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The Book — Strength Through the Messy & Beyond
A real-life strength training guide for women through every phase.
This isn’t another fitness plan.
It’s for the woman who has tried to stay consistent — and kept hitting the reality of her own life. The broken sleep. The full days. The body that keeps changing in ways nobody prepared her for.
Strength Through the Messy & Beyond covers pre-conception, pregnancy, postpartum, motherhood, and perimenopause. Not as separate problems to fix — but as connected phases of a life in motion.
It meets you where you actually are. Not where a training plan expects you to be.
“Real strength is rarely built in perfect conditions. More often, it’s built in the middle of ordinary life.”
Most fitness advice was built around ideal conditions. You don’t live there. This book was written for the life you’re actually living — and the strength that’s possible inside it.
What’s inside
The book is built in two parts.
The first six chapters lay the foundation — why most fitness advice fails women, how to train for real life rather than ideal conditions, and how your body actually works through hormonal change, pregnancy, and recovery.
The second half goes phase by phase:
- Pre-conception — building your strongest foundation before pregnancy begins
- Pregnancy — training through change, not fear
- Postpartum — recovery, return to movement, and what nobody tells you
- Motherhood — training when life is relentless and time is not your own
- Perimenopause — strength through hormonal change, starting earlier than you think
Every phase includes real example training weeks — not rigid programmes, but building blocks you can pull from depending on how your week actually goes. Each one comes with a “good week” version and a “hard week” version, because a workout that only exists on paper isn’t much use to anyone.
- Good week: a full session — warm-up, strength work, and a finisher, built around the equipment and time you actually have.
- Hard week: the same session, scaled down to what’s realistic on a broken-sleep, no-childcare, everything-is-on-fire kind of day — because something is always better than nothing, and nothing is ever a failure.
Reviewed by specialists.
Strength Through the Messy & Beyond has been reviewed and approved by a panel of healthcare professionals, including an OB/GYN, a pelvic floor physiotherapist, and a clinical nutritionist. Their input has shaped the medical and clinical content throughout — so what you read is not just practical, but grounded in current guidance.
Get a free review copy
The book is live now — and I’d love your honest thoughts on it.
Request a free copy in exchange for an honest review once you’ve read it. No pressure on timing, no script to follow — just your real take.
About the author
Daniëlle van der Leest is a certified Personal Trainer, Women’s Strength & Wellbeing Coach, and Prenatal & Postnatal Specialist with nearly a decade of experience coaching women through the real phases of life. She is the founder of ActiveWomen, a women’s strength and wellbeing platform based in Singapore, and holds specialist certifications in prenatal care, postnatal recovery, and menopause fitness. She has coached hundreds of women through pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause — and has lived through most of what she coaches. She is a mum of three.
activewomensg.com
Strength Through the Messy & Beyond is published by ActiveWomen Pte Ltd and available now on Amazon.
For more real-life stories from motherhood follow Danielle’s blog→ Almost Local.