When do fit in your workout?
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srkbaker
Posts: 6 Member
Since I have had a child, I have found it so hard to workout regularly. My son will wake between 6-7:30 am. My husband is suppose to do morning routine, but on days my son doesn't' sleep well we wakes up around 6ish he will scream his head off if my husband even attempt to enter his room. If he sleeps until 7-7:30 or I'm able to leave the house for my work-out I'm in the clear. Winter months, when the sun isn't up until 7:15am and I need to be at work my 8-8:30 plus a 40-50 minute commute, it just feels impossible to get into a routine. I do evening routine and now that he's 4 bed time drags on forever sometime until 9-9:30. I'm pooped out by the time I leave his room and I end up falling asleep 30 minutes later.
What has worked for you? I know it's not impossible. This summer and fall I did it about 3x a week, but the winter......ugh!
What has worked for you? I know it's not impossible. This summer and fall I did it about 3x a week, but the winter......ugh!
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Ok- While I cannot understand fully what you are going thru, because my kid is typical, but my neice is 5 and Autistic. So I know the difference between a typical child screaming for Mommy and a special needs child screaming for Mommy. With that being said...I am NOT going to suggest stick to your morning routine and let your husband deal with it. Do you have any downtime at work? When I work long hours, I will workout at my desk. I will do pushups on my desk. Really helps with form to do them on your toes the normal way. I will do a few sets of 10 whenever I can. Do you have something heavy at work to hold? Bear hug and do a 3 sets of 10 squats. Stairs? sprint them?? I know that might require having sneakers at work... so not sure if it is an option for you. But when I workout at work (i work alone from 3pm on...so it is easy for me) I will do 15 squats, sprint the stairs, 15 push ups, sprint the stairs, 15 tricep dips on my chair, sprint the stairs..I will do that for 3 or 4 rounds. Not sure of the calorie burn...but i will be tired after.
And just remember...the key to losing weight is diet.0 -
Thanks Jill. That's a great suggestion. I"m currently working Baltimore (not a great place to walk around), But I never thought about bringing my weights to work. I have my own office and meetings are general schedule a week out.
Thanks!0 -
I work out after work or even after dinner.. if my husband is home he helps with the girls if hes not home I just kinda work out around them... or I let them watch me or "work our with me". I do Insanity so I am infront of the TV but I like the fact that they want to work out with me... I'm going to try very hard to start getting up early to work out but it might just be the death of me(I LOVE my sleep a bit to much)0
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It boggles my mind how much time all my daily tasks take up. I try a video workout and let them play around me before bed time. Sometimes I get down a "privileged" toy from the top shelf. Because it is rare it keeps them occupied for a while.
If it just isn't happening I turn on some music and dance and jump with them until I am good and sweaty. No real rhyme or reason but it is movement.
Lunch breaks at work can include (if you have an office with a door and privacy) leg work, arm work, etc.
I also have a wagon that I can pull behind my bike. Load the kids in and take off. Even as I say it I realize it sounds easier than it is.
At my very worst I do some planks and situps before bed and try not to berate myself for it.0 -
I am very fortunate to have a gym right at work for employees. I try to get there at least 4 times per week and just plan it around my meetings, etc. So that may mean a morning workout, or at my lunch break, or late afternoon. Whatever works. They also offer yoga and zumba classes, so when I can I enjoy those as well.0
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^WOW... If only my job had a gym and yoga classes!! I get up at 6am and jump on the treadmill, if only about 20 mins before baby gets up (I'm lucky he usually sleeps til 7:30 or 8am). I just started going to the gym 2 days a week (about 3 mins from work) on my lunch break. I can only get in about 30 good mins but it's better than nothing!0
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This is the hardest part for me and I don't have young kids. It's much harder in the winter because it's dark and cold. I used to work out in the mornings but in the last year I got pretty lazy and chose to sleep later and I'm having a hard time breaking myself of that habit. I worked out both days over the weekend which is easy because I can fit it in whenever.
I keep thinking I'll work out when I get home after work but I haven't done that either... :yawn:
In the past it worked better for me to get up a few minutes earlier in the morning and work out before I went to work, it gave me a lot more energy through out the day. I just need to make myself get up!! :blushing:0 -
^WOW... If only my job had a gym and yoga classes!! I get up at 6am and jump on the treadmill, if only about 20 mins before baby gets up (I'm lucky he usually sleeps til 7:30 or 8am). I just started going to the gym 2 days a week (about 3 mins from work) on my lunch break. I can only get in about 30 good mins but it's better than nothing!
