Mom's of Autistic children, trying to do it all!

My mom is 57 & the mother of two autistic sons (Age 23 & 39 right now). I'm not one of them, I'm the girl. Both my brothers live at home, do not drive & require daily rides from her to & from camp/school. My mom cooks a full course dinner every night, does the younger son's laundry & never leaves him home alone. My dad works full-time & camps out in his bedroom so she doesn't get much help. She also has hypothyroidism, arthirits & tweaky joints. She retired a couple years ago from a physical job in a chipstand.

She is 5'3" & 170lbs. Before her thyroid, she was 130lbs. She's always worked out but right now at her age she rides her recumbent bike every day for 30mins & does some abs exercises. She is trying out yoga at the moment. Before her tweaky joints, she weightlifted with dumbbells as heavy as 15lbs. She also watches what she eats & pays attention to current health news. She's pretty amazing! I don't even know how she's managed to raise the 3 of us, work, exercise, read, clean, cook, buy the boys clothes & keep track of their appointments without going crazy!

My oldest is high functioning, younger son is typical.. I work nights, cook, clean, take both kids to their appointments. Up during the day to get kids where they need to be and I do some audit assignments for extra money where time allows during the day. I used to never work out - never wanted to leave the house with my oldest because of challenging behaviour and the looks I'd get. I went about 4 years before I could get the right child care (and funding) for my oldest and I have no family around anymore. My oldest started half day school when he was five and now is at a school with full day learning (now 7 years old).

A lot of my working out last year came from doing workouts at home while the kids were napping or entertained in some way. Fast forward to this year, I work out every morning after the pair are off to school - thankfully my oldest finally started at a full day school and we were able to secure child care for the little one. I have been a member at the YMCA for almost a year and a half and it only cost $20/month. I run, lift weights (squat 160lbs, deadlift 160lbs this week, started at 95lbs late February of this year), play sports with other members.

Normally I wouldn't share this amount of info but I want you and anyone else out there in our shoes to know that they aren't alone and that they can definitely make working out a priority. I felt alone and depressed for a long time until I started working out. You have to make YOU a priority or you will go bonkers. I've been there, don't allow it to happen to you :P

Feel free to add me.

Hi.