How, after two kids and approaching 40, I’m stronger than ever: I’ve never been fat, but my stomach was squashy, I had zero muscle tone and a bum that was a deflated ghost of its former self

After having my first child at 31, I was one of those dreadful women who ‘pinged back’ to my old body fairly swiftly. Baby number two at 35, however, was a whole different story.

I was left with a squashy stomach, zero muscle tone and a bum that was a sad approximation of its former self. I wasn’t fat, but everything felt jelly-like, to the point where a single meal could make me look five months pregnant.

My colleague Rosie Green offered reassuring words: ‘Don’t worry, it takes two years for everything to go back to normal.’ So I mainlined coffee, exercised aimlessly and veered between salads and chocolate, expecting to wake up on my son’s second birthday and look like my old self. It didn’t happen.

At 38, I’d resigned myself to a squidgier future, and bade farewell to size 8 trousers. But I hated feeling so utterly weak, especially as I spend my professional life writing about the importance of building muscle and bone health in middle age.

Then an email landed shouting about Roar Fitness’s 12-week challenge – famous for transforming normal, slightly doughy humans into rippling Adonises. I thought, sign me up… Guided by personal trainer Alex Smith and nutrition coach Jack Pressling, I’ve changed my shape and built my strength – now I don’t quail at the sight of a 10kg dumbbell. Here’s how.

I picked protein

As a vegetarian, I always assumed the #highproteinlife was out of reach – reserved for gym bros inhaling steaks and turkey breasts. When I kept a three-day food diary before starting, I thought I was doing great. I ate ‘healthy’ meals: a supergrain salad for lunch, a veggie stir-fry for dinner. But I also had to acknowledge the half bar of dark chocolate after lunch, the Ben & Jerry’s on the sofa, and my borderline panic if we didn’t have something sweet in the house.

What’s more, Jack noted, I was living in carb central. Like most veggies, meals revolved around pasta or potatoes. My ‘healthy’ porridge left me starving by 10:30am, and afternoon slumps saw me reach for a Twirl. My day was a blood-sugar rollercoaster from sated to starving.

So I reorientated around protein. It meant eating endless eggs, cottage cheese, protein powder and tofu. Breakfast became protein pancakes (two eggs, protein powder and milk) with Greek yogurt, or a four-egg mozzarella omelette. Lunch – to the utter horror of my colleagues – was simply a tub of cottage cheese eaten alongside a punnet of raw tomatoes.

There were plenty of other options I could’ve chosen, but I found it easier to be a creature of habit. For dinner, I had no energy to follow a recipe after work and putting the kids to bed, so I cooked a tofu-and-veg stir-fry every night.

Eating the same thing repeatedly sounds mind-numbingly dull, but there was a freedom in not having to think about food. The main miracle was that I wasn’t hungry. Turns out protein really does keep you full; you just need to eat a hell of a lot more of it than you think.

I waved away wine

The rule that horrified my friends most was no drinking (except three litres of water a day, of course). Alex said he’d rather I eat ice cream than drink wine, as booze is empty calories (obviously, I wasn’t allowed either). So, over 12 weeks, I tackled a wedding, a festival and a girls’ trip to Majorca completely sober. Sugar-free alternatives saved me – slimline tonic almost passes for a G&T. 

The silver lining was no hangovers. I feared judgment, but your late 30s are great as nobody cares what you’re doing, and you care less what they think.

I worked weights

Pre-kids, I was super fit, exercising at least five times a week. Post-kids, I was still active, doing reformer Pilates, weekly 5K runs and regular gym trips, but my routine had no direction. I spent gym sessions aimlessly pottering around setting up 5kg weights, wondering what on earth to do with them.

The Roar routine was much more goal-oriented. I was told to ditch cardio workouts to focus on three strength-training sessions a week, building up the weights. These hour-long workouts rotated between lower, upper and full body, featuring exercises like chest presses (where I progressed from 5kg dumbbells to 10kg), hack squats (15kg to 40kg), shoulder presses (5kg to 15kg) and pushing or pulling the sled.

Being more of a cardio person than a weightlifter, I found it physically tough. But having a trainer is fantastic: Alex set up the weights, handled the mental load of session planning and chatted away to distract me from how hard it was. If I were in the gym on my own, I’d probably push myself to 75 per cent effort and think, ‘that’ll do’. But slacking off is harder when you’re accountable to the person standing in front of you.

I stepped up

Parents to young kids aren’t scrimping on cardio – chasing two children round to get them ready in the morning is a mini-workout in itself. Alex told me to aim for 12,000 steps a day, and I generally found this easy – it motivated me to add in an early-morning walk when I could. About halfway through the plan, I also started running a couple of times a week to add that extra calorie burn on top of the muscle I was building – returning to cardio was a joy.

The results

Despite eating plenty and doing far less cardio than usual, the results amazed me. Callipers showed I lost a staggering 60 per cent of my stomach fat and 5cm off my hips. As I was already a healthy weight, I wasn’t aiming to drop kilos (which I didn’t), I just wanted to tone the post-baby problem areas and rebuild my strength. I’m thrilled to say I am stronger now than I was at 25.

High-protein eating and heavy lifting are now non-negotiables for me going forward. But if I’m completely honest, there’ll always be a bar of chocolate (or two) snuck in there as well.

Roar Fitness in-person programmes start at £3,025; roar-fitness.com