During her pregnancy, Rose Ann Serpico of Serpico Powers, a Chelsea fitness studio she owns with her husband Frank Powers, vowed to go on a long run the day after her baby was born. Not surprisingly, Serpico (super fit powerhouse marathon runner and all-around fitness guru) admits that it didn’t exactly happen like that. “You’re not fully prepared for how exhausted you are,” she says.
Still not where she was before her pregnancy 19 months after giving birth, Serpico acknowledges “your body is going to tell you what you can and can’t do. You’re not going to hammer it.”
For many new moms, the fear of weight gain announces itself long before the baby is born. Serpico and her husband often field calls from prospective (newly pregnant) clients who want to know, pointedly, how they can get in shape right now. Expecting women who were not in tip-top shape to begin with will have a far more challenging time losing the baby weight than previously fit women. And it makes sense: if you don’t run, you’re not going to start running when you’re pregnant, and you’re not going to start running ten miles immediately after you have the baby. Fit or not, however, time is a huge factor in postpartum weight loss.
But what about Kim Kardashian? Beyonce? Gwyneth Paltrow? Women who, post-baby, are sporting killer, svelte figures? If you’re a celebrity mother, you likely have two advantages over the average mother: time and money. “Nanny, housekeeper, personal trainer—and typically not a lot of weight gain on an already good body…” Alison Sperlongo, mother to an 8-month-old, lists all the advantages that non-celebs aren’t all lucky enough to enjoy.
For Sperlongo, and many new mothers like her, who long for more hours in the day, getting fit and staying fit is an ongoing process that requires energy that can be hard to summon. While she lost nearly all of her initial weight gain quickly (she credits breast feeding as a big factor), Sperlongo confesses that after months of eating take-out and skipping workouts, suddenly her inner thighs were huge, brushing together when she moved. “You could start a fire down there,” she says, joking.
Determined to get back to her normal weight, Sperlongo has started moving again, dialing up her exercise routine, and stopped eating junk food for dinner. She’s tapping into the fact it’s all about establishing an exercise routine—whether thats biking, jogging, kickboxing, or weightlifting—and building upon it over time. So it’s not so much what you do (though forget about losing weight by merely pushing a stroller around the neighborhood) as much as it is that you do it. Consistently and with regularity.
“General physical condition, good eating choices and movement help the post-pregnancy body,” Serpico concludes, adding that core exercises are key. You don’t need a personal trainer, but you do need patience as well as a willingness to work hard to see results. Think about it: Even the luxury of the personal trainer is accompanied by hours of grueling exercise. No one is taking a magic pill.
