Post Pregnancy Flab

If you have any kind of diastasis (most women do after having a baby), you might want to first do exercises to bring your stomach muscles back together. Check by laying on your back and lifting your head. Feel for a space between the muscles around your belly button. Here's one website that describes the Tupler Technique.
http://www.naturalbirthandbabycare.com/lose-your-mummy-tu...

I also have tried a wide variety of exercises to flatten my stomach, but the most effective by far for me was taking bellydancing classes. I love it and I've noticed a huge difference in my stomach after just a couple of months.

At at 8 weeks you will still have lots of skin left over. That just takes time to go away. You can have abs of steel underneith and still look 5 months pregnant. I'm 5 months post partum and it's starting to get better but I'm not all the way back to flat yet dispight having lost all the weight and doing crunches and yoga. Yoga journal has some good core body routines. Kick boxing classes also do wonders for the abs. Anyway, just give it time. It's still very early.

Don't expect too much too soon. It's sometimes easier to bounce back after a first baby, but susequent pregnancies are harder on those muscles. If you took a poll of the average American woman, they would tell you it takes a good 6 months - a full year to get back even close to where you once were. Unfortunately, we look at the Hollywood crowd and think if they can do it, we can, too. So unrealistic....There will always be the ones who can look just as trim, but it's partly genetic, and if the other women in your family didn't slim down quickly, chances are you won't either.

Hi R.:
I'm a certified Pilates instructor who has also been certified in general aerobics and weight training. I've worked with dozens of women over the last five years who have had the same problem and have tried everything (myself included!) Pilates is, by far, the best thing you can do to tone up your abs. If you can spare the extra cash, I highly, highly recommend that you go to a Pilates studio and get some personal training. You can then take the techniques you learn in Pilates (breathing, scooping, etc.) and apply them to any workout to get more out of it.

You can do sit ups till you're blue in the face and they will have very little effect compared to if you were to do them using Pilates methods. If you can't get to a studio, the next best thing is to rent some Pilates videos. For maximum results, I always tell my students to combine an aerobic program (running, etc.) with Pilates to both tone and take inches off. I assume you've cleared exercise with your doctor already? Women with abdominal muscle separation need to be extra cautious and are somewhat limited in what they can do right after they have their babies...so if you have that issue now or have had it in the past, be sure to talk to your doc about any exercise regimen, especially Pilates, before you begin!

Pilates, no doubt! Also LifeStyles Family Fitness have several locations in the CMH area and they have sitting for children as well, while you work out.I teach RPM (Spinning) there and it is rather inexpensive to be a member and you can go month to month, no long term contracts like the Bally days.

About me: I work out of my house fulltime w/Sales and part time fitness instructor. Ofcourse being the best Mom i can be is my 1st andmost important job to my 3.5 year old, Claire. We moved her 10 years ago from NY. I turned 40 this year, it was a tuff b-day, but have accomplished alot in 2007!