I believe in my own programming so much that I’ve followed the Find Your Balance Challenge protocols when rehabilitating my body postpartum after each of my three pregnancies. As Grace, Grit & Gratitude's founder, I stand behind what I coach and this is a great opportunity for me to show you how it all works! Depending on my lifestyle and health factors at the time, this has looked a little different.

For my latest pregnancy, I gave birth in August 2025. Now 42 years old, with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome)/PMOS (Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome), running multiple businesses and a busy household, postpartum, while breastfeeding.

I even went on a two week family holiday to Hawaii right at the start of one of the challenge periods and still got consistent results while dipping out of my regular routine without depriving myself of the holiday fun.

If you’ve ever thought you can’t experience a body transformation yourself because of any of the above factors, this is how it’s done...

My personal results

This method isn’t the fast and fancy version of weight loss and getting lean. It’s the slow but steady, 1% better every day version that adds up over time.

I’m not your stereotypical bounce-back-quick personal trainer; in fact, I’ve never really fitted the stereotypes! This latest pregnancy was a high risk one with exercise restrictions in place so I couldn’t do any exercise other than walking. My second pregnancy was also high risk and had more severe exercise restrictions in place as I was on bed rest for almost five months. When you’re worried about pregnancy complications, you do exactly what the doctor says, and if you can’t stomach eating your usual foods you just eat whatever your body will let you handle, so my starting point is a decent one to showcase the sort of results you can get when you’re pretty much starting from scratch.

These results so far are across two rounds of the 8 Week Find Your Balance Challenge in a five month period (February 2026 to July 2026).

The photos may not look much different, but the measurements speak for themselves:

Weight: - 6.2kg
Chest: - 6.5cm
Waist: - 12cm
Hips: - 4cm
Thigh: - 3cm

This is just a moderate calorie deficit and weekly weight loss over time that’s added to big results.

Supplements being taken:

• Whey protein isolate
• Inositol (specifically for PMOS)
• B12 and Folate (as I’m breastfeeding)
• Metamucil (for added fibre)

The Find Your Balance Challenge Protocol

The main health habits we aim for at in the 8 Week Challenge are:

• 10,000 steps each day
• 3 strength training workouts each week
• Macronutrients focus for nutrition (specifically balance of food types and portion sizes)
• Water intake
• Sleep quality and quantity

These all may seem like simple, stockstandard habits to work on but the majority of people aiming for body transformation don’t get consistent with them for long enough to work. They are the key things that are absolutely required for sustainable, long-term results, so it's not about finding alternatives to these so much as figuring out how to make them work in a way that suits you.

FYB isn’t just a cookie-cutter programme; you work with coaching support each week to personalise how each of these factors gets tailored to your lifestyle (and troubleshoot what doesn’t work so that you can make it work). Once that happens, results come much more easily without slogging it out in the gym all the time or depriving yourself of the foods you love to eat.

How I altered it to fit my current lifestyle

So I know I’m usually the coach, but I troubleshooted this for myself in the same way I would any client.

My main struggles were with remembering to drink water in my busy day, fitting in the 3x weekly strength training sessions with a baby in tow all the time, and getting the quantity/quality of sleep.

Water – I still have to constantly remind myself for it but I make sure I have drink bottles everywhere I go. If I at least have one glass when I get up in the morning, one at breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and before I go to bed, that’s 7 out of the 8 glasses I’m aiming for.

Strength training – I often encourage mums to train with their children nearby. While I could do that, I personally struggle to focus with constant interruptions and as I’m in the gym with clients a lot of the day, my approach instead is to do bite-sized sets in between the sessions during my down time. It all adds up, the work gets done, baby is happier for me to spend the shorter time as her play attention span isn’t developed to do her own thing for much longer than that, and I tick the box (even if my heart rate doesn’t quite get up there in the way I would during a ‘regular’ training session).

The first 8 Week FYB round I didn’t do your typical strength training or the videos provided in the programme. They are obviously there as a strong suggestion but you can use the general framework and sub them out for any other strength-based/related activity; in my case this was breathwork, core rehabilitation and glute strengthening for postpartum recovery. I did these on the floor next to baby and interacted with her while she kicked around on the mat next to me (at this stage she was around 7-8 months old). At this stage I still hadn’t been cleared by my women’s health physiotherapist for a full return to exercise so I started with what I could do.

The second 8 Week FYB I did, I felt the rehab had been adequate so this has now turned into the bite-sizes sessions I mentioned previously. I always do full body training with primary focus on core work to continue to close my diastasis recti (abdominal muscles gap from pregnancy) just in case I don’t manage to get all three workouts in during the week. Now with physio clearance, I’m aiming to boost my metabolism by training with heavier weights to increase my muscle mass, as having more muscle means more calories are burned even while you’re at rest. This is about working smarter not harder!

The FYB provided videos don’t include this due to most people not having access to weights at home, but the exercises can absolutely be modified to use them (which I would normally give guidance for as the coach).

Sleep – Obviously with a new baby, there’s a lot to this habit that’s outside of my control. I make sure I’m in bed at a reasonable time – knowing that I’m aiming for 6 to 8 hours and that at least an hour or two may be spent up with her in the middle of the night, I have to work backwards from our wake up time and factor that in. I’m fortunate that she sleeps relatively well and has done from an early age, but I do make sure to patch my energy with 30 min naps most days plus the occasional long sleep in on a weekend which I need to get my husband on board for to help.

Macronutrients – I’ve absolutely locked in on this. While in the past I’ve been able to out-exercise my eating habits, as I’m an older mum this time and I’m super focused on keeping my energy levels optimised, I wanted to nail this particular habit better than I’ve done previously.

I have a standard routine of breakfast, morning tea and lunch that are easy to stick to, keep me feeling full and taste great. Most of my variation comes from afternoon tea and dinner so that I don’t get bored with my food. It’s far easier to eat healthy than it is to ‘exercise off’ calories, especially when you’re short on time, and hands down I’d say this is the habit that’s made the most difference in my results.

10k steps a day - I found relatively easy as I walk my children to school every day; it’s a 15 minute walk uphill there and 15 minute walk back, and I do this twice a day for pick up and drop off. That adds up to 1 hour of walking at a brisk pace uphill. Because I find it difficult to get my weight training sorted right now, I put baby in the front pack so I basically do this hour of walking with an extra 10 kilos on board.

Eventually my plan will be to transition to pushing her in a pram and wearing a 10kg weighted vest.

Recap

Even as a personal trainer, have I done everything perfectly? No way! I’ve given myself a lot of grace (see where that came into my brand name?) to take things slowly and make continual minor adjustments to my habits so that I can balance my energy and stress levels, continue to give time to my business and family and make sure that I don’t get injured. Stay tuned as I keep updating this page to showcase my progress.