Wondering if Pilates is the secret to postpartum weight loss? Join me on this journey as I share THE TRUTH if Pilates is good for weight loss, my personal experience, and my incredible results with postpartum Pilates! Discover how low-impact Pilates workouts helped me heal my abdominal separation, regain strength, tone my body, and shed those extra pounds after giving birth.
This post includes affiliate links. I do earn a commission for products purchased using these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting PILATESBODY by Kayla, making the content you see on this blog possible.
Inside: My before and after results (and photos) from my Pilates 8-Week Complete Core & Booty Challenge, and my journey to achieve a Pilates body during pregnancy and postpartum (twice).
From the moment we find out we are expecting a child, we immediately pivot and make changes to our lifestyles to help us be healthy moms and have healthy babies. Whether those lifestyle changes are our nutrition, sleep habits, work schedules, or fitness routines, we do our best to care for our bodies as we grow our little miracles inside. For me, I try to do all of the above, but I really like to focus on getting in daily movement through low-impact exercise and Pilates.
During the 9 months of pregnancy, with guidance from our doctors, midwives, families, and friends, we prepare our bodies and minds for what is said to be one of the biggest moments of our lives – becoming a parent. And no matter how much we prepare and plan for our births, it is completely unknown how our labor and deliveries will actually go. It seems this is just the beginning of a series of more unknowns. For example, not knowing how our bodies will feel postpartum, and how and when to exercise postpartum!
In this blog post, I am going to share with you my personal journey to achieving a Pilates body during pregnancy and postpartum, and also my before and after results (and photos) from my Pilates Body Challenge.
Our babies’ entries into the world are unpredictable, and our bodies are unpredictable after labor and delivery. The postpartum experience is different for every mom. For most, we feel as though we are starting over from scratch with a whole new body that we don’t recognize. So much happens as we begin the healing process after all of the bodily and hormonal changes we went through growing our babies, delivering our babies, and have yet to go through as we nurture our babies earth side.
Of course, staying healthy and working out during pregnancy will ease this transition into postpartum life as we rediscover our new and amazing mommy bodies and appreciate what they are capable of. However, we have to learn how to get to know ourselves on a new, deeper, and more loving level. And Pilates can help us to do this!
A Pilates Body can be described as lean and elongated. According to Sculpt’d, “A Pilates body is focused on building a strong, lean body emphasizing functionality and posture.”
A “Pilates Body” and a “Gym Body” are categorized as separate physique building body types because of the nature of their focus during a workout. Pilates workouts are known for building core strength, muscle tone in smaller muscle groups, and increasing flexibility. Gym workouts focus on lifting heavy weights, building the large muscle groups, and high intensity cardio.
Pilates was crucial during my postpartum journey. By beginning with the basics of core breathing, I was able to be present and feel connected to my body again. Breathwork in the fourth trimester is an incredible tool to help balance the emotional rollercoaster and sleepless nights, helping you feel more energized during the day. According to Motherly, “Pilates, which encompasses deep core work, focused breathwork and gentle movement, can be especially helpful to boost circulation and promote healing, no matter what type of birth you had.”
Pilates is an incredible way to start your postpartum weight loss journey. Choosing the right postpartum Pilates workouts will set you up for slowly and safely getting your body back into movement. My Pilates Body Challenge will heal your core from the inside out by beginning with the basics. As you start to connect to your body again and start to build endurance, the intensity gradually picks up with low-impact bodyweight strength workouts. This gets your heart rate up to burn fat and build lean muscle mass.
Although Pilates does not burn a significant number of calories, it can still reduce body weight. According to Medical News Today, “A 2021 study found Pilates to effectively reduce body weight and body fat percentage in participants with overweight or obesity.”
Pilates is a system of exercises designed to strengthen the body from the core out. When working with a certified Pilates instructor, make sure they have experience in prenatal and postpartum to know when to look for signs of abdominal separation, as well as teach you how to use your deep core muscles to aid in strengthening both pre/postnatal. I always recommend all my clients to consult with a pelvic floor physical therapist during their postpartum journey. I also insist on not rushing back into exercise too quickly.
After my daughter, Bobbi Rose, was born, I could not wait to get back into working out and reshaping my own Pilates body. I worked out my entire pregnancy with Bobbi and did Pilates-focused core workouts rigorously. Because everyone kept telling me how babies destroy our core, I was determined to not have that happen to me! Well, like I said, you can only prepare so much.
My core was so weak after my first birth, exactly how I hoped it wouldn’t be. I thought to myself, “I need to do exercises that are progressive, and safe, to get my body back to where it was pre-pregnancy without doing any long-term damage.”
I never wanted to rush back into exercise, but I still needed my new postpartum body to be challenged and I wanted to build muscle tone throughout my whole body. This is when I started designing a workout calendar filled with daily Pilates ab and glute workouts.
