We’re approaching the new year, and every commercial on TV is geared towards reminding us how many glasses of eggnog and slices of pie we had this holiday season, and just how jiggly we are as a result. Now’s the time that many of us may be thinking about how we can possibly juggle fitness and parenthood.
So many of the websites out there give some version of the same advice about keeping motivation, cutting calories, eating the right things, blah blah blah. Next to that advice is usually an airbrushed picture of a pretty, fit girl, maybe like this:
Cue the eye rolling.
Yeah, she may have the time (and the genetics) to look like that. But at some point in the near or distant past, we shot little humans out of our now stretched and slightly distorted tummies.
Those humans are making all these noises that drive us to spend every waking moment feeding and taking care of them. And when we finally convince those stubborn little people that seem to be allergic to sleep to close their eyes for a millisecond, we’re too exhausted to do anything else.
It is way harder for parents to stick to fitness goals than it is for non-parents.
But it IS possible for fitness and parenthood to coexist in our lives!
I know, because two years ago, when my kids were 2 and 5, I really needed a change in my life. So, I made the seemingly ridiculous decision to add yet another activity to my already crazy life and combine fitness and parenthood.
Lo and behold, it worked! (pardon the sweat)
Within a few months, I had muscles I could actually see, much improved self esteem, and a 6 year old who thought I was literally Wonder Woman. I even felt like I had more control over my life rather than less.
So how the heck DO you fit the fitness into an already crazy parenting life?
I won’t lie to you and tell you it’s easy. Fitness and parenthood are like oil and water. It takes some work, perseverance, and a little shake-up of life. But the secret is to combat the specific challenges that we have as parents. Here are 6 of those challenges and how to deal with them so that you can fit both fitness and parenthood into your #momlife.
Challenge #1: Our mommy bodies seem to defy the laws of physics on the scale.
How annoying is it when a guy in your life decides to cut out soda for a week and loses 10lbs when we cut out soda and, wait, does that stupid scale say I gained two pounds?? Or when we work out for a week aaaand….nothing happens? Women’s bodies are physically designed to hold on to fat and water more than men’s, and when you add mommy hormones…watch the butt and thighs expand!
If you’re spending fewer calories than you take in, you will lose weight. But it’s awfully hard to see those numbers on the scale giving you a giant middle finger when you’ve been taking time out of your absolutely insane week to work out.
Here are better ways to monitor your progress:
Focus on multiple measures of fitness:
To make a fitness routine work, you’re more likely to keep it up if you go into it with a whole body goal. Yes, weight loss is part of it, but being healthy is really where you want to be, right? In addition to watching the scale:
- Aim to increase your endurance
- Take measurements of multiple body parts
- Take before pictures and watch the change happen
Sure, the scale might be an a$$hole this week, but maybe there’s more definition in those biceps, you’ve lost a quarter of an inch around your waist, and you’re not as tired as you were. If you go into things with a combination of goals that target many parts of your body, you won’t get discouraged by one bad number on that mean old scale.
Set short-term achievable goals:
Even with whole-body goals, it’s going to take more than a week or two to make a substantial change in your physique, your weight, or your lifestyle. Motivation is directly linked to reward. If you decide that 40lb of weight loss is what generates the reward, then you’re going to be working too hard for too long before you get a reward. It’s just not sustainable, and we parents don’t have extra energy and motivation to spare when we’re trying to balance both fitness and parenthood.
Instead, set goals that are:
Studies show that it takes 3 weeks of doing something for that thing to stick. So try giving yourself a 3-week goal. Choose one thing that is possible to change in that period of time. It can be losing 3 lbs, gaining definition in your arms, or losing a half inch in your thighs. This way, you’ll feel a sense of achievement every three weeks, and that will sustain the practice and motivation a lot longer, even while the kids are pulling our minds in other directions.
Challenge #2: We are surrounded by “kid food” – ALL-THE-TIME.
My house is chock full of chicken nuggets. And while I try to limit my kids’ sugar intake, there is somehow always a cake, some cupcakes, or candy around to tempt me. And I really like sweet things.