Good for you! It all adds up, and since you are losing weight, it is obviously working.0 -
I hate mornings!!
So I workout at home (DVDs) after my mini goes to bed about 8-8:30pm. I can sometimes get it in while she is doing homework/before dinner, but that is very rare. 0 -
It is definitely much harder in the winter! Since we have had the snow and cold the last few days, and we have been stuck in the house, I've noticed it is difficult to get even my 10,000 steps in that I usually have by 6pm on a normal day! Since I am a little OCD when it comes to getting those 10,000 steps on my FitBit every day, I've taken to literally walking laps in my house - up and down stairs or in and out of rooms to get moving. It felt silly the first couple of times that I did it, but I feel like much less of a slug than if I just sat in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket like I wanted to! Sometimes the kids join me and we do follow the leader - walk, run, march, hop on one foot, stop for jumping jacks, walk backwards, etc.
On normal winter days, I have been trying to get up early in the morning to do an exercise DVD, and if that doesn't happen then I try to make it to the gym in the evening even if it means the kids go to the gym child watch for 30 minutes. I used to feel bad about taking them to the gym after having been at work all day and them in school/daycare, but they like the toys and coloring stuff up there, it is usually for less than an hour, and I think it makes me a much less stressed out mom and probably more fun for them to be around!
Summer time I try to go for a walk/run in the mornings while kids and husband are still asleep and then also walk at lunch at work (we have a campus with sidewalks between buildings) and then get the kids out in the stroller in the evening to head up to the park. It is MUCH easier to get steps and exercise in with longer days and better weather!
I used to hate getting up early in the morning but I decided I like having a little more time in the evenings to get dinner on the table and spend with the family more than the extra 30 minutes of sleep in the am. Plus I just feel better if I can check it off the list early in the day rather than having all day to think of reasons not to do it.0 -
It's such a challenge but so nice for everyone to post what works for them to get other ideas!
Most days of the week I get up at 5am while my husband and daughter sleep and go to the gym. When I get home I wake them up and feel like I didn't miss a beat. It usually sucks getting up that early but I LOVE being done that early too.
Some days I can't get up that early if I get to bed too late the night before. Those days I will either force myself to go to the gym after work or do a workout video at home. My daughter is 7 and loves doing these with me to whatever extent she wants/can. She also then asks to do a Yoga video every time - and I hate yoga - and now she wants a mat - haha.
When it's a decent temperature outside I go for a run on my lunch break. No, I don't shower before I go back to work because I can't. I bring a washcloth and I wash myself up with soap and water from the sink and put deoderant on and dry shampoo and I'm good to go. That being said, my office isn't very formal and I don't see customers face to face. I know this doesn't work for everyone. I do otherwise go for a walk every lunch break and I can get a few miles in in one hour. When it's cold or crappy I walk to the mall that's about a quarter mile away and walk through there.
Throughout the day I do little things - walk up and down the office stairs, tricep dips at my desk, jumping jacks in the bottom floor of a quiet stairwell, etc.
I do try to get my workouts in when my daughter is sleeping but I don't beat myself up the day or two that we end up going to the gym and she goes to the day care there. Sometimes I need my peace and quiet when she's sleeping to do homework or other things.
One thing I can tell you is that if you pick a time and place, a workout that you WANT to do, and schedule it like everything else, it's so much easier. If you have everything ready to get up and workout at 5am and you told yourself you are going to do it, no questions ask, you will likely do it.0 -
I hate mornings too!!
When I workout depends on my schedule. If I have the day off, I do it as soon as the kids go to bed (so around 7.) Generally I work 1-9pm or 3-11pm. If I get done @ 9, I workout as soon as I get home. If I go in @ 3, I do it before work. Those days I don't like b/c the kids are home and awake, so they are jumping all over me and that kind of thing. :P0 -
I am NOT a morning person but after 2 years of trying different things, AM is the Only time I can be consistent. So, its AM DVD Series. Now I Love it. I get mad if someone gets up too early (Like today) and throws me off.
