I'm Dr Shannon Ritchie. I'm a doctor of physical therapy fitness trainer and

founder of VEvelo Fitness. In the Dr Shannon show you'll learn applicable

tools to improve your health based on science. Welcome to the show.

Hello everyone, welcome to a little solo coffee chat. Today I'm going to be talking about

how I am building five pounds of muscle after having a baby. I want to talk a little bit about my journey to get to this

point and then we'll talk about my plan. Before I get into any of this at all, the

last thing I want anyone to get out of this

episode is to leave feeling like the compare and despair type of thing. Out of

all of my friends that I talked to, every single one that's had a baby

has had a different experience and a different story.

None of our stories are the same.

They're all so different.

And some people have different timelines of things.

Some people will have more than one kid and that complicates things or they have a complicated

delivery or a tough pregnancy.

So I really just want to lay out kind of what I'm doing my plan where I've been so

far postpartum so that it's helpful for you. So backing up to when I was

pregnant I think one of the best things and I talked about this all the time

but one of the best things and I talk about this all the time but one of the best things that I did was try to build muscle during pregnancy.

First trimester for me was really tough. I was very tired and nauseous for all day for the whole pregnancy and so starting to

work out was like the last thing I want to do.

I posted this real one time about me like trying to height myself up before class and it was very difficult to stay consistent with workouts. But every time I did exercise I felt better. Like that was one of the things, one of the only things that could make

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