Last year in the UK almost four million babies were born.

That’s a lot of mums, with a lot of babies.

So why the hell is it that at some point or another since we had our children we’ve felt alone?

We’re all members of the biggest club in the world.

So how can it ever be for one moment that we feel isolated and lonely?

This has to be the most outrageous oxymoron ever.

We don’t have to look or go very far to find groups, clubs and classes to become part of. Even in more rural areas there’s still usually plenty going on.

When our children are older and in nursery, pre-school and school there’s a ready-made community for us to get involved with.

So if we feel lonely it’s not because of a lack of places to go where other mums hang out.

Is it because we don’t make the most of what’s available to us in terms of activities?

I don’t know about you, but every mum I know organises an incredible, carefully thought-out schedule of things to do every single week.

So I don’t reckon it’s anything to do with that.

Is it that we go along to these great places, but keep the mums we meet there at arms’ length rather than talking about the things we find tough and finding kindred spirits?

Do we do this because we feel like we should be able to cope with everything being a parent throws at us?

Do we do it because we’re scared to share with others just how afraid we are that we aren’t doing a good enough job?

Surely, this is madness!

We’re all on a level playing field.

No matter where we’ve come from and who we are, we’re all the same.

Trying to give our precious children the very best of everything.

We don’t always get it right. But we learn, and try to do better.

To me it seems crazy that there’s all this stuff going unsaid, when we all feel it.

We can all offer an understanding smile. We may not have the answers, but it helps infinitely to know someone empathises with you, doesn’t it?

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to try to be more honest about this unsaid stuff.

To myself and when I meet people.

What do you say, girls? Shall we give it a go?

For many of us, our only hope of getting some time to ourselves to exercise is in the evenings when the bedtime battle has been won.

By this time of day though, you’ve probably already put in a 12 hour day (or 14 hours if you live with the 5am wake up demons).

You might have gone through the entire day with the steel determination that you’ll work out after bedtime. Then it arrives and just the thought of getting a sweat on makes you feel sick.

If this is you Mama, read on.

There are ways you can manipulate your energy levels throughout the day so that come 7pm you’ll feel up for a bit of fitness.

You’ve probably heard this a billion times before and are sick to death of being beaten over the head with it, but the answer is pretty simple.

You need to do two things.

You need to drink 8-10 glasses of water during the day so you’re properly hydrated.

And you need to eat little and often so you keep your energy levels constant all day long.

I always find that keeping small bottles of water in the fridge makes it easier to drink what my body needs, so you might find this works for you.

Snacking on easy-to-grab, high quality energy foods every couple of hours will prevent that energy slump from creeping up on you, especially if you’re sleep deprived.

Here are a few ideas that will take less than two minutes to throw together:

• Banana with peanut butter
• Apples
• Nuts – almonds, brazil nuts and walnuts in particular
• Lean meat like turkey or chicken on a cracker or rye bread
• Oatcakes (sweet with dried fruit or savoury with peanut butter or houmous)
• Yoghurt with cereal and fruit
• Vegetables and houmous (Carrots, cucumber, red pepper, cauliflower)
• Popcorn

Try drinking more and eating more frequently over the next few days, and see if it makes a difference to how you feel by the early evening.

I’m not saying you won’t be affected by sleep deprivation and the general demands of your days.

But if you eat the right kinds of foods more often as the day goes on and keep your body satisfied, you should have it in you to smash out 20-30 minutes of fitness when you’ve got the time to do it.

If you try this, let us know how you get on!

Before becoming a mummy I’d exercise three or four times a week. I did a mix of classes, the gym and swimming.

During my pregnancy I took exercise very easy (pilates, swimming, walking) and post-­baby I was looking forward to being able to push myself again!

However, there was no way exercise could be the same once I’d given birth. Hour-long classes on the other side of town aren’t really realistic with a tiny baby who needs feeding every one or ­two hours. I was also acutely aware that my body and fitness were a loooooong way from where they had been pre-baby!

I’d put on three stone with my pregnancy. I’d created and carried a little person over nine months and gone through a very long, tough labour.

I knew it was important to be careful post baby. Launching into a high impact, intense routine before your core has recovered can lead to long term problems, while all the relaxin in a new mummy’s body (especially when you’re breastfeeding) makes you more prone to injury.

I was very lucky to see a personal trainer for the first three months once I decided it was time to get back into exercise.

For an hour a week my husband opened up Daddy Day Care while I saw a brilliant PT who came up with a post-natal exercise programme to strengthen and realign my core, without risk of injury. That hour was far more packed with high quality, targeted exercises than it would have been without the trainer there!

She gave me exercise homework to do in 15 or 20 minute chunks while my baby (very occasionally) slept so I could keep the momentum up in between our sessions. The time with her also allowed me to learn the specific exercises I should be doing to help my body recover from the pregnancy and birth.

Fitting fitness in as a mummy has been about being flexible. No more hour long classes or leisurely swims four times a week! Now it’s maybe one or two quality sessions at the weekend while my husband has the baby.

That doesn’t mean I can’t exercise during the week, it just means it’s changed and usually includes my little one.

She’s now 11 months old and has become my new workout weight. Luckily, she’s always loved being on the move and giggles at me while I work out with her in the mornings as and when I can!

She particularly loves v-­sits, squats and lunges. Before she could crawl, she’d happily lie on her play-mat while I did press ups, planks and other floor exercises next to her.