Even worse, for some reason, kids often don’t even eat! That means that the awful foods that they ask for are sitting right next to me, begging me to scarf them down. Case in point, I just cleaned the plate of a waffle my kid didn’t eat this morning while sitting here writing this. That seems so unfair, doesn’t it? The decks are stacked against us!
How to combat this: Have a cache of tasty healthy foods
Healthy foods actually do taste good, often better than those chicken nuggets. The key is to have them nearby, so you’re grabbing those rather than the treats that are already sitting there for your kids.
Here are some things to do:
- During the weekend, make a couple of meals that can be microwaved and eaten as leftovers during the week. Soups and stews are good examples. Here’s a great recipe for Remy’s ratatouille (yes like the movie!).
- During the week, have some go-to recipes that take less than 15 minutes. Yup, I said it. There are actually healthy meals that take less than 15 minutes. You can get home, throw one together, and then even if your kids end up munching on those chicken nuggets, you’ll have something that’s easy on your waistline, but still delicious. Try this 5 minute black bean soup for example! It’s really good!
- Have “snacking” veggies and proteins at the ready. When we snack, we tend to reach for carbohydrates (like the waffle I just grabbed off my kid’s plate). I’m not saying to cut out carbohydrates. They are actually important macronutrients that you need. But getting enough protein is extra important when you’re working out, and veggies will help you to get key nutrients and feel full faster. Here are some that I like to have around the house:
Refreshing and filling chick pea salad
Roasted veggies (broccoli, peppers, onions, and zucchini) drizzled with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and roasted for 20 minutes.
Or just have some raw veggies on hand at all times to snack on. I always have tupperwares like these in my fridge, and my kids love them too!
Challenge #3: A parenting schedule is a house of cards ready to fall over at any second.
Most of us manage to survive parenthood by developing carefully orchestrated routines. When one part of that routine goes down, look out! The whole world falls that day! When you already have a card house perfectly constructed, it seems insane to try to add another card in there somewhere.
The fix: Make fitness as routine as brushing your teeth
When we want to go on a diet or start a workout routine, we tend to start it in a big momentous way.
“Today, on this first day of the year, I will embark on a treacherous journey!”.
But here’s the thing. The bigger a challenge your mind thinks something will be, the more challenging it will be.
The bottom line is that adding a fitness card to your house will be an adjustment at first, and may cause a few things to fall down. But it doesn’t have to be a big momentous thing.
A fitness routine needs to feel like exactly that – a routine. It has to be just another thing that we do each day rather than a huge mountain to climb. Try these suggestions:
Instead of a fad diet, or significantly cutting calories, introduce healthier foods slowly.
- Start by making a list of the healthier things that you and your family already like. Then throw them into the lunch and dinner routine more often.
- Continue to test new healthy meals and add them to the queue. Stick to things you like.
- Learn to count the calories you’re eating. I’m not saying log everything you eat. What moms actually have enough time for that?? All you really need to do is spend some time getting an idea of how many calories are in the foods you like to eat. Here’s a great website that has calorie counts for just about anything or anywhere you can eat. And a simple calculator like this one can tell you what you should be taking in, just so you’re aware.
Soon, your whole week will be filled with healthier, lower calorie meals, and it won’t feel like a dramatic shift.
Work out more than once or twice a week.
In fact, if you can slip a workout in all 5 days of the work week and then take off on the weekends, it will actually be easier to make it part of your routine.
You’re probably thinking “No way! This chick is nuts!”. But think about it this way – as parents, we’re jugglers. If workouts are twice a week, it’s like someone throwing a new bowling pin into your juggling routine 2 times each week. If you work out every day, it’s just another pin that you’ve already learned to include in your juggling. You won’t have to dread the shock of a new pin. It’s already there. That will make it easier to balance the fitness and parenthood together.
Challenge #4: Kids keep our days very full
Here I am telling you to add workouts into your routine, when you barely have enough time in the day as it is, right?
