'FINDING THE FUNIN FITNESS MAKES IT SUSTAINABLE'

Pre- and postnatal fitness expert and mother-of-four, Shakira Akabusi talks to us about redefining exercise in motherhood and carving out a love of movement for life

- Joanna Ebsworth

You’ll never have time to yourself.’ ‘You'll always be tired.’ ‘You'll never get your abs back...’ These are just a small sample of the many negative things people said to Shakira Akabusi (@shakira.akabusi) when she gave birth to her eldest son, Rio, back in 2014. Not surprisingly, these words also provided the fitness expert and now mother-of-four with the catalyst she needed to embark on her ongoing mission: to shatter stereotypes surrounding motherhood and fitness, and help mums everywhere to thrive through an active lifestyle with her fitness and maternal mental health platform, StrongLikeMum (stronglikemum.com).

'I found people spoke to me about motherhood as being the end of a lot of things,' explains Shakira, who, as the daughter of Olympian Kriss Akabusi and corrective-exercise-specialist-turned-over-50s-fitness-expert Monika Akabusi (@strong_like_oma), was always taught to see exercise as fun, never just another thing to add to the to-do list. 'People were saying I'd never be able to do all the things I once enjoyed, even though I'd had a really active upbringing and fitness was part of my daily life. And I was like, “But that’s just me”.

'That was the reason I started blogging about my experience of trying to retain who I am,' adds Shakira. 'Obviously, I talked about fitness because that was what I enjoyed, but I think it was less of a fitness blog and more about showing women that you can be who you are and be a good mum at the same time while doing whatever you are passionate about - whether that’s wanting to sustain your career, business, relationships, social life or fitness. I just wanted to see what it’s like to do that and be a mum, and that has remained at the heart of what StrongLikeMum life is really about.'

PAVING THE WAY