I started mapping out my daily workout calendar into a Pilates program that I could do for 8 weeks straight. After performing the workouts I created, I was so impressed with my results, and even more excited with how I felt in my new postpartum body. I knew this workout challenge could help other moms achieve the same results and love for their postpartum body too! Because of this, I decided to professionally film all of the workouts and turn them into a Pilates On Demand Challenge called the Pilatesbody Challenge.
The Pilatesbody Challenge is designed to reshape your postpartum body into a Pilates body. It guides you through daily Pilates on demand workouts 6 days a week, entirely online, on any device. I specifically designed my challenge to be achievable for busy moms, like you, having the workouts averaging only 30-minutes a day with minimal equipment needed. The workouts consist of a variety of foundational Pilates ab workouts and Pilates glute workouts on alternating days, with a weekly recovery and rest day.
For a full year, I coached over 100 participants in my 100% online, virtual challenge. Specifically, I coached newly postpartum moms and also men and women who were needing guidance on understanding their core as a whole, or guidance on how to step away from high intensity workouts and do low-impact workouts instead. Also, during this first year of coaching my 8-week challenge, I became pregnant with my second child, my son, Nash.
I have coached over 100’s of women (100% online) though the Pilates body virtual challenge. Specifically, coaching newly postpartum moms who were needing guidance on understanding their core as a whole, or guidance on how to step away from high intensity workouts and do low-impact workouts instead. I continue to coach and change lives through my newly designed Pilates body Challenge! I re-vamped the challenge when I became pregnant with my second child, my son, Nash, and I went through the 8 week challenge when I was 8-16 weeks postpartum!
I started my Pilates Body Challenge for the second time when I was roughly 12 weeks pregnant with Nash. I wanted to know how the challenge’s workouts felt in my body while I was pregnant with Nash, and I wanted to be able to compare them to when I did the challenge postpartum after having my daughter, Bobbi. I learned a lot from doing this! Now, I am better able to advise my challengers for the first 20 weeks of their pregnancies.
Due to the amount of laying down and abdominal flexion in the challenge, many of the challenge’s workouts become unsafe and ineffective beyond the 20-week pregnancy mark. Because of this, I did not complete the full 8 weeks of the challenge while I was pregnant with Nash. In the future, I will be redesigning this challenge to be prenatal-friendly for all trimesters, making the challenge more inclusive to all mamas!
Even though I could not complete the Pilates Body Challenge safely and effectively beyond 20 weeks pregnant, I still continued Pilates workouts up until I delivered Nash at 41 weeks. After Nash was born, and my family of 4 (plus 2 crazy dogs) was settling into our new normal, I found myself feeling excited to get started in my Pilates Body Challenge postpartum again. But, I was not prepared for the exhaustion and new challenges of mom life with a 2-year-old and a newborn!
I began my second postpartum run of my Pilates Body Challenge when I was 8-weeks postpartum with Nash. The challenge is safe to start at 6-weeks postpartum. But if you wish to start the challenge this early into postpartum, you will want to make sure you have a good mental state to drive your self-motivation to stay committed – Because us moms know all too well how tough and sleep-deprived those first weeks of newborn life are! And, of course, you will need clearance to workout from your doctor, too.
Before I started my challenge, I wanted to set myself up for success. I printed out the daily workout calendars for the challenge and posted them front and center on my refrigerator as an accountability reminder to myself. I was able to see what workouts were happening each day, allowing me to mentally prepare ahead of time for the workout and allocate how much time was needed to complete it. For me, I only needed to commit to a 30-minute time block daily.
I crossed off each workout day when I completed it, which was another action that really helped with my personal accountability. Throughout the 8 weeks, I was able to stay fully committed. I did not miss one single workout! If you end up needing to switch up your rest day, or double up on a day if you missed one, that is allowed and recommended.
My Pilates Pilates Body Challenge is very unique, in that it has a Core Assessment – Something that many on-demand fitness challenges do not have! We go through 5 different movements, and score each movement on a numbered scale, to assess all of the muscles that make up your abdominals as a whole: rectus abdominis (think of your “six-pack” muscles), internal and external obliques (muscles that make up that “deep V”), multifidus in our back, our spinal erectors, and the Transverse abdominal muscles (deep abdominal muscles). According to Shape, “Transversus abdominis: The deepest-down of all, it does a complete wraparound of your midsection and pulls it in like a corset.” We spend a majority of the challenge strengthening this muscle. “Yes, there are separate muscles, but they all work together.”
We start the challenge with a core assessment (to see your core starting point), and finish off the challenge with another core assessment (to evaluate your core growth and results). During my starting core assessment, I scored a “9” and measured a 1-inch abdominal separation (diastasis recti), or 2 fingers width of space.
