Anyone else struggling to balance life and fitness?

I can relate. I work in-house (legal) and have a son who has practices 3+ a week in the evenings. I do a lot of the meal prep and dinner plus other household chores (honestly it sounds a little old-fashioned but those are things that I learned from my mom and can easily get around to them). I am the morning workout person, and that has recently meant that I'm in bed before my son sometimes.

I have set some of my hobbies (photography, writing, paper-crafts, knitting) on the back burner since I started pursuing fitness more. If I have an hour or so (and the energy to do so), I'll pick something up. Usually, it'll be spurred by a burst of creativity or an idea that intrigued me. However, it's usually one thing at a time these days.

I try not to stress too much about it. If there's something I really want to do, sometimes I let other stuff go and try not to freak out about it. A pre-packaged breakfast every now and then, a shorter workout, letting the hubby manage bedtime wrangling, etc.

Trying to balance it all is an ongoing effort each month as schedules & "free" time changes. I'm a single parent sharing custody of our 3 busy boys with an unconventional placement schedule due to their dad's job, so I have them different days each week. I work full time and in a long-distant relationship with has me traveling on weekends sometimes. Keeping balance is like goal setting or keeping your financial budget....you need to revisit it each month or as often as needed so you can stay on task. Priority setting, flexibility, determination & compromise is key. Plus, having your entire family on board is a must. Unless I want to work out at 4am everyday, my workout times are not consistent, yet I manage to get one in each day. I have sat my kids down, explained to them the importance of me working on my health & fitness. They are my biggest support/ fans!! They understand why I may need to workout for a bit and give some attention to myself vs. to them at times. You may find that they want to join in!! The 8 yr old wants to do yoga with me, the 11 & 14 yr olds have gone running with me too. We can't forget that we are leading by example. You may be tired at first, but once you get the ball rolling, it's a breeze!!!

Single parents working multiple jobs have my sympathies. The rest, not so much.

When I was working out every day during the summer, it was hard sometimes. But since I've cut it down to about 4-5 times a week, it's not bad. I cut most of the cardio out, and generally just do 30 minute lifting sessions, and maybe 20 minutes on the elliptical once or twice a week. The only thing I haven't been doing is reading. Because if I read, I won't do anything else. I tend to neglect the rest of my life when I'm really into a book. :laugh:

Squats and deadlifts.

Here you go again! It seems that your vocabulary is very limited because the only comment that you make to any and all threads is "squats and deadlifts."

There is more to life and exercise than that. Geez!

Edited to add: sorry if my comment was off and I didn't mean to hijack the thread, but I was annoyed by the comment made by that poster.

OP: We were all in your shoes at sometime in our lives. Balance is hard to achieve, but with trail an error you will get there. You got some nice ideas thrown at you ( except the squats deadlifts), take what fits in your schedule and life style. Good luck!

Maybe I'm weird or too much of a newb but..I'm not giving up all my hobbies, especially for exercise. I don't care if that makes me sound all anti-fitness or whatever. Folks talk about balance then talk about getting up at 4 am, exercising thru lunch, etc (I'm not pointing fingers. Just repeating things I've read on the thread). If that works for them, that is Awesome!! But it won't work for everybody. If we r talking about *balance*, I like what one poster said about prioritizing- sometimes you say fug it and finish your book. Sometimes the laundry doesn't get put away. And yes, sometimes the workout just ain't happening. So be it. If I had to replace knitting with exercising I would be an unhappy person. I'm Not doing it.

OP, you have my sympathies and I agree that it's almost impossible to fit in what you have to do and have room for anything else. I do agree that there are seasons in one's life where "balance" is just about laughable. I could bore you with my my stats about my young, numerous, and belligerent kids and work and hubby always being gone, but I'm not gonna. You wanna whine? I'm right there with you! I get it- it's hard! And I hope it gets easier for you and me and everybody else who is trying to do it all and be fit, but it.is.hard. I know you said you've been at this for years now (I haven't), but I'm hoping that as time goes by we can improve on achieving our own personal balances. In the meantime, try not to stress it too much. Just do what you can do- that's all you can do anyway. One can't do better than their best so why beat ourselves up over doing our best?