Lindsay Messina Bergman

On the fourth of July weekend, 2015, I found out I was pregnant. I was shocked, excited, nervous, and scared. All the emotions were running through my body, especially since I was four months away from my wedding date. I was confused, didn’t know what I was going to do, whether we are going to go forward with the wedding, cancel it, or postpone it. It all happens so quickly and we weren’t expecting it. Fast forward a week or two later when everything really sunk in and I realized that this was a gift from God and we were so excited because we’ve always wanted a family.

My name is Lindsay Messina and I’m originally from New York and I absolutely love my family. I have such great family values and I got into health and fitness when I was 21 years old. I come from a family that struggles with their weight and that has health issues. I fell in love with health and fitness and started competing at a young age, won a bunch of shows as far as Fitness America, Bikini America, WBFF Ms. Bikini World Championship 2012 and 2013. I have been on multiple covers of magazines, worked with top agencies in New York and also worked with QVC, Lady Foot Locker and Under Armour. To say the least, my experience before the age of 30 was pretty involved with the fitness industry. I developed a health and training and coaching business, coaching aspiring competitors and fitness models and being a mentor and showing them what to do, preparing them for their big day or their big photo shoot. I was always a girl who worked really hard. I loved work. I loved challenging myself. So for me to work 10 hours a day was something I really enjoyed to do. I always got on the airplane. I always flew around the country and really lived the life of glory,being able to do whatever I envisioned. Now, finding out that I was pregnant in July of 2015, my whole life turned upside down and I wasn’t sure how everything was going to plan out. I moved from New York to North Carolina, met my husband Mike. We got engaged. We got pregnant and we got married. So within six months of my life, I have completely shifted everything, my mindset, my priorities, and really where I need to put my focus. But the crazy part is I’ve always been athletic my entire life. I was always on a varsity team in high school, running track and field. I’ve always lifted weights. I was a very competitive person and I always walked around pretty toned and slender and tight and everyone used to always say that it’s your genetics. You always look like that. Lindsay Messina always looks toned and skinny and in shape. Well, when I got pregnant, I was super sick. I probably melted into the couch the first 17 weeks of my pregnancy. I was nauseous. Everything made me sick. I hardly ate. I was tired all the time and I just couldn’t believe the feeling that I had the first three and a half months leading into my wedding and the first three and a half months of me being pregnant.

I gained 10 pounds my first trimester, which wasn’t so bad and I was on a really good path. After my wedding and after I believed the stress was released from preparing for our big day, my body just reacted to being pregnant. Five foot one, small frame, being athletic my entire life, being the height of my business, the height of my career, being one of the top fitness models and always working really hard to achieve all of my goals, in nine short months of me being pregnant, I gained close to 80 pounds. I was super uncomfortable and I realized my life was going to change for the better once we started having a family. So now, I can’t believe that I’m a mom. I can’t believe that it has really come together for me as a whole. My whole life, I’ve always dreamt of having a really big family, having everyone over our house. But as a woman, you struggle with the balance of what my life used to be versus what my life is now. Where actually my priorities and where actually my focus. So for me personally, being a mom is the most rewarding job. I would never change it for the world. I can’t wait to have more kids and grow our family. But I’ve realized that there’s a whole another meaning of balance. There’s a whole another meaning of putting your family first and figuring out what your true values are. So while I was pregnant and now being a mother of my daughter, you have to do some soul searching. I had to do some soul searching. I had to figure out what my purpose was in life and what I was really meant to do career-wise, my focus point with my business and also me being a wife and a mother. \ So now, still looking at my body, 80 pounds overweight while being pregnant, I gave birth to my daughter and I was still about 55 pounds overweight and I looked at my body and I said, “Is it ever going to get back to where I used to be?”

Then I would look at my daughter and I would say every pound on my body is worth it and I’ve made a decision the week I delivered her to own every stage of my transformation as I just did owning my stage for every moment of me growing a belly bump and growing into growing my daughter. I really feltempowered, comfortable in my own skin, curvier, and just loving every stage of the process of me getting back to my post body weight or post baby body and the decision that I’ve made was my family is going to come first. My daughter is going to come first and then – so then I really figured out how to monetize my time and to work out to the best of capabilities that I can from home, go for walks with Avery or even hit the gym if I can once in a while. But I don’t stress myself out and I don’t kill myself. I’m on a very clean eating regimen. I eat five to six times a day. Two of the meals are protein shakes that are great for moms that are nursing and all the other meals are smaller meals. Healthy balanced proteins, carbohydrates, fats and fruits. I do work out between four to five times a week and my workouts vary and every single week I’m seeing my body change and I’m feeling tightness in my body and I’m feeling conditioned. But what I really love is the bond that I have between my daughter and myself and my husband and really as a woman I feel like you raised to another level of confidence when you become a mom because not only do you have to raise this little baby. But you have to really master multitasking, balance and monetizing your time to the things that are really important to you.

So I am truly blessed to be able to work from home and to serve aspiring fitness models and people who want to open or run an online business and I get to coach and help people with branding from home and really work virtually to give my expertise and now I’m honored to be on the cover of Natural Muscle Magazine sharing my story and sharing my purpose with all of you guys. What I want to say is to all the new moms is don’t get discouraged. Don’t give up on yourself and I’m just like you. I have the feelings, the hormones, the change, the struggles just like you and making the shift and having that change in your life is a pretty big deal. But what we need to know is that we’ve closed one door in our lives and we opened up another one becoming moms and living a life of raising our children and whatever comes after that as far as how our bodies look, how much we can give to work or how much we can give to our business or our goals, that will all come because what I know too is soon Avery is going to be in school and I’m not going to put so much pressure on myself. Right now I’m enjoying every moment with her and I don’t want to miss these times and I don’t want to overstress myself out. So my goal is to get into the best shape possible because I want to be her idol. I want her to start noticing me going to the gym at a very young age, living a healthy lifestyle and I want her to know that I put her first and our family first no matter what. So my goal as a mom is to engrave these values into my family so this way they could carry them through in their life and to be the best role models for themselves and the people that are in their life and that’s what I’m looking to do.

So the big shift with me slowly losing the 80 pounds has been feeling confident at every level and now I get to appreciate or I get to relate to so many women out there who struggle with weight and the feelings that they had and uncomfortable in their own skin. I’ve been there and I know what that feels like and I’m excited to help so many other moms feel confident and get their sexy back and to really feel ownership in their own skin and love every moment of this new chapter in their life. I’m excited for you to follow my journey. I’m excited to connect with you and thank you for listening into the future to our loving, beautiful families and to all of you who read my message.