Now I can usually squeeze in a few 10-15 minute routines at home here and there, but it has to be about quality over quantity. I go as hard as I can for those precious minutes!

I try to convince myself to ignore the mess in the house and use some of her nap time to quickly squeeze in a little workout.

I’ve also started running. (Something I’ve never been good at or even enjoyed pre­baby.)

It works perfectly because I can either run with her in the buggy, or if my husband is home early, head straight out the door for half an hour while he does bath time and get back home in time to put her to bed.

As a new mummy, I do see exercise as a necessity. For me, it’s not really about getting back into shape. It’s so much more important than that.

The benefits for me are huge. It helps boost my energy levels after a run of sleepless nights, which is vital when my 11 month old is yet to sleep through a night! Exercise also helps keep post-natal depression at bay, which is probably one of its biggest advantages.

For me it’s about being strong enough to carry my baby around getting without aches and pains.

It’s about being fit enough when she starts walking to run after a small toddler all day without getting exhausted and still having some energy left to enjoy a little bit of an evening with my husband.

It’s so much more than getting back into shape.

Exercise is helping me enjoy my first year of mummy hood even more, and that’s priceless to me.

Ever had a conversation that goes a little like this?

“I love being a mummy. But I just wasn’t prepared for just how much I would change.”

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but a little tiny part of me misses the old me.”

“I had no idea what Mummy Guilt even was. Let alone how heavily I’d feel it. I feel so guilty about doing anything for myself…even taking a shower.”

At some point, most of my amazing mama friends and I have had variations of this hilarious chat.

Accepting that you are changed – forever – by this incredible thing called parenthood is beautiful. But it can also be tough.

Getting back little pieces of yourself in the months and years after you have a child is not an easy task.

One of my best friends who’s got three boys once called it ‘clawing yourself back.’

Whether that’s getting your body back into shape, building your confidence back up again, going back to work, going out with friends or on a date night.

Some people have no trouble at all pinging back to their pre-baby selves in every way. For others, it’s a long-haul process.

But why do people say “life will never be the same” before we have our babies, as if that’s a bad thing?

We are never, ever going to be the same. That’s just a fact.

I wouldn’t want to be the same as I was before I had my boy.

He’s made me a better person, in a million ways I never could have imagined.

Our babies make us better. They give us new perspectives, give us strength and make us fight harder. They make us love more, make us appreciate small things and give us more patience and compassion.

You should fight to keep every one of your identities after you’ve had a child.

You’re not just mama.

You’re still you, and everything that has always meant.

They’re right when they say that you will never be the same.

You’re still you, just better.

Long gone are the days when we could plan our days and they would actually go pretty much like we’d imagined.

I’ll bet we’ve all thought of ourselves as flexible in our past lives – at home, at work and with friends.

But – correct me if I’m wrong – NONE of us even so much as knew what that word meant until our gorgeous babies came along.

Cue….daily chaos. Of the most beautiful kind.

As welcome as this beautiful chaos is, it makes planning our time damn. near. impossible.

Especially when it comes to fitting in time to exercise.

If you’re a member of a gym with a crèche, great. If you can exercise while your kids are at school, nursery or with family, awesome.

But HOW THE HELL can it be done alongside all the other billion things you’ve got to fit into an already seemingly unachievable day?

Girls, we need to readjust our expectations of what meaningful exercise involves.

Here are five ways we reckon should help you to fit fitness into any day…..

1. You don’t need an hour.
   
   You don’t even need half an hour.If you could find just 10 or 20 minutes in your day 3-4 times a week, you could fit exercise into your mental life.It doesn’t need to be at the same time, or on the same day each week. Just whenever you can find those minutes.

2. Make every minute count.Here’s the key – it MUST be HARD AND INTENSE for every single one of those precious minutes you find to focus on YOU.To get the benefit from such a short amount of time, you need to go hard. Interval training is perfect for this sort of short burst training, as is Tabata training. (More to follow soon in future posts about these types of workouts.)

3. Think about where you can steal the time from.Perhaps you could find the time by cutting the time you spend on all the yawn-inducing jobs at home (not easy I know – especially when you’re already going at break-neck efficiency speed to get ‘em all done), or arrange for someone to pick up the kids for you.Switch to online shopping to claw back some time, or – if you work – sneak in a quick session in your lunchbreak. If you watch TV, do your workout while watching.There MUST be somewhere you can free up 10 or 20 minutes in your day!

4. Get the kids involved.You definitely don’t need to be alone to get a brilliant workout.If you have a small baby who still uses a buggy, go for a run or power jog with the buggy or make sure you squeeze in a quick workout during their sleep time.If they’re older, get out in the garden with the kids, make sure they’ve got plenty to keep them entertained and create a small circuit of jump squats, fast lunges, burpees, push-ups, punches and kicks for you to go through three or four times.

5. If you really can’t find 10 or 20 minutes at once, break it down into smaller chunks.As long as you keep the pace up, this can be just as effective as doing it all in one go.Run up and down the stairs for a few minutes. Add some energy to your housework or games with the kids and get a sweat on.Do press ups, squats and lunges or on-the-spot running while holding the little one or get older kids to see if they can do the exercises too – make it fun!

There’s no easy way to put yourself first, make yourself the top priority and commit to doing this regularly. But if you do, it won’t just be you that thanks – well, you – for it. Your partner, kids, family, friends and colleagues will all notice big changes in you physically, mentally and your body language will change too.

Hurrah!