Shaugha Phillips ‘terrified’ about gaining weight when she gets pregnant again – as she reveals how she lost 5st

SHAUGHNA Phillips has transformed her body with old fashioned blood, sweat and tears – ignoring fast fixes like skinny jab Ozempic.

Now aged 30 and five stone lighter than the 15-and-a-half stone she was 12 months ago, Shaughna is feeling better than ever.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, she says: “Although I’ve been this weight before, I’ve had to work for it so much harder this time, so it just feels like the reward feels so much sweeter, which is ironic because I’ve not had anything sweet in a long time.

“If you had told me this time last year that I would have done it, I just would have been like, honestly, it felt like Mount Everest. I remember walking around the park with Lucia [daughter] and I calculated in my head how much weight I had to lose.

“And I remember thinking, f**k that, honestly, that is so long. But do you know what? Rather than looking a year in front, I just looked for every single day. And sometimes when it was hard, just getting every hour out of the way.

“And before you know it, months have passed and I’ve lost this amount. And I thought, keep going, keep doing it. So I feel physically in the best shape.”

Having dropped six dress sizes and now weighing 9 Stone 10 lbs, Shaughna says she’s practically at her target shape, though admits there will always be parts of her body she’d like to change.

“I look at myself in the mirror and I’m like,‘that could be a bit higher, that could be a bit tighter’,” she says. “But it is what it is.

“Do you know what? I’m happy. I’m content and that’s all I wanted.”

It was a wake up call from a full body MOT a year after becoming a first time mum that gave Shaughna the motivation she needed to change her lifestyle.

Scan results revealed she had high levels of visceral fat around her organs which could lead to serious health conditions like heart attacks, diabetes and cancer if left unaddressed.

But while the idea of a fit and healthy future with daughter Lucia spurred her on, the reality of losing weight while parenting solo proved exceptionally tough.

“It was effing hard,” she admits.

She joined a gym shortly after giving birth but soon realised there was no way she could actually make it there due to lack of childcare.

Another, very expensive, gym membership followed, complete with a creche, but her bank balance ended up decreasing faster than her weight on the scales.

She says: “After I’d started going there, spending all this money, I lost two pounds in three months.

“So not only was I losing all this money, not losing any weight and ageing in mental years by putting Lucia into this creche that I hated. I just thought, you know what? This ain’t working for me.”

She made the decision to cancel the membership and set about racking up daily steps with Lucia in tow.

“Once I’d kind of got Lucia into a routine of sleeping in the day and whatnot, I thought, well, I’ve got this time,” she explains.

“In the beginning, all I was doing was watching Real Housewives and I thought, I’m sitting here moaning about how much I weigh and doing nothing about it. So it was just trying to incorporate little things that I’d already picked up from exercising for years prior to having Lucia that I could do at home. Once I started doing that and I noticed changes in my fitness, I thought, no, this is definitely something I wanted to keep up.

“Once she dropped her nap, that’s when the games really started because I had to try and do it around her. But I mean, I could have made excuses or I could have just done it. And my workouts, although they’re like 12 minute bites, sometimes they might take a little bit longer because Lucia decided to sit on me or something.

“But I still get it done. And I actually notice now that she copies some of the things I do, which I just think is so funny. So, yeah, it was about dropping the excuses.”

Though she has no immediate plans to expand her family, Shaughna does want another child eventually and is already concerned how being pregnant again will affect her newfound fitness.

The former Love Island star says she did “nuclear damage” on herself the first time around, eating everything she wanted without worrying about the consequences on her body.

She admits: “There was times when I’d look in the mirror and I thought, ‘How how the feck have I let myself get here?'”

But she’s hoping the next time will be very different due to the tools she’s picked up along the way.

“Oh my God, the next time I’m pregnant, I am terrified,” she says. “Because I’ve been in such a steady loss for so long. It’s inevitable that when you get pregnant, you’re going to gain.

“I do worry about the mental side of that. Not that I’m planning on being pregnant anytime soon. So yeah, that’ll be a bridge that I have to cross once I’m there.

“But I’m hoping by then I’ve got such a steady foundation that I’ll be fine.”

Shaughna is now determined to help other women achieve what she has using the knowledge she’s built over the last 12 months.

She started the year by launching her Shred-It Plan full of workouts and recipes to help women become better versions of themselves.

“I really want to get to mums because I know how hard postpartum is,” she says.

“And I know the pressures that you feel as well. So this is something that I’ve tried to make as simple as possible, as accessible as possible. You can do it in your home.

“You can do it without any machines. You don’t need any of these things. But mainly, fitness and nutrition go hand in hand.

“You can’t really have one without the other. But nutrition is key. This plan, when you purchase it, we tell you not to exercise, not to do any of the workouts for the first four weeks because we really want you to focus on your nutrition.”

She continued: “When you start doing certain things each day, they do become habits and they do become second nature. For example, when I first started, I used to have to weigh my fruit, my veg, when I would have it with my dinner.

“I don’t even need to weigh it anymore because I know how much I need. I just know it from memory. And give yourself time.”

Shaughna is keen to stress that as effective as her plan is, results won’t be gained without time and a lot of effort.

But even those who don’t like exercise, such as herself, will reap the rewards if they follow her method.

“Things don’t happen overnight,” she says. “What you put in is what you get out. And my personal favourite type of exercise is combat, is boxing.”

“I hate exercise. So I feel like when you’re doing something you need to learn, you’re focusing on learning the method and learning how to do it, rather than the fact that you’re actually working out. And once you’ve done it, you think, oh my god, I’m actually a little bit sore and I’m sweating.

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want people to think I’m the new Joe Wicks. Because I’m really not.

“Joe Wicks is fine. I’m no fitness influencer. I’m a mum who’s learnt how to become fit and healthy whilst being a mum.”

Shaughna’s Shred-it online fitness platform is available now. Priced £49.00 – Visit www.shreditplan.com