Its even easier now that I'm doing T25, only a half hour, I know what I'm in for and can schedule the time. Alarm starts at 5, I get up at 5:30. takes me maybe 15 min to drink something be dressed, get on HRM, etc. Then I'm DONE for the day and don't have to think about it.0 -
I don't have a scheduled work out. I wake up at 5am, get home around 4:30, then cook and eat, that puts us at about 6pm, and then, it all depends on what we have going on with the kids. If there are no after school activities and there is math homework, I'm good, I have time to work out because dad does math, if it's any other kind of homework I'm busy until it's done or the kid has it figured out. If there's no homework, me and my girls dance our butts off while dad watches and my boys laugh at us and it's all in all a good time. But we just do it when we can. When summer comes back, I will be back to swimming every night. The kids don't have to go to bed early, no homework, no after school activities, so I swim and the kids get in the pool and count my laps. I have great kids, they love supporting mommy.0
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While I am by no means doing any of this NOW as I have fallen off the wagon, this is what I was doing last year:
- Walk around the office complex during my two 15 minutes breaks. As long as it wasn't raining, super cold, or super hot, I walked. I keep a pair of slip-on sneaker-like things at my desk. I bought a cheap pedometer at Target - 15 mins at a fairly brisk pace burned around 43 calories for me, that is 86 calories at the end of the day and in the beginning that is all I did.
-After the kids are bed (8-8:30pm), I would watch TV, fold laundry, do dishes etc. If I was watching TV, I started doing lunges, squats, push ups, planks, sit ups, tricep dips using the ottoman, leg lifts, etc while watching my shows. I bought some 3 lb hand held weights and started doing an arm routine (biceps curls, dead lifts, tricep extensions, and the like)
-I got really ambitious and started getting up early and did a work-out DVD. It had several different routines to choose from, some were only 15 minutes and one was around 30 minutes, plus the warm & cool down. I would get cardio and strength training in one!
-On nice weather weekends,I would take the kids for a walk, go to the park, or we would all go to a wooded-trail park for "hiking"
I lost about 10 pounds by logging everything on here and doing what I though was pretty minimal exercise. This year I don't want to lose focus and I want to become a BEAST!0 -
I wake up at 5am and do 30 minutes on the elliptical. There are some mornings that I lay in bed for 5 minutes trying to talk myself into getting out of bed, but in the end, I do get up. I find that I feel so much better after I have worked out. It helps that I prepare everything the night before. My workout clothes are already out and my ear buds are ready. I also have a bottle of water with an energy boost mixed in (saves me from drinking too much coffee). I've been watching TV shows from Netflix on my phone (my elliptical is in my kitchen where there is no TV). And since that's the only time I watch that show, it's my treat for working out. I plan on adding some upper body exercises soon.
I know it sucks getting up that early, and I just keep telling myself that it sucks to not be healthy.0 -
These have been my options, and I have rotated depending on what worked for me at the time:
Work out first thing in the AM, but that means I have to go to sleep early.
Work out right before bedtime, but I usually fall asleep putting my son to sleep.
Work out during my lunch hour.
Work out AS SOON AS I GET HOME FROM WORK, but then dinner is a little later.
Sometimes I can hit a run or a workout while dinner is heating up, if I am cooking chicken, or warming up something I had previously assembled.0 -
also some quick things that are relatively inexpensive are:
Jillian michaels (although I am not particularly a fan of her) 30 day shred
Shawn T has a fast and furious 20 minute insanity
And actually I've found several similar videos online for free. I can't remember the names right now, but they email them to me...0 -
As a working mom (2 jobs) with a 2 and 4 year old and a hubby, I am struggling with finding time for me! I love all the ideas so far and am going to try a few of the suggestions! I have a really nice Lance Armstrong elliptcial trainer that has a nice layer of dust on it and I come up with every excuse not to use it! Some excuses are valid (I hate where it's at upstairs in the "loft" area beasue I feel so closed in and its louder so it wakes kids up in the AM) but other excuses are not valid and are just adding to the reasons I am in the condition I am! I am about 40lbs over where I'd like to be but that changes THIS YEAR. My "baby" will be 3 this summer so the "baby weight" is no longer an excuse LOL!!!! I am hoping to start forcing myself to wake up earlier and stop using my friend the snooze button so much Keep the ideas coming ladies! Thanks! 0
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right after we get home from school/work. I do Jillian Michaels 30 day shred while she is doing homework & since it is only 25 min long it fits perfectly into our after school/before dinner routine!0
