đź‘‹ Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
My name is Allie Edwards and I am from the United States. I am the mama and fitness trainer behind Vigor it Out and The Perfect Pregnancy Plan.
As a Certified Personal Fitness Trainer who is also certified in Nutrition and Lifestyle in Pregnancy and Family Nutrition and Cooking from Stanford University, it has become my personal mission to help guide fellow mothers and mothers-to-be toward a more healthy and active lifestyle through proper nutrition, regular exercise, a more natural lifestyle, and finding happiness in motherhood.
I have been a personal fitness trainer on and off for over a decade. Guiding my clients to reach their health and fitness goals through individual as well as group training sessions.
After having my second child in 2015 I was in search of a way to continue to help women reach their postpartum fitness goals while having time to stay home with my new baby and begin homeschooling my eldest.
To meet my three goals simultaneously I decided to take my training and nutrition guidance to a digital level and began the blog called Vigor It Out, and I am so glad I did! I have been able to reach and help far more mothers than I could ever have thought possible by beginning a blog.
Within a year Vigor It Out was receiving over 170,000 monthly visitors seeking nutritious recipes, postpartum recovery workout routines, breastfeeding diet tips, Ketogenic recipes, and more!
In 2018, I took a course at Ludwig Maximilian University in Germany and became certified in Nutrition and Lifestyle During Pregnancy.
Through my studies, I was astounded to find huge gaps in what pregnancy nutritional and exercise guidelines are in America, and what modern scientific studies on the needs of a pregnant mother, her growing fetus, and epigenetics have discovered.
The study of epigenetics has revealed that what a mother consumes during pregnancy actually has the power to turn certain genes on and off in utero. Changing the expression of the baby’s genes without altering the genetic code itself.
Feeling driven to share the current recommended pregnancy and nutrition information with moms everywhere, I began a second blog and am creating a master pregnancy nutrition and exercise program to accompany it called The Perfect Pregnancy Plan.
I am so excited to further my training by sharing this new nutrition and exercise regime that is unlike anything there is available right now for pregnant mothers. It will be released later this year as I just had a baby myself last month and the launch date had to be postponed for a few months.
However, my pregnancy couldn’t have come at a better time because I was able to create all the exercise routines while personally experiencing the physical hindrances of pregnancy as opposed to just basing the routines off of my studies.
It’s exciting to now have two venues where I share exercise and nutritional guidance for moms throughout the different stages of motherhood.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
If you don’t know how to stay strong and healthy amidst the busyness of motherhood, life becomes a daily struggle.
My specialty in training is pregnancy through postpartum fitness. Specifically teaching busy moms an abundance of ways to fit in exercise at home, on their time, with their kids.
Despite what you may think, you don’t need a gym membership, fancy expensive equipment, or a babysitter to stay strong and fit as a mom. But it is essential to stay strong and fit to thrive or even survive in motherhood.
From pregnancy onwards you will be carrying additional weight every day. First the weight of course inside you, but then you will be carrying your baby, your stroller, and more groceries than you would believe you can consume.
You will be constantly crawling, stooping, bending, and picking up toys. If you don’t know how to stay strong and healthy amidst the busyness of motherhood, life becomes a daily struggle.
Despite lacking even enough personal time to style your hair, you CAN make time to exercise and eat healthy even after having kids. You just need a little guidance and creativity to learn how to make it happen! And that is what I can show you!
This is exactly what my personal training routine is based around. I am a happily married work from home, homeschooling mother of three little girls.
My life is busy, but I still make the time to work out at least 5 days a week for 20 to 30 minutes each day on top of running, playing, and climbing around with my kids.
Often my kids are involved in my daily workouts, using me as a jungle gym as I use them as weights.
In our house, we have workout equipment in varying weights to accommodate each kid. That way the days they feel up for jumping into my routine with me they are more than welcome and it’s so easy to hand them their own little kettlebell or resistance band and count out their reps right along with mommy.
Our routines are extremely varied and include a wide range of forms of exercise from stroller circuit training, to yoga, to HIIT, to weight lifting, and more. What keeps home workouts with kids fun and possible are 3 things:
- First making it a priority
- Second is a little creativity
- Third is mixing it up (routines, reps, and forms of exercise)
đź‘Š How do you keep going and push harder?
Now my “medication” is exercise!
For myself, my childhood (from 13 onward) through my young adult years were riddled with illness and a mystery disease that was attacking my body one organ at a time.
By the time I was an adult I had been suffering from a chronic headache for five years, my joints and bones constantly ached, my muscles were knotted, my digestion was failing, my heart was constantly tachycardic, I was on literal handfuls of medications, and I was suffering from bouts of temporary paralysis on top of countless other symptoms.
Before falling ill I was an athlete: on the high school basketball team, always active outdoors, and frequently hitting the gym. All that was taken from me for a decade.
It wasn’t until 7 years after becoming ill that I got the proper diagnosis: acute neuropsychiatric Lyme disease along with a host of co-diseases. I immediately began years of various treatments until finally the disease was put into a dormant state. Almost all of my symptoms disappeared.
