Zara, Kate and why some mum tums just refuse to budge
SEEING photographs of Zara Phillips at Royal Ascot this week, her hand on her bulging belly and a fixed smile on her face, I shuddered with sisterly sympathy. In one side-profile image, wearing a clingy lemon shift-dress, the Queen’s granddaughter looked all of five months pregnant. In another, a friend appeared to be doffing his top hat in recognition of her ‘happy news’.
So it’s little surprise that rumours she was expecting a second child, a brother or sister for 18-month- old daughter Mia, spread around the Royal enclosure like wildfire.
no doubt eager to put a stop to this groundless gossip, Zara had her spokesman issue a statement on Tuesday night confirming that she is not, in fact, pregnant.
How galling it must have been for the Olympic sportswoman to have to admit she’s still carrying baby weight so long after the birth, especially given those pictures at the weekend of a slender Duchess of Cambridge with not a hint of a flabby belly, just six weeks after having her second child, Princess Charlotte.
As a fellow owner of a sizeable mum-tum, long after the birth of all three of my children, I feel Zara’s pain.
My face still flushes as I recall attending a party when my eldest, Daniel, now 13, was a similar age to Mia, and being asked by a former colleague when my baby was due. I’m not sure who was more embarrassed when I told her I wasn’t expecting and that she was patting the saggy remains of my first pregnancy.
Feeling tearful in bed later that night, I vowed to cut out crisps and chocolate — and, until I’d lost my tummy, to wear loose-fitting clothes.
nevertheless, I was still ¾ st over my prepregnancy weight and had a saggy tum when I got pregnant with my second child, Isobel, now ten. After she was born, my jelly belly was even more noticeable — which was rather galling considering I’d been careful not to overeat and put on only 2 st (I’d gained 3 st with Daniel by gorging on fruit crumble and cream).
eight weeks after giving birth, my stomach was still so huge that I hired a personal trainer and embarked upon a tough two-year regime of aerobic exercise and daily sit-ups.
But even though I lost 2 st, I still had a big belly and people continued to offer me seats on the Tube. However, I later found out that it wasn’t my fault.
Instead, like about half of all new mothers, I was suffering from a condition called diastasis recti. It happens when the corset of muscles that wrap around the torso splits down the middle as the baby grows during pregnancy, then fails to knit back together again afterwards. THE tissues connecting the banks of muscles on the left and right become thinner and weaker through being stretched over the course of nine months and the unsightly bulge — which can cause so much embarrassment when mistaken for a growing baby — is, in fact, your innards pushing through the gap.
While the condition can strike any woman, you’re more likely to get it if you have a larger baby, multiple pregnancies or are short like me (I’m 5 ft 3 in).
I’m guessing that this has happened to Zara, too, because her otherwise toned physique hints that she’s kept active and been trying to lose the baby weight. I had no idea that there was such a condition as diastasis recti until I consulted a physiotherapist eight years ago with back pain (which was also caused by the weakening of the muscles during pregnancy).
He diagnosed the condition, but while it was a relief to know what was causing my mum tum, it was frustrating to learn that the exercises I’d been doing for two years since Isobel was born were exacerbating my bulging stomach.
Yes, they’d helped me build up my stomach muscles but, because these muscles were positioned in the wrong place, it had made them more prominent than ever — and made my belly bigger.
I took the advice of my physiotherapist and ditched the stomach exercises in favour of more gentle Pilates twice a week. But as Pilates isn’t designed to help with the condition, there was little improvement.
When I became pregnant again with my third child, I was overjoyed but also a little anxious about getting even bigger. I gained only 1 ½ st with Christian, who’s now seven, being extra careful to eat healthily and avoid worsening my mum tum. But I was still in maternity trousers by the time he was four months old.
So I gave tight-fitting dresses like the one Zara wore to Ascot a wide berth, in favour of floaty or ruffled numbers for fear of attracting unwarranted, and unwanted, congratulations. However, I felt I was hiding an ugly secret.
Then, 18 months ago, spurred on by Christian — ‘You look like you have another baby growing in your stomach’ — I discovered the MuTu (short for mum tum) System, designed for women, like me, with diastasis recti.
For while there is nothing — aside from minimising weight gain during pregnancy — you can do to prevent this wretched condition, there is something you can do to help knit the muscles back together.
Devised by Cornish- based personal trainer and mother- oftwo, Wendy Powell, the diet and exercise programme reduces the gap between the two banks of muscles, while at the same time strengthening the core muscles.
For ten minutes a day I had to perform exercises which are tailored to help knit together and strengthenst the deepest layer of stomachst muscles — exercises suchsu as lying on my back with my kneeskn bent, and slowly lifting and loweringlo each leg to the floor, one at a time. I also had to walk for at leastle 30 minutes every day.
FourF times a week, I also did 20 minutesm of more strenuous aerobic exercise,ex every move designed to knitkn the muscles back together.
ThereT were other rules which hadha to be adhered to, including ditchingdi heels in favour of ‘barefootfo shoes’ — you can buy them onlineon from about £50 a pair — which are designed so that your whole foot engages with the gr ground as you walk.
T This improves posture and st strengthens stomach muscles — W Wendy explained that even the tin tiniest of heels throw our bodies fo forward, forcing us to lean back, st sticking out our stomachs in th the process. BEING short, I had always favoured shoes with a heel. And the animalprint stilettos Zara wore to Ascot stood a good 3 in tall, no do doubt adding to her tummy tr troubles, especially as she’s not m much taller than me, at 5 ft 5 in.
I It’s no surprise we vertically challe lenged women are at greater risk of di diastasis recti. After all, willowy w women, like 5 ft 9 in Kate, have m more room for babies to stretch up up, rather than out, as they grow.
But MuTu isn’t just about exercise and practical measures like different shoes. You have to change your diet, too. Alcohol was off limits for the three months I followed the programme because it has a high sugar content, leading the body to produce insulin and the stress hormone cortisol, which encourages fat to settle around the abdomen.
C Caffeine is also bad news for the pot-bellied as it, too, encourages cortisol, so I had to cut right back on my hourly cuppa. Wendy also recommended reducing my wheat intake to beat bloating, and upping the amount of omega-3, found in oily fish, I ate to help build collagen in the connective tissues running down my core.
After 12 weeks on the plan I had lost 8 lb — going down to 9 st and from a size 12 to a size 10 — and a whole 2 in from my waist.
Delighted by new silhouette, which meant I could get away with clingy dresses for the first time in 12 years, I vowed to keep up the regime but, like so many best-laid plans, I slipped.
A few pounds have crept back on and my belly is wobblier than it was 18 months ago. However, I’m relieved to say that, since I did MuTu, no one has asked me when my baby is due, or offered up their seat on the bus.
Still, my own mother, who had six children, was the rather selfconscious owner of a sizeable mum tum into her 80s.
So I know that, for women like Zara and me, keeping our stomachs in shape can be a lifelong battle.