As I started my journey to rebuild and rediscover my new postpartum body, the first 2 weeks of the challenge started out slowly with core foundational work and breathing.
In weeks 3 and 4, the Pilates on demand workouts moved from foundational workouts to progressive ones. Once I hit week 4, I noticed that the Pilates core workouts really picked up their intensity, but more so specifically the Pilates glute workouts – Talk about getting spicy!
According to American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, “Exercises like Squats (30%), lunges (42%) and bridges (56%) produced a statistically significant increase in Pelvic Floor activity than traditional (stationary) Kegel exercises.”
The Pilates Body Challenge explores all of these movements with increasing intensity throughout the 8 weeks. I noticed a dramatic change in my pelvic floor control around week 5 of the challenge.
Weeks 5 and 6 of the challenge really hit me hard, but this is also the point in when I began to see more of that Pilates body tone and feel more confident when looking in the mirror!
In weeks 5 and 6, I was often not able to complete the full Pilates on demand workout with proper form, so I had to pause certain workouts and hope I would be stronger the next time I did them. This showed me that I still had to build up the endurance in my body in order to perform them properly. Pausing the workout and hoping for strength the next time is okay. It is better to do this than to finish the workout with strained, poor form because doing so can cause injury.
When I got to weeks 7 and 8, I felt strong. I had more endurance, and I was able to pump my heart rate up and get that cardiovascular endurance in as well. I was determined to push myself at the end of the workouts because I knew it was safe to do. I wanted to see what my new Pilates body was capable of!
During my ending core assessment, I found out my core strength improved. I ended my Pilates Body Challenge with a score of “14”! I was able to score a “3” on everything during the assessment, but the glutes. I still need improvement in muscle endurance in this area, as well as pelvic stability and stretch. Since my second pregnancy, my hips, pelvis, and glutes are always tight and need constant mobilization. One of my favorites parts of the challenge were the recovery days that specifically focused on hip mobility. I think this will be a work in progress for a few more months!
Also during my second core assessment, I re-measured my abdominal separation and discovered that the Pilates ab workouts really worked because my abs had pulled back together and I had no more abdominal separation or Diastasis Recti. This was a huge win for me!
I highly recommend assessing the severity of your abdominal separation prior to starting the Pilates Body Challenge. Check out my quick 4-minute At Home Self Check Diastasis Recti video on YouTube.
If you’re like me and want your body to not only look good, but feel good too, you have to put in the work. So simple, but yet so dang hard too. My challenge commitment was not easy at times, but it paid off in the end. I stuck with it every single day and did not miss a single workout. Some days, I didn’t want to workout at all. And some days, I was excited to workout. Regardless of the situation or the excuse I had, I still did it. And I am so glad that I did, because I am so happy with my results!
After completing my Pilates Body Challenge:
Although this challenge is not designed for weight loss, it did happen naturally for me with a daily commitment to doing the Pilates challenge. I dropped 8 pounds and lost 2.5 inches overall! I did not make any dietary changes or eating restrictions for myself while doing the challenge, and let’s face it… I probably over indulged in all of the good summertime food and drinks, and guess what, THAT IS OKAY!
The NEW Pilates Body Challenge includes a full recipe guide from my friend Lisa of 2 Hungry Daughters. These recipes are healthy(ish), something the whole family with eat, made with simple ingredients, and EASY! My personal favorite is the turkey taco lettuce wraps recipe!
The Pilates Body Challenge will jumpstart your postpartum weight loss journey, but consistency beyond those 8 weeks is really where your desired results will lie. It wasn’t until I reach the one-year postpartum mark, and when I ended breastfeeding around 15 months postpartum (both times with each of my babies) that I truly felt my best self again.
Remember to give yourself grace, Mama! Your first year postpartum might be one of the most challenging years of your life. We’ve all heard it time and time again, it takes nine months to grow a baby so it’ll take nine months to…. I think you know where that saying goes.
You’ve got this, Mama! I believe in you. I am here to help you and root for you as your certified Pilates instructor and your friend. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or if I can help you in any way to get started with your Pilates Body Challenge!
I am so happy with the results this challenge has given me by healing my body from the inside out first. Now that my ab separation and pelvic floor have been repaired, and I have improved strength and endurance in my core and glutes, I will now be able to pick up the intensity to further improve my postpartum Pilates body. Because of the consistency of the daily workouts, personal commitment and determination, accountability, and ease of use of the online, on demand challenge, I achieved the desired Pilates body results I was looking for as I began my postpartum fitness journey – And I know that you can too!
It starts with healing first. Join me in my next Pilates Body Challenge to begin your healing journey with Pilates!
Your Friend & Pilates Expert,
Kayla Brugger
Founder of PILATESBODY by Kayla
Founder of PILATESBODY On-Demand
Hi, I'm Kayla Brugger. Certified Pilates Instructor & Minnesota Mama of 2.