Here’s how you can actually fit those workouts in:
Do short workouts using high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
For parents, shorter workouts may be easier to fit into your schedule. We now know that you can get as much or even more benefits from HIIT workouts than conventional ones. These workouts can be as short as 15 minutes, and you don’t even have to leave the house to do them.
Then you can tell your poor overstretched brain “It’s only 15-20 minutes of my day”. Twenty minutes doesn’t seem that long, and suddenly, the workout isn’t such a big mountain to climb. Even better, do it in the evening when you might be tempted to snack on those bon bons before bed.
Free yourself from the gym:
The hardest part of working out when you’re a parent is being able to get to a gym or even out of the house for any period of time to do the workout. I’m a single mom, and I literally can’t leave the house while my kids are sleeping, morning or night. There are so many options now to work out at home. Workout videos are my favorite. Try these:
- Jillian Michaels, the previous trainer on the show, The Biggest Loser, is quite frankly a goddess in my mind. Her workouts are challenging, but they’re short, and she is a really good motivator. I lost 20 pounds in three months with nothing more than some Jillian videos and a few hand weights. These four are great to start with, and you can even stream them on Amazon Prime:
Note: As an Amazon associate I may stand to profit from purchases made using this link.
- Beach Body on Demand is a favorite in my fitness group. You can get workouts at any level, and the workouts change every day.
Home workouts make it easy to get done quick, and still be there if your little ones (or big ones!) need you.
Challenge #5: We’re generally not around people who encourage us to work out.
Little humans are designed to ask for your attention. Partners are usually right there with you on the battlefield doing triage. Employers want that report on your desk done yesterday. It’s really hard to balance fitness and parenthood when everyone around you wants you to do other things instead.
How to combat this: Harness the power of peer pressure
When I first started working out, a colleague told me about a Facebook fitness group she was part of, and I joined up. Before long, the group mentality kicked in. It was a Harry Potter themed group organized by a faculty member here at UGA (shout out to you Kaori Sakamoto!), and we were sorted into Hogwarts houses that competed against one another.
Participants from all teams congratulate each other on achievements, and motivate when someone is down. If your group wins or if you’re a prefect for the group, you even get a tshirt!
Suddenly, I was looking forward to working out and excited about seeing changes. And joining with other moms who were successfully balancing fitness and parenthood was fabulous. The camaraderie was energizing!
Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a group like that where you are, or maybe you’re not. But here are some ways to get that kind of support and energy:
- If you belong to a gym, check there for a fitness group. Many gyms purposely host these kinds of groups because they know that peer pressure is motivating.
- Type “fitness” into your Facebook search bar and you’ll more than likely find a group like mine. Most of these are open to everyone. Just ask to join!
- Try My Fitness Pal. There’s a whole community of folks there that support and motivate each other daily.
- Make fitness a family thing. Everyone can walk together every night, or the kids can have their own set of kiddie weights while Mom does the workout. My kids LOVED this! They begged me to do workouts every night, and that was certainly motivation.
And the biggest challenge of all: Kids make it more likely that you’ll fall off the wagon.
You might have to hit McDonald’s for the sake of time on your way to gymnastics one night, or you find yourself at a kids’ birthday party where someone hands you a giant delicious-looking slice of cake.
Don’t punish yourself. Eat the cake. In fact, eat cake once a week every week of you want. One cheat day a week is ok. And if you fall off the wagon, dust yourself off and get back on.
I just fell off the wagon recently, and I’m just getting back on now. I know I can, because I’ve done it many times before, and I know you can too. Each time it gets easier, both mentally and physically.
What’s the Take-home?
There is a common misconception that getting fit takes a dramatic diet change, tons of effort, and long, grueling workouts. But those are the efforts that tend to fail, especially when your mornings are filled with packing your kids’ lunches, and nights are spent trying to get them to go to bed.
The fact is, small, subtle changes can trigger dramatic results, and are way more sustainable over the long-term. Fitness and parenthood can coexist!
My favorite quote is “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today”. Do something small to start right now. And soon you and your kids will be able to see actual physical evidence of the superhero you already are.
Good luck and Happy New Year to you all!
