This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Emily Ricketts, a 32-year-old personal trainer and mom of two based in the UK. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I haven’t always been fit and active. Growing up, I hated sports and used to fake sick notes to get out of them at school. I was always just a little bit chubbier than other kids and always the biggest of my friends.
In my early 20s, I got into a bad cycle of trying fad diets and supposed quick fixes like juice cleanses. I abused my body with excessive cardio, and I ended up yo-yoing from one extreme to the other.
But when, in my mid-20s, I met my future husband something clicked. He was really into strength training. I saw him lift weights and feel strong, and I thought, “Why can’t I do that?” So I did. And I learned more about fueling my body with enough food, especially protein.
As a newbie, I made great progress, even just from working out at home with dumbbells. My body started to change really quickly.
I started posting about what I was doing on Instagram because I felt so encouraged by the changes I was making and how empowered I felt, and my following grew and grew.
At the time, I had an office job and everyone made fun of me. I’d hide in the toilet to post content. But I kept going: I qualified as a personal trainer, and in 2019, I quit my job to focus full-time on social media and fitness.
Six years on, I’ve learned that your training and fitness have to evolve based on the season of your life. As a mom of two young girls, I feel passionately about exercise as a means of empowerment, not punishment.
Embracing being a beginner again
In the fall of 2021, I got pregnant, and I was completely naive going into it. I had no idea that something so amazing could make you feel so utterly awful. I was cripplingly sick, vomiting for nine months, and looking back, I don’t know how I did it. It was really scary. Doctors kept telling me the sickness would go, but it didn’t.
I kept as active as I could, doing gentle walks and shorter, lighter, less intense strength workouts. I only did what would energize me, because pregnancy is already so exhausting.
I did my pregnancy and postpartum training qualifications, which were eye-opening and helped me understand how much was going on in my body. For example, even in the first trimester when from the outside your body might look the same as before pregnancy, so much is happening inside.
Fortunately, giving birth to Ruby in June 2022 went smoothly, but afterward, I felt like I was back at square one fitness-wise. I actually really enjoyed that, though. There are very few times in your life when you get to experience being a beginner again at something you’ve already learned.
It was really humbling to go into those first workouts and find, say, a bodyweight squat hard, or pick up some dumbbells and find my old warm-up weight really heavy.
But I kept telling myself that it wasn’t about what I could do before, it was about what I could do right now. I had to show up and meet my body where it was.
“It’s my journey, my pace, I just have to keep showing up,” I told myself.
Getting to know a new body
I’d gained over 50 pounds while pregnant, and my body definitely did not “bounce back” afterward, as women are often pressured to do. It was a really slow, steady process.
As a society, we celebrate pregnant women. We tell them they’re beautiful and blooming and rub their bumps. But as soon as that baby is earthside, that same woman and that same body are judged for actually looking like she’s had a baby, which is so normal.
I still had a six-month pregnant belly when I was six weeks postpartum, and it does make you feel vulnerable.
I breastfed Ruby for 10 months, which meant I needed to be with her pretty much all the time. It also meant I had to navigate suddenly having big boobs and having to avoid certain exercises which weren’t comfortable any more. I had to get to know a new, constantly changing body.
I wanted to be in a slight calorie deficit to gradually lose some of the body fat I’d gained, but it was hard to know what that looked like while breastfeeding. So I just listened to my body, played the long game, and made nourishing Ruby the priority. I made simple meals that I could eat with one hand, like bagels and smoothies.
About a year later, I’d lost the weight I gained.
I want motherhood to be my strongest era yet
At the end of 2023, I got pregnant again, and this time I felt a lot more prepared. The sickness was more intense, but at least this time I knew it would go away after my baby was born. I followed my own pregnancy workout guide and had confidence in my body because I’d done it before.
Toward the end of my second pregnancy, I started doing circuit-style training, so 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off. The idea was to prepare myself psychologically for the stop-start nature of contractions. I would choose as many rounds as I felt I could do each day.
Rosie was born in August 2024. I gained over 40 pounds while pregnant, and I was back at square one again, only this time with two little ones demanding my time and attention, which made things harder. I never train for more than 30 minutes because I don’t have more time than that.
Nearly a year on, my body definitely looks like someone who’s had two babies. I’ve got more loose skin and stretch marks. But I tell myself what I tell other people: My tummy has had the privilege of growing my babies and feeling them kick, and they’re healthy and thriving. As much as I might find my boobs uncomfortable, they’re nourishing my baby.
I want to make motherhood my strongest era yet. Becoming a mom has given me a different perspective. I’m not training to change how my body looks; it’s for how my daughters look at me while I’m doing it. Ruby already tries to copy me doing push-ups and planks.
I want them to grow up knowing that exercise is a pleasure, not punishment. It’s not something they need to abuse their bodies with. And I don’t want them to go into workouts like I did, thinking, “I’m only doing this because I hate my thighs.” I want them to go into a workout thinking, “I’m doing this because I love how strong squats make me feel.”
That, for me, is the best kind of motivation.
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