Busy moms who are trying to take care of themselves in the midst of caring for the rest of their families know how hard it is to keep to a regular workout schedule.
As a mom who was committed to losing weight, I knew that regular exercise was an essential part of my strategy for accomplishing my goal – no matter how much of a logistical challenge it would be for a busy mom!
After many failed attempts throughout my life to keep exercise a priority there was one thing I had discovered for sure about regular exercise – it has to be EASY to keep the commitment.
That is why there are several things I had to do IN ADVANCE to make keeping my commitment as easy as possible:
1. Set up an area in my home dedicated to working out.
It turns out we had a small guest room in our basement which wasn’t used much anymore. So, I cleared some space, set up our small tv/dvd player, lined up my light weights, a couple of workout DVDs I’d bought, a water bottle and my 1 pair of workout shoes. All I had to do was arrive and press, “play”. I kept the workout area free of clutter. It was so easy to just show up and work out. Keeping my commitment to working out was made so much easier when all I had to do was make the choice to go in the room and press “play” – no childcare to arrange, no car to warm up, no gym or fancy equipment to navigate.
2. When circumstances changed, I made sure to plan ahead.
When my middle son started preschool at a Montessori school, he was “phased in”, meaning he went for a little bit longer time each morning he went to school. Since I normally did my workout in the morning, this presented a real challenge for my already regular exercise routine. So, I planned ahead as to how I was going to accomplish my daily exercise routine. I decided to pack up the stroller and take my youngest son for a walk around the school’s surrounding neighborhood while we waited for his brother to finish school each day. Well, as the days went by, my walk turned into a jog and that daily jog got a little longer each day as my son was staying in school a little longer each day. I lost 5 pounds through what I thought would be a hiccup in my exercise routine. I was so pleased to discover, as well, how much I like to run. It was rewarding to know that, no matter what changes in my kids’ routines occurred (and they inevitably will), I could improvise, plan and stick to my work out routine.
3. I had to get my young children to cooperate.
Thankfully, I had already put my infant son on a nice daily pattern/routine – some might call it a schedule. For all three of my sons, we used a great little system called “E.A.S.Y.” developed by Tracy Hogg, a British-trained nurse, in her book called “The Baby Whisperer”. The “Y” in the “E.A.S.Y.” acronym stands for “Your time”, which is the part of the baby’s routine where you get and can predict, a little time for yourself. This is, of course, where I squeezed in my workout everyday. When your children are small, not having a schedule or routine can really take it’s toll not only on the child but on the parents as well. It is very difficult to keep to a consistent exercise routine if you never know when your baby is going to nap (or for how long) or what they will need from one minute to the next. I highly recommend finding a technique that works for your family that helps your baby to learn early to develop developmentally appropriate independence so that you can invest in your own health.
4. I had to protect my regular workout time.
Believe me, once you start to engage in a regular workout time, anything and everything will threaten to take it away! At first, the challenges will seem overwhelming, but each time you choose your workout over the other things fighting for your attention, your commitment will solidify and the priority of exercise in your life will most certainly pay off! My dad always used to tell me, “Practice makes habit.” Anything that we continue to choose to do consistently becomes a habit and healthy habits contribute to healthy lifestyles and healthy lifestyles usually lead to protection from disease, greater longevity, increased energy and all the other great things you’re used to reading about attributed to healthy eating and regular exercise.
When I first began my regular workouts, I would glance at the pile of laundry or dishes or the list of emails from clients or the blinking light for messages on the voicemail, and I would feel like the workout needed to wait and I that should spend the time getting my list of tasks done. However, I have found that my 30 minutes to an hour of exercise actually energizes my mind, my body, my emotional state and the rest of my day, making me more efficient, effective and thankful that I am still on my way to becoming a healthier, leaner, stronger woman and mom.
When you make it easy for yourself to keep your regular exercise commitment by strategizing ahead of time what you will do to protect exercise as a priority, it IS possible to continue to take care of yourself, even while raising little kids.
As a side-note, I am a firm believer that it is important for kids to see their parents taking care of themselves. If we, as parents are people who are constantly rushing around to meet everyone’s needs but our own, how can we expect that our kids will turn out any different? Don’t we want our kids to grow up knowing how to take care of themselves, to have a healthy balance in their lives between caring for themselves and caring for others? They will probably follow whatever example we set. Kids don’t so much learn how to live life through what we tell them; they learn life through what we do, how we treat ourselves and how we treat them. As well, when we talk about moms and weight loss, whether or not you are overweight as a mom is the biggest influence on whether or not your kids will be overweight children and adults. In her article on usatoday.com, Danger Signs of Child Obesity, Nanci Hellmich, states the following:
“Obesity begins at home. That’s the conclusion of nutrition experts who are sorting through a parade of studies released this summer that shows children in all age groups in the USA are gaining too much weight — even babies. And those experts are laying the lion’s share of the responsibility on parents, many of whom also are heavy.”
Hellmich goes on to share that “Keith Ayoob, a registered dietitian at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says he never meets children who have better eating habits than their parents. “Parents are, hands down, the biggest influence on their kids. They need to be good role models. I heard a quote that said, ‘What you say will speak to your kids. What you do will scream to them.’ ”
Now that’s food for thought! Even if you’re not convinced that you need to exercise and maintain a healthy weight for yourself, perhaps your sense of accountability to your kids will be greater.
I still sometimes face challenges to keeping my regular workout time but through consistently choosing to do so, it has become a habit to keep investing the time into caring for myself through regular fitness. I am excited to share some of the things that have worked for me because I think that they could help other, real moms like me who have struggled to lose weight, become stronger and more energetic and overall feel better about themselves as women and as moms.