Increased belly fat is a really common problem that many women experience after hysterectomy and it’s really frustrating to know how to get rid of it. Today I’m going to take you through a short routine to help you tone this area here for you after hysterectomy. Now we’re going to get straight into the routine and at the end of the routine I’m going to share with you two really important points about losing abdominal fat after your hysterectomy so you might want to stay with me till then or use the time stamps down below and you can flick through to that as well if you’d like too. So let’s get started with the exercises that we’re going to start with. You can either be lying on a firm mattress on your bed or if you feel comfortable lying on the ground then you can do so too.
I’m going to lie on the bed here for the purposes of this demonstration. I’m also going to get you to use a little pillow to support your head and neck and I’m wearing socks for these exercises so that I can slide my heels up and down so that’s the sort of thing that you might need to get ready to prepare for this routine. So let’s get started with our exercises now coming down onto your bed or onto the floor remember coming down safely lying on your side and then rolling over onto your back and you can lift your bottom quite safely after your hysterectomy that won’t hurt your tummy.
So what we’re going to start with is a pelvic tilt. So we’re going to arch the back and then flatten the back down into the mat and this should feel okay to do after your surgery.
Arching it just takes a bit of tension out of the lower back and back and one more time lifting up. Now coming back to midway position that is the best position to start on to work these lower abdominal muscles so I want you to bring your fingers up onto your pelvic bones there and we’re going to contract those muscles and the way you do that is by imagining you’re drawing your fingers together that way and drawing tensing in this lower abdominal area. So see if you can tense that area very gently. You might feel your pelvic floor muscles contract at the same time and hold and breathe for one, two, three, four, five and relax. Could you feel that lower abdominal area contract?
If you’re not sure you can check my video above which really details this and it really goes into much more detail on this so that I don’t take the time for this routine going through that particular basic exercise.
Let’s do that again so fingers up and very very gently engaging the lower abdomen so you’re tensing just gently drawing those bones imagining drawing those bones together and you’ll feel that lower abdominal wall just tighten gently. Holding for one, two keep breathing three, four, five and relax down slowly if you need to take a break at any time you can do your pelvic tilts forward and back and forward and back through this routine. So let’s get started. We’re going to start with a heel slide exercise and I’ll show you an alternative progression if you’d like to make it a little harder.
So our basic heel slide is fingers again on the pelvis, contracting your tummy muscles and sliding your leg down along the bed, but you’ve got to keep your pelvis really stable so don’t let your back arch. Bring the leg back through and relax. It’s not as easy as it looks. If you want to make that a little bit more challenging, you can take the leg along the ground and back. I’ll leave that to you at home to decide.
So let’s go, right leg tummy muscles are engaged. Let’s slide the leg down, and you can see why I’m wearing socks. Makes the exercise a whole lot easier on the bed or on the ground and bringing it back and relax. All right, other side now, engaging the lower tummy muscles and sliding down.
Keep your back stable, try not to arch and this is the case of the slower the better.
We’re about control here, getting control back in these lower tummy muscles and relax. Have a little tilt, pressure out of your back and let’s go again. Tummy muscles are engaged, sliding down or you might be extending your leg above the ground if you feel a little bit more advanced, and coming back up and you can see I’m not taking my legs right down, you don’t need to. You’ll find that as you improve we’re going to the other side, you’ll find that as you improve you can probably extend your leg a little bit further without your pelvis tilting and bring the leg back up and let’s do a pelvic tilt. Flatten out and back, and one more time.
That should feel really good on your lower back. Alright here’s our next exercise again, tummy muscles gently contracted, you can use your fingers here if you need to. We’re going to do a leg raise and as you do that I want you to try not to flatten your back out but keep your tummy muscles on.
Here we go, so tummy muscles are engaged you’re in that midway position. Let’s go, a little lift up and take it down.
It’s a bit like marching. Other side, see if you can keep the tummy muscles on. Lift up and take it down and have a breather. How did you go with that? Alright I hope!
You’re feeling that lower wall just tensing and this area here staying relaxed. Let’s do another one of those. Tummy muscles are on ready and go. Engage, let’s lift up and slowly down. I’ve got to slow myself down with these.
And the other side, lifting up slowly and slowly down. Don’t let your back arch and relax. Let’s see if we can do one more of these. At home obviously if you’d like to do more after the video that’s fine or if you need to take a break, do some pelvic tilts.
Okay here’s our last one.
Tummy muscles are on, let’s lift up and take it down, and the other side let’s lift up and take it down and relax. And here are our pelvic tilts flattening out. So we’ve got one more exercise to go through before we go through some key points to watch out for or to attend to for belly fat loss. So here’s our last one. You can lift your leg up off the ground and take your leg out to the side just slightly and back up and down.
It’s a bit fancy isn’t it! If that’s too hard for you at the moment you can just take the knee out to the side and back and imagine you’ve got a ruler laying along your pelvis and you’re trying to keep it level. So you don’t want your pelvis rolling. You’re keeping that ruler level because these tummy muscles here are what’s stopping that rotation from happening. They’re your stabilizers and this is how you strengthen them.
So tummy muscles are on. You can lift the leg up, you can take the knee out to the side, and back up and down slowly. Other side, lift the leg up, take the leg out and I’m imagining I’ve got a glass of water on my knee there balancing it, not moving my pelvis and relax down and a pelvic tilt. Let’s see if we can do one more of those at home.
Okay here we go, so lifting up, leg out to the side doesn’t need to go far does it before you start to roll, back up and down.
And here’s our last one on the other side, tense your abdominal muscles just gently try to keep breathing, out to the side just a little way. I’m going to do some practice on these. Lifting back up and take it down and pelvic tilt down and back and down and back. Now you might like just to take a moment lying where you are while I go through those key points. If you’re coming up, safely come up by rolling onto your side after your hysterectomy and pushing up sideways and that won’t strain your tummy.
Now the two key things that I’d like to go through with you are first of all is the myth about abdominal exercises reducing tummy fat, they won’t. Unfortunately you can’t spot reduce fat from any part of your body apart from surgically. So if you’re doing lots of exercises like this, it’s not going to make you lose fat from that area but you can tone that area which is what we were just doing then.
So forget the myth about doing intense core exercises, particularly abdominal exercises that are really intense because they’re going to push everything down after your hysterectomy, which is exactly why we didn’t do any intense abdominal exercises there. The second thing is to think about your diet and your exercise combined.
So it takes a lot of exercise to burn up calories. So if you try to reduce belly fat, you’ll reduce all over body fat by watching what you eat and drink and also performing some low impact exercises. And some of the best exercises to do after your hysterectomy are exercises that use your big leg muscles like walking and cycling and you might like to refer to my video above that talks about belly fat reduction exercises on the bike and they might be something to work towards as well. So I really hope you enjoy this little routine today.