A 31-year-old woman who was determined to get back into shape in time for her wedding after having a n emergency caesarean section put herself on a ‘punishing’ 500 calorie a day diet – while breast feeding – and managed to gain weight.Sophia Sark-Geissler says her confidence was destroyed after she had her baby, and she almost cancelled her wedding.
Sophia said:“I basically had in my mind the whole time that I was going to have this natural birth, and being quite active, I would just be able to walk out of there and feel great about myself and get back into the gym straight away. After the C section, I just didn’t feel comfortable. I felt every movement. It was painful.”
Admitting she is “very much a planner,” Sophia’s original objective to get fit for her wedding after giving birth in November 2023 was derailed – leading her to take a dangerous approach to her health. “I felt that the only way I could get back in shape was to effectively stop eating. I’d ordered some fitness meals. I made up my own amount of calories that I should be consuming, and they were half the amount of a woman’s daily advised calories – and I wasn’t even consuming that. I was eating like 500 calories a day, if that, and I was exhausted.”
The new mum’s energy was sapped further as she was breastfeeding her son and her mental health started to deteriorate. “You’ve had the most amazing experience of your life, the biggest high, and then you’re presented with such lows,” she said. “I had such a negative feeling of myself.”
After punishing herself with her low-calorie diet that disrupted her metabolism, Sophia said: “I remember being on the bed to have my C section, and they weighed me, and I was around 78.4 kg. But when I went in around 16 weeks post birth, I was 81.9 kg, so I’d actually put on a significant amount by doing something that I just shouldn’t have been doing myself.”
Taking a photo of herself, Sophia’s self-esteem was so low that she even began to question if she could go ahead with her wedding.
“I think the photo speaks for itself. I couldn’t actually look in the camera. I was really embarrassed,” she said. “I was close to the point of not wanting to even go down that route and get married, because I just felt awful about myself.
“That’s another incredible moment of your life, and you are meant to enjoy it. I didn’t know who that version of me was.”
Sophia realised she needed help when she noticed her mind had become consumed with negative thoughts about her weight and her appearance. When she read a story about a soap actress had found success getting back in shape after giving birth with the help of London-based personal trainer company Ultimate Performance, she turned to them for help.
They met her for a consultation, formulated a personalised training and nutrition program, and also took measurements of her entire body – something Sophia was ready to embrace.
“It’s a bit strange to be measured by someone else. But I felt like I was on my journey,” she said. “I treated everything very much like learning. I wanted to know, why would we do this, or why was it important to get this whole view of my body? For me, it was education.”
Sophia worked out with her trainer three times a week for 19 weeks and through a combination of weight and strength training, while also ensuring she was able to hit 12,000 steps per day, she began to see her fitness soar. She also increased her calorie intake to improve her progress.
“What my trainer Jack introduced to me was that you don’t need to cut anything out. I wasn’t forced into a meal plan. He gave me pointers on what the best carbs you can eat are, oats, as an example, and rice. But he didn’t mandate that I would have those. So I never felt like there was a strict rule about food and I had the autonomy to decide what I wanted to have.
“To begin, I was on what I thought was high calories, of 2,000. I was breastfeeding, so there had to be an amount compensated within that for the amount of energy and calories I was burning from breastfeeding. And then it slowly decreased to 1,500 for the final three weeks.
“My partner was really supportive throughout my journey even though he was working. He dedicated his lunch hour to looking after our baby whilst I trained.”
By July this year, Sophia had smashed her target goal and lost 15kg of weight. She said: “Our goal was to get down around the 68kg mark. I went from 81.9kg to 67kg.
“I’ve read so many other people’s transformation stories and been like, ‘I just wish that was me’. I just wanted to feel how they did. But you never actually think, ‘Oh, my God, that can be me’. And that was so cool.”
When she walked down the aisle earlier this year, Sophia says she felt amazing. “Everyone was just like, ‘How the hell did you do that?’ she says. “ And I have to credit the people that helped me get there. Because if I were doing it by myself, I probably would have looked very different on that day.”
Sophia has some advice for other new mums who are worried about how their body will change after giving birth.
“My main advice would be to just believe in yourself. I remember during my pregnancy, everyone was saying, ‘Oh, it takes a year and a half for you to feel like yourself again and to look like yourself again’. And your life completely changes when you have a child. But irrespective of that, there’s no reason why you can’t feel like yourself and look like yourself sooner.”