Daily Life With Kids + Fitness and Health = Joy For Me
I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my kids and making them apart of every aspect of my life… as I’m certain most moms do! Sure it makes it harder half the time and can just be a pain in the butt other times, but we still LOVE having them around us throughout the day, right!
I’m a stay at home mom, who works part-time doing 1-on-1 personal training 4ish hours a week and online training/blogging during nap times. …So I’m a fitness and health junky and receive complete delight from moving my body and pushing myself each day.
I currently have a 1 and 3 year old… so the majority of my “workouts” are in every room of my house, outside, on my deck, up the driveway, at the park… anywhere I am, so is my “workout”. Yes, I still go downstairs to my gym often (because my home studio is in my downstairs sunroom), by myself, when I’ve had a full night’s rest and I can actually get away from my kids and my mom duties. But the majority of my workouts, are woven into our daily lives.
One of the important life lessons I strive to teach my kids everyday, is to live a more active natural life. So what better way to spend time with them, work on my own wellness and have the opportunity to teach them how health, fitness and movement are just apart of life and so darn good for them!
Make life full of movement
Kids love to see us move and most of the time, enjoy joining in with us… for a few minutes! And if you make silly faces and funny sounds, they love it more! What a great lesson and experience for them to see how fun movement, hard work and exercises can be, especially in this day and age.
You can easily get 10-20 min of movement, here and there 3-4x a day… which is really all you need for health. A kitchen dance party, a living room chase game, relay races in the yard. Lunges, squats and dips at the park, planks during tummy time, hip-lifts and bridges as bridges for my boys trucks to drive over and under. Then my all time favorite, vacuuming or mowing the lawn with a baby/toddler in a carrier as fast as you can before the other one wakes up… that’s a cardio blast for sure!
Make your workouts a mixture of what fits into your life with kids and what makes your body feel good each day. Working, stay-at-home or combo “work-home” mom! Why not do a few squats as you push your kids in the swing… its just a mindset and the ability to push yourself a little further no matter how tired you are, because you know how good it is for you and you know the example you are setting.
If you are in a phase of life where it seems impossible to “get away” for an hour to workout alone, then obtain a new mindset and dress in moveable clothes everyday so you don’t have that excuse. 🙃 Plus who doesn’t love yoga pants… or flexible dress pants! Try not to think of your workout as a set aside time of 30-60 min straight, but instead, 20 min here and 10 min there. Whenever you have time throughout your day.
Even if your a working mom! 10 min of yoga with your kids before work, 15 min walk on your lunch break… with some added, stairs, squats, dips (whatever suites you!) Then 20 min of running around with your children when you get home, before dinner (…and I mean actual running or jumping… something that gets your heart rate up). Then finish the day with 10 min of abs and some stretches before bath time. Thats 55 min right there! Bam! You’re happy and your kids are happy 😆… well maybe, kids are always hard to predict. But you get my gist!
Its ok to add variety 👌
Also note, that not one “exercise session” needs to be the same or super technical, because of time, location, body aches and pains, kids temperaments and that’s the best for our body anyway! I understand many people do not have a large store of exercises in the back of their brain. However, there are a lot of resources out there online you can use. You can even quickly review them the night before bed, so that you have them fresh in your mind the next day, if you get a chance to exercise while you’re playing, cooking or feeding a kid.
Sure order and variations of exercises are important for certain fitness goals, but if you’re just trying to add movement into your life and do it for your health and a little weight loss… then anything is better then nothing.
And you know what, it’s ok if I have an off day… when the attitude for life and goal for our kids is to always be moving. It’s ok if you don’t “exercise” that day. For me, I know I am working on my health by taking my kids for a walk/run down the street, crawling around and wrestling with my kids on the floor, playing chase the ball on the deck… it may not look like exercise…but I guarantee you that your heart rate will get up and sometimes your muscles will even burn!
This helps me stay blessed and not stressed about not getting my “workout” in because I know I have pushed myself throughout the day to get up and move with my kids. To make my workout apart of our daily life together.
Want to know a secret?
If you are moving constantly through each day, staying less stressed and eating a natural based and balanced diet… you will lose that baby weight and feel better then you ever did before! Simple science, I just love it!
So don’t be afraid to make your workout apart of your kids lives, adding variety and moving with them. You will still loose the weight, you will still get stronger. As I said before, for weight loss and health purposes, it’s better anyway to do little spurts of exercise or bursts of cardio throughout the day rather than in one shot. 💡 Plus, what an amazing example and experience for our kids to live up life and be on the move with you! And if you’re really serious about loosing a lot of weight… your diet is a HUGE factor… don’t forget about that.
Yes, definitely relish your alone workout times!
When you feel like your on top of life (I know it can feel like you have no time or energy for anything when your kids are little)… so when you feel like you have some free time, then YES, get a kick-ass workout in by yourself! Go to the gym, take a class or get on youtube. Go rock it. I know they can be limited, so enjoy that time and push yourself a little harder than normal. They may come few and far between depending on what stage of life you are at!
Then keep moving the rest of the day with your kiddos and teach them the healthy and rewarding lifestyle of movement!
You rock lady!
I already know your a badass super mom, because lets face it…. all moms are! So keep going. ❤︎
Obtain a new outlook on your workout and consider pushing yourself throughout the day to just get up and move with your kids a little more (if you don’t already), no matter how tired you may be.
And if you’re a working momma, you can still do the same when you are home from work. Perhaps make your family time an active family time. Get your kids and spouse involved in a more active shared time together. You are setting the stage for the rest of their life… and yours. What better then to teach them about a healthy lifestyle, heart, and soul. 🌟
Here are a few other fun ways I make my workouts apart of my kids lives 👇:
Please comment and share how you have incorporated your kids into your workouts. Or let us know how you plan on making your workouts more apart of your everyday life!