Luckily I can still lift the baby

My muscles are in agony from head to toe, thanks to my intense workout on Thursday night. I've enlisted the help of a personal trainer - not to lose weight, but to help me build muscle and get my strength back now that my workouts are no longer restricted due to pregnancy or recovering from surgery.

During my pregnancy I continued to exercise, but it was quite moderate - walking outside or on the treadmill for 30 minutes a few times a week. No weight-training or intense cardio exercise, since I didn't want to overdo it or risk burning too many calories.

Now that I've gone almost a year without any sort of resistance training, I've lost a lot of muscle tone and feel very weak. So I've been going to a personal trainer at my gym for one hour every Thursday night. He's taught me a ton of great exercises that I could actually do at home with the aid of an exercise ball, resistance bands, dumbbells, and a medicine ball - and because we jump from one exercise to the next without pausing in between, it also keeps my heart rate elevated.

I've never worked with a personal trainer before, but the experience has been great - he really pushes me during my workouts and I have this extra sense of accountability during the week when I'm at the gym on my own without his assistance. And I'm looking forward to having bikini-ready abs come summer!