I now only suffer from chronic Lyme disease which causes weakness in all my joints and frequent muscle spasms, which is absolutely nothing in comparison to my prior condition.
Now my “medication” is exercise! By keeping my muscles strong and my weights heavy my joints rarely hurt and muscle spasms are kept more at bay. I know that being physically active every day is what keeps me remaining healthy and strong. It’s NOT exercising that becomes difficult when I look at it that way.
Even on my most tired of days, my motivation is knowing where I’ve been. Knowing how it feels for it to be too physically draining to brush your hair and stand up at the same time.
Knowing the blessing that being able to run after my kids, lift the weights of motherhood, and do it with a smile truly is. And knowing that staying active and strong is my best way to be able to remain healthy and strong.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
The future of Vigor it Out and The Perfect Pregnancy Plan look bright. I have a new master product coming out this year that will help to advance many mothers and their babies in ways that no other program does.
By teaching the most advantageous nutrition and exercise for pregnancy for optimum fetal growth and development, mothers will finally be given the most up to date science-driven advice for a healthy pregnancy in a way that is easy to understand and even better, easy to implement.
I will continue to study nutrition and fitness, as it is a field that is always changing, as to continue to share the most up to date and relevant information with mothers across the world.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
I have a multitude of irreplaceable tools at my disposal that I use daily to recover and eliminate injuries.
As mentioned before, because of my chronic condition, I am more prone to suffer injuries to my joints than most people. Because of this, I have a multitude of irreplaceable tools at my disposal that I use daily to recover and eliminate injuries.
The first priceless tool I use is a soft foam roller and the Melt Method. Using a soft foam roller combined with the Melt Method work on gently releasing fascia spasms with little to no effort and only a little bit of time.
I highly recommend that everyone includes a soft foam roller in their workout equipment. Even utilizing a soft foam roller without the specific Melt method is highly beneficial to realigning your vertebrae and relaxing muscles and fascia.
My other favorite piece of recovery equipment is a fascia blaster. If you are familiar with the product there is a good chance that you may have heard it promoted to banish cellulite; which is a benefit of the product as well.
However, what is truly amazing about this product is its ability to break up tightly knotted fascia that constricts muscles, causes spasms, and becomes painful. Many of us are unaware of how deeply your fascia affects your entire body’s aches, pains, and tightness. Using a fascia blaster is quick and the effects are amazing.
Having recovery tools in your exercise arsenal is important to help you keep going when things get tight without incurring further injury.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
My diet varies depending on what stage I am at currently in motherhood. For instance, in 2015 I was pregnant and followed a nutritious diet especially for pregnancy (Aside from the days of nausea when for some reason the only things I could keep down were bean burritos and ice cream because during pregnancy those days really do happen.)
Then I went on to breastfeed for the next 3 years when I followed a breastfeeding diet rich in lactogenic foods. I share tons of slimming nutritious lactation recipes that increase breastmilk supply on Vigor it Out.
After concluding breastfeeding I followed some detoxifying diets and cleanses because they are not safe to do during pregnancy and breastfeeding and are something that really makes me feel wonderful after completing them. Then, six months after ending my breastfeeding journey I was pregnant with our third and the motherhood diet cycle began again.
One thing that remains consistent through it all though is a refined sugar-free whole food diet. While my macros change to fit the dietary needs of my stage in motherhood, many aspects of my diet remain the same:
- I avoid most food with labels
- I prepare all of my meals at home
- I substitute sugar with stevia or monk fruit
- I include an organic protein shake with greens and probiotics every day
- I avoid wheat
- I eat low carb
đź‘Ť What has inspired and motivated you?
It is a long journey and one that takes a lifetime to complete.
Being a mother and thus a role model to three little girls is what motivates me every day. It inspires me to always try harder, to set an example, and to ask more of myself than I would otherwise.
Motherhood has driven me to find and become the best version of myself. It is a long journey and one that takes a lifetime to complete.
It sounds cliche, but when I need some motivation all I need to do is to look into the eyes of my little girls. I want to give them the world. I want to be the type of person that I want them to be. Strong, opinionated, motivated, loving, compassionate.
Every mother is a role model. She has little eyes looking up at her as to what to do. Let’s teach them to seek health, happiness, and an active lifestyle.
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
No one has ever grown inside their comfort zone. Try something new and healthy. You might hate it, and you might love it, perhaps you might grow to love it.
Take that Zumba class. You may feel completely ridiculous but have an absolute ball anyways (that’s how I felt about it). You may realize you genuinely like kale chips! Or you may discover a sport that you really love. But you’ll never grow in that comfort zone.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
I am not currently taking on clients as I’ve moved more to help the general public through my websites where I can reach and help more individuals.
However, I do have a 3 week summer ready workout series that is online for all and free to sign up for! It’s an intensive workout series focusing on arms, abs, legs, and butt!
đź“ť Where can we learn more about you?
You can follow me on my main blog www.vigoritout.com or The Perfect Pregnancy Plan.
I’m also on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter
2 thoughts on “How I Keep Myself Fit and Help Fellow Mothers Get More Healthy and Active”
Fantastic article that is relatable and so inspiring!!
Inspiring. Helpful information that every one can benefit from.