Jessie James Decker: 'I Feel Better About My Body After Having Two Children'

Jessie James Decker is in the best shape of her life

Photo: South Beach Diet

Jessie James Decker says she feels more body confident after becoming a mom.

“I feel better now after two children — I think I look better, I feel better,” Decker, 29, who is mother to daughter Vivianne, 3, and son Eric, 19 months, tells PEOPLE.

“My body’s in the best shape I’ve ever been in my life,” she continues. “When I was younger, I was relying on those young girl genetics. I wasn’t watching what I was eating or looking at nutrition. Now I’m paying attention, and my body is leaner, I’m healthier, I’m eating better. I’m just in better shape.”

Decker sticks to the South Beach Diet — for which she was just announced as a brand ambassador — to stay on top of her nutrition.

“I love the food,” says Decker. “I love that it’s really healthy and it’s fresh, and I love that it’s pushing the protein because my body responds really well to a lot of protein.”

Having the option to eat pre-made meals makes it easier for Decker to eat healthy while juggling taking care of two young kids.

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“I wake up with my kids about 7 a.m., and I really love the ricotta muffins, especially the double chocolate ones, so I’ll have a couple of muffins with my coffee in the morning,” she says.

“Every mom knows it’s hard to take care of yourself while you’re trying to take care of your children, because when you become a mother, you become so selfless,” she continues. “I remember having both of them as babies and looking at the clock and it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and I’m like, ‘Oh my God I have not fed myself,’ because I’ve been running around and didn’t have time to cut all this food up and throw it in the pan. So this makes it so much easier, and I know I’m getting everything I need.”

Eating protein-rich meals also helps Decker fuel up for her two to three time a week workout sessions.

“I like to do heavy lifting, so it’s a great thing to have meals that have a lot of protein to maintain that,” says the singer-songwriter, who loves doing circuit training. “I like that [circuit training] is quick and effective — I will work out 20, 30 minutes at the very most. And I like that you can constantly change up. I want to know that I sweated it out, I want to know that my body is shaking from an intense workout. That’s how I know that I did something. I want to be a little sore the next day, I want to know that it was effective. I like yoga, but I never felt like I got everything I wanted out of it, so that’s what got me into the circuit training.”

South Beach Diet

Decker says she didn’t put pressure on herself to lose weight immediately after having her babies. Instead, she waited until she was done breastfeeding to get back into a diet and exercise routine.

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“I think every mother has that moment — they get out of the hospital, they go home and they look at themselves and they go, ‘Look at me. How am I going to get this taken care of?’ And I had that moment but then I snapped right back out of it,” she says. “I realized, this is silly. I just had a newborn and I’m going to focus on my newborn and breastfeeding my baby and spending time with my child, and not stress out about losing 30 lbs. in a week. It’s just unrealistic. You have to give yourself time.”