Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but you won't like the answer!

Cut out dairy, gluten and sugar.

Not gluten: carbs.
It’s the carbohydrates in bread that are bad, not the protein.
Low-gluten bread is still bad for you.

Carbs are fine. Bread is fine. Being a fundamentalist is not fine.

Can I ask the knowledgeable people here about diastasis? I have it, but I work out a lot. So my abs are cut and visible. But when I do certain ab workouts, the center of my abs push out in a line between my muscles. Do I need to fix this if I don't really care?

Anonymous wrote:Yes but you won't like the answer!

Cut out dairy, gluten and sugar.

Not gluten: carbs.
It’s the carbohydrates in bread that are bad, not the protein.
Low-gluten bread is still bad for you.

Anyone else have lose belly skin from multiple pregnancies? I am 42 and I think gravity is making it sag more.

Is MuTu worth it (looks like $150 for lifetime access to website) if you don’t have diasis recti?

Anonymous wrote:Tell me more about MuMu. Do you have to pay to see these exercises?

You do have to pay for it. I went in with a friend and we shared a login. There are other similar programs and I'm sure you could find them summarized for free on reddit or elsewhere. This was the segment I heard on NPR that led me to it:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/07/541204499/flattening-the-mummy-tummy-with-1-exercise-10-minutes-a-day

It starts off with learning the breathing exercises and yoga-like routines that teach you to engage your core and pelvic floor in a new way, sit and walk with proper alignment, etc. and you build up to pretty simple workout circuits - but you are supposed to complete those circuits while focusing on the "mutu breath" and keeping the correct alignment, engaging your muscles the right way. It's harder than it looks. It really clicked for me and I followed all 12 weeks, but it also talks a lot about your pelvic floor and those types of issues so if that's not something you're focused on it may not resonate as much. As I mentioned before, I was already pretty fit and wasn't looking to lose weight, but I was really weak and poochy in the middle despite tons of ab exercises, and I had neck and back issues from gaining a ton of weight with my pregnancies that also affected my posture (I'm very short/petite). Basically I felt like pregnancy wrecked my body in ways that weren't strictly aesthetic and this was a more holistic solution.

Mom here with that little pouch and work out 5-6x a week, intermittent fast. I'm 38 and lately I've been noticing even my skinny friends who never had kids have that pouch. Someone told me that comes with perimenopause.

Lift heavy weights. The running and peloton is good for your heart, but it's not shaping your body.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ ps I’m 39 & the youngest of my 3 kids is 6 now. The middle one weighed 9 lbs 6 oz and was 22.5 inches and basically I don’t think my stomach is ever going to recover from that lol. I was 5’5, 110 before kids. 135 before I started exercising & now 128 with only the exercise I said above but no diet.

So sad to hear your story because I fear the same thing has happened to me. My last child was also 9 lbs 6 oz and really did a number on my abdominal muscles. I was 5’4, 108 before kids, now 113 with COVID weight, and although I’d like to not be packing this round gut I just can’t get motivated to diet. 42 and feeling hormonal changes already. Hoping the thought of beach this summer might be a little motivating.

How are you 5'4 and 113 (BMI on the border of underweight) and "packing a round gut"? How is this physically even possible? Are your arms amputated or something?

DP here. I’m 5ft 7in 128 pounds and I have a gut that looks like I’m 6 months pregnant! I’m the classic apple shape (skinny legs, no butt, narrow hips etc.) but thanks to genetics I’ve always had a huge gut!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ ps I’m 39 & the youngest of my 3 kids is 6 now. The middle one weighed 9 lbs 6 oz and was 22.5 inches and basically I don’t think my stomach is ever going to recover from that lol. I was 5’5, 110 before kids. 135 before I started exercising & now 128 with only the exercise I said above but no diet.

So sad to hear your story because I fear the same thing has happened to me. My last child was also 9 lbs 6 oz and really did a number on my abdominal muscles. I was 5’4, 108 before kids, now 113 with COVID weight, and although I’d like to not be packing this round gut I just can’t get motivated to diet. 42 and feeling hormonal changes already. Hoping the thought of beach this summer might be a little motivating.

How are you 5'4 and 113 (BMI on the border of underweight) and "packing a round gut"? How is this physically even possible? Are your arms amputated or something?

Well, I can’t post a picture. But no I have my arms and I definitely don’t have a flat tummy. I think it is the diastasis rectii.

You can definitely have diastasis at any size, and it can be pronounced. But then dieting isn't going to fix it. I didn't do PT until years after my kids were born and it still really helped, and now I don't need to worry that I'm exacerbating it when I sit up normally or lift stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes but you won't like the answer!

Cut out dairy, gluten and sugar.

Ditto. It was really the sugar that did it for me. I also happened to cut out dairy and gluten for ibs. I didn’t them at different times and saw that the sugar was the biggest factor.

Its the calories-not the sugar, gluten or dairy. You can eat 1800 calories of pure crap a day (which is not much food) or you can eat 1800 calories or low cal/high protein and still lose weight. The key to losing weight is being in a calorie deficit. Period. Add in heavy weight training to reshape your body and you are done.

This is true. My skin looks way better when I cut out the sugar and dairy though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ ps I’m 39 & the youngest of my 3 kids is 6 now. The middle one weighed 9 lbs 6 oz and was 22.5 inches and basically I don’t think my stomach is ever going to recover from that lol. I was 5’5, 110 before kids. 135 before I started exercising & now 128 with only the exercise I said above but no diet.

So sad to hear your story because I fear the same thing has happened to me. My last child was also 9 lbs 6 oz and really did a number on my abdominal muscles. I was 5’4, 108 before kids, now 113 with COVID weight, and although I’d like to not be packing this round gut I just can’t get motivated to diet. 42 and feeling hormonal changes already. Hoping the thought of beach this summer might be a little motivating.

How are you 5'4 and 113 (BMI on the border of underweight) and "packing a round gut"? How is this physically even possible? Are your arms amputated or something?

I'm 5'7" and 120 and have a belly. I am thinned boned. It's not as skinny as you think. I also have a butt and thighs.

5'4, 120, 24" waist and a thigh gap, size 0. Body composition varies a lot.

This is true too. I am the other 5’4 poster and exercise for me is like a 20 min walk when I can get away. If anything I have lost muscle since having kids. I am blessed genetically with a slim mother. But all the rest — DR, aging, hormones — means a tummy bulge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ ps I’m 39 & the youngest of my 3 kids is 6 now. The middle one weighed 9 lbs 6 oz and was 22.5 inches and basically I don’t think my stomach is ever going to recover from that lol. I was 5’5, 110 before kids. 135 before I started exercising & now 128 with only the exercise I said above but no diet.

So sad to hear your story because I fear the same thing has happened to me. My last child was also 9 lbs 6 oz and really did a number on my abdominal muscles. I was 5’4, 108 before kids, now 113 with COVID weight, and although I’d like to not be packing this round gut I just can’t get motivated to diet. 42 and feeling hormonal changes already. Hoping the thought of beach this summer might be a little motivating.

How are you 5'4 and 113 (BMI on the border of underweight) and "packing a round gut"? How is this physically even possible? Are your arms amputated or something?

Well, I can’t post a picture. But no I have my arms and I definitely don’t have a flat tummy. I think it is the diastasis rectii.

Tell me more about MuMu. Do you have to pay to see these exercises?

Anonymous wrote:I did with daily peloton and very restrictive eating. Basically vegan keto/IF.

What I thought was diastasis turned out to just be baby weight that I could sweat and starve away.

Not sure why the size of your babies was relevant, tbh.

Tell me more about vegan keto! I have looked into it before and it just seemed so difficult...