moms, is the crunches and using the stability ball to protect your lower back. But very simple. Laying down a lot of crunches, not pulling on your neck. Just really concentrating here. That's what's going to get this. These ab muscles that you want to show after you burn off that fat.
Right. And when you're doing the crunches, you mentioned the back support of the ball. Isn't that really critical otherwise, don't you hunch yourself a little bit?
So critical.
Okay.
And that's my next point of why I like the stability ball is the core. We carry a baby. We're used to sticking out our stomachs. We've got that arch in our back, and that's going to help contribute to not looking like we have a flat stomach. So the stability ball, using this in place of a chair. So while you work or while you're sitting around the house, even watching tv, just sitting on the ball forces you to be in that right position.
I like that.
Gonna train that midsection so you can.
Just have it there and sit on it. And that helps, too.
Absolutely nothing.
You'd hold the baby, you could feed and sit on the ball safely. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. I didn't even think about sitting on it. Okay.
So my main points were the clean diet, getting the fat off, doing the cardio to burn that off. So you can see it, using a stability ball for lots of crunches. And just so you know, I do recommend a lot of crunches.
So what would you say? Would you time it or how would you.
Honestly, about 200 a sounds like a lot, but if you do 25 at a time, 50 at a time, keep doing it. Keep that tension on. You're gonna develop those abs.
How important is it to breathe when you're doing those crunches? To keep breathing and squeezing your stomach.
Down while you breathe. Very important.
Not just do them, but you actually have to do that, right? Absolutely.
You need to breathe correctly and you need to feel it. You need to concentrate on where you should be feeling it.
If you want more information.
What's your Website Tell everybody? Nataliejillfitness.com Come visit me anytime there.
And you've got some great DVDs, too.
I do DVDs. Ebooks. Lots of things.
Lots of things. Well, thanks for stopping by today. We appreciate. And I think it's great news for moms.
Yeah.
You can get your stomach back. You can do it. All right. Thanks so much, Natalie. Okay, we'll be back after a quick break. Stay with us here on Good Morning San Diego. I would do the crunches, but I did my skirt today.
