Working Out With Kids

For many busy families with small kids, it’s very hard to find the time or motivation to workout. Parents are chronically tired and get less exercise than their child-free counterparts. Some people have 2-year-olds that still don’t sleep through the night. Or maybe you may have a toddler that sleeps through the night, but you also have an infant – good luck getting any kind of unbroken sleep! 

Unmotivate Me

Knowing how time-restricting it is to be a mom with a toddler, I can’t begin to tell you how infuriating it is for me to read “motivational” workout posts by friends on FaceBook, as they check into their favorite gym for the 98th straight time. Usually the image says something to the extent of, “If your family meant anything to you, you should be working out right now. Get up off your ass and let’s go. Because if you don’t get up now, you’ll end up taking pills for the rest of your life or you’re going to die and miss out on seeing your children grow up.” At least, that’s how I read them. And while these sayings may have an underlying truth, the overwhelming majority of people who posts those motivational pictures on my feed have no children, so they have no idea what balancing family, work, and home life is truly like. It’s hard work. And reading those is often times, rubbing salt into the wound.

I will tell you a small secret of mine; my husband and I are asked, or rather reminded over and over, that we are reaching the time that we should try for a sibling. This is something I would love to do. But aside from financial concerns over adding another diaper and daycare expense – anxieties that are strong enough to paralyze me from even thinking about a 2nd – I don’t think my body can handle another pregnancy at my current weight. I feel like I’d be depressed watching the scale go upward, and if I were to get pregnant, I’m likely to get gestational diabetes or something else crazy will happen to me because of my increased weight. And I just don’t like the idea of being so big that no one even knows I’m pregnant. I’d just look like a fat person.

The boring cardio.

At this point in my life, I am trying to get fit, but it’s literally a daily struggle. Nothing is 100% consistent in my world, as much as I want it to be. But, the fact is, I’m trying to be as consistent as possible. So how have I been able to accomplish workouts with a toddler? In one of my previous posts, I talked about how my work schedule is from 8 – 4. This allows me around 45 minutes – 1 hour of workout time before I have to go pick up my daughter from daycare, which closes at 6:00 PM. Usually when I go to the gym, I just hit up an elliptical or a treadmill. I like interval runs on the treadmill and the elliptical is just to get some easy cardio in. If I’m feeling ambitious, which I’m usually not, I’ll use free weights to do some combo exercises. The elliptical and treadmill can be boring, but hey, it’s cardio.

However, science has proven that high intensity interval workouts (HIIT) and sprint interval training (SIT) can be just as effective, if not more effective, than traditional cardio. And the results are achieved in shorter amounts of time – 90 minutes of sprint interval training produced the same results as 5 hours of “traditional” cardio – meaning you could do 3 – 30 min SIT sessions verses 5 – 1 hour runs. 

For busy moms – HIIT/SIT are a WIN.

Working on Day 11!

I personally think HIITs are awesome because of the fact they don’t require much time. Actually, I do them when I’ve left the office later than I want to but yet still have time for exercise. My favorite free source of HIITs on the web is Zuzka Light. She’s amazingly fit and I’m tempted to buy her ZCut workouts and become one of her “Warriorz.” She’s also a co-founder of Body Rock TV, which is another great source for free videos and other 30 day fitness challenges. But, if I had to pick my overall favorite workout video fitness personality, though, I’d say my favorite is Cathe Friedrich. She’s a workout video pioneer and I remember when I was unemployed and first moved to San Antonio, I saw her videos on the fitness channel. They left me sore, which at the time, had never happened before. Her videos however, aren’t free, and some series are actually quite expensive. But if you can afford it, they are worth it!

Currently, I’m working on getting my cardio, doing ZWOWs and doing a 30-day squat challenge, which I've posted a picture of. I’ll post other challenges I do and report on my progress. 

Now it’s your turn – how do you squeeze in a workout with your children? Do you have a favorite exercise, website, or fitness personality? Weigh-in! 

Striking a Balance

Striking a Balance

In 2011, 58.5% of married-couple families had both mom and dad employed in the workforce. I - like many of those moms - work a demanding full time job. And I’m in good company because according to this article, both women and men both find that striking a balance between work and life is challenging. Compared to how the traditional roles were defined in the 60s, dads are doing housework and handling childcare more than ever before. …Boy I wish that were the case in my house!

So with all these competing priorities, how do we balance our professional life with our family life? We all want to nurture our children and move up the corporate ladder, which I think is a part of the new American dream. A desire for both shouldn’t bring on a flood of “mommy guilt” either. But it often does; I am not supermom, no matter how scheduled and structured I make my day. Unfortunately, I can’t always feed my family only homemade convenience foods, I can’t keep our house spotless, and I can’t be a beautiful trophy wife because I’m too busy wiping a toddler’s butt, doing dishes, and finishing up laundry. Something always has to give. For example, my daughter needs new shoes? No problem - bought. For me? The heel just broke off my only pair of brown heels and I have yet to make it to a DSW. My daughter and my husband’s needs always take priority over my own.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I’ve learned over and over that I can’t continue to short change myself. I just end up getting upset about everything and instead of getting irritated at an annoying situation, I find that sometimes I blow up. And it’s from all the times I’ve let my needs slip because I always put my needs last.

The truth is, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to how to balance everything. What works for your family may not work for mine. But what I do like is idea-sharing. So here are five things that I do to create a line between work and home:

My work schedule is 8 – 4. I am a salaried employee and am lucky to have an employer and boss that will let me work through my lunch so I can leave an hour early. If I don’t finish my work, I can do it at home. It’s a really nice perk to have this flexibility. When I leave early, I can get a workout in while my daughter is still at daycare or if it’s a rest day, I’ve given myself a free hour to do whatever I want to. Read, clean, browse FaceBook or Twitter. It’s my “me” time, early.

When I cook meals, I sometimes make a double batch and freeze the leftovers. Home cooked meals are best, but some recipes can take awhile to prepare, which can throw our nighttime routine off. Let’s not forget about the nights I have to work late at the office. Having something to only reheat makes rushed nights lots easier.

The dishes can wait. Actually, this includes most all of the household chores. I know lots of people are super sticklers about dirty kitchens and houses in general, and I used to be one of them! But at home, I field about 95% of the chores and toddler caretaking. My husband works full time and also attends part time classes at Texas State University to complete his BFA. After dinner, he’s usually working on homework, which leaves me to bathe and put our daughter to bed. A friend told me once that this is a chapter in my life where everything will be in a constant state of chaotic mess. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact my house will not be a picture of perfection. I can really only do 1 chore or so a night, if I even get to it.

It’s ok to buy convenience items. I’m not a huge fan of buying pre-packaged dinners like frozen pizza because they contain a lot of unnecessary ingredients that I wouldn’t use if I were making it from scratch. And I hate hitting the drive-thru because most of the choices are not very healthy ones. But they are oh-so-convenient when I need to save some time and energy. So my compromise is I usually look at menus of drive thru’s beforehand to find a healthier choice. I don’t think we’ll die by eating a drive-thru hamburger, and I don’t personally have any political beefs with any of them. I just want what’s best for my family. At one point in time, I made things like buns for our hamburgers to try to save money. All it did was cost me time and made me feel like a crazy person. There are wholesome products available and it’s ok to buy them!

Find your Zen. We all have had those rough days at work only to come home to your child boycotting dinner, baths, and diaper changes. It’s important in those stressful times you have a way to release the tension built up from the day and night. For me personally, I find growing and tending to a vegetable garden is what helps me unwind.

I hope you found my list at the very least, interesting. At most, I hope it gives you ideas on what your family can do to help strike a balance between your professional life and your home life.