Anna Schuchman, 41, is a PT, nutritionist and owner of aceLIFESTYLE living in London

Growing up, I was always the chubbiest in the family and my mum was more careful with what she gave me to eat. As an adult, I decided to take control. I got into health and fitness in my twenties and found my happy weight was about nine and a half stone. But after the birth of my fourth child when I was 32 I felt like I had ballooned. I had really low blood-sugar levels and just ate and ate and ate the kind of hunger where you just inhale food. I put on nearly four stone and weighed 13 stone (81 kg). I hardly recognised my body as my own.

So I got back into fitness doing classes like body pump, which uses a light barbell, and body combat, where you punch and kick your way to fitness, once or twice a week.

At the time I was working in logistics, but I decided to use my maternity leave to retrain as a personal trainer, along with another year studying nutrition.

My professional training changed the way I personally ate and worked out, too. As I learned more about which types of exercise are most effective, I changed my workouts to focus on strength training, and made sure I incorporated much more protein into every meal, which is so important for building and maintaining muscle.

Follow this link:
I lost four stone by adding protein to every meal - The Telegraph