I know what you mean. I recently made some huge changes and guess what? The time was there! I have an 11 year old son and 6 year old daughter, husband of 21 years and a full time job- NOT even mentioning the active social life!!! I want to lose a total of 50 lbs ( baby weight - did I mention shes almost 7!) Soooo....I
1) had the satellite tv / home internet cancelled.
2) did some major reorganizing (pre- separating laundry, designating exact spaces for things upon entering, etc.. to cut out the CONSTANT picking up)
3) prep food in advance as much as possible at night (no tv makes it easy to find something to do!)
4) and informed my family I was walking/ jogging/ riding... doing SOMETHING in the evenings. Sometimes together with them, sometimes alone.
Funny with no entertainment: my laundry is always done, kitchen is cleaned after dinner, lawn is mowed AND I still have time to work out!

I am a mom with three sons at home (18, 13, and 12), and I'm almost a newlywed (married a little over a year) after being a widowed mom on her own for almost 4 years. I am a school counselor at a disciplinary alternative education campus, and between my career, my boys, my husband, church, and everything else, time is limited.

I make myself get up every morning and hit the gym at 5:00 am. My evenings are a conglomeration of *this game, *that performance, *those meetings, and "other duties as assigned," besides cleaning, cooking, and other general mom stuff. My sweet husband is a truck driver who is only home 2-3 days a week so we have to keep everything up and running as smoothly as possible (like a well-oiled machine) to prevent chaos. Though with three sons, chaos is afoot 99% of the time.

I started a physician-supervised weight loss program AND joined my gym on 2/15/2012. I'm down 36 pounds since then. My boys are all pretty good about eating whatever I cook now, even though it's healthy and usually high protein and low carb. I have the full support of my hubby and my friends, which helps tremendously. Everyone knows that I get and deserve my gym time, and also time to exercise in the evenings when possible. We try to make those family walks in the neighborhood or something similar.

It's hard to be all things to all people when you are a mom. Right now I'm trying to focus on me for a little bit so I can be better for them. Best of luck to each of you in your own journey to health and fitness.

Wow - I'm impressed, that is a bold move, cancelling the cable. I think there would be a riot in my house, in fact I'm sure of it. But yes, I do turn off the TV and make the kids go outside when ever it is nice out. I hate it when they sit and watch TV, do anything but that, even if it is playing a computer game, at least using their brains a little bit.

I may try the 5AM exercise, I have to find some time to do it, I have a really hard time waking up, so not sure how this will work, need to make the commitment to do it and get buy in from the hubby as my kids are up early and I will not be back before my son is up and running.

*also wanted to say to anyone in the group to friend me if you like!

Father of five, ranging in ages from newly-8 to almost 20. I get my workouts in either on my lunch break (stairs are great!) or after 830 when the youngest are safely in bed. A local 24 hr gym is my 'me time' where I can just go, sweat, and be "away" from the daily stress. Then it's time to go home again, make sure laundry is running, notes are signed, school lunches packed, and so forth 'til the next day starts it all over again.
The kids are worth it. I plan to hang around on this planet long enough to see them all become Evil Overlords in their own right.

I don't think there's any magic solution but you have to just make a commitment to yourself which ain't easy. I have promised to myself to run three days per week and make myself go out even if it's just a short run. Then on the other days I concentrate on arms abs or stretching. I have two kids aged three and four and manage a legal practice so my life is pretty full. Have an extra 10lbs since kids and it's been one step forward two steps back on weight loss front. I am always able to give myself some excuse and feel that because I work so hard that I deserve pizza and garlic bread . Want to lose this extra weight but not sure if I can even manage to do a small bit of self sacrifice ESP as going on girls night out on Saturday which is a really rare occasion. Anyway will try do good tomorrow and just take it one day at a time.

Organize! That's my best advice. I made a proper kid friendly place for everything - book bags, shoes, jackets, laundry (NOT THE FLOOR!!!) They also scrap their plates and put them in the sink, etc. I've shaved an hour just by not having to follow their trails of junk every day! Im no longer the MAID. =] good luck!

I'm a full time working mom of two. My son is 2.5 years and my daughter will be 1 next week. A couple months ago they both started finally sleeping through most nights, and I finally was able to crawl out of my sleep deprived haze of the past couple years enough to actually get back working out. I work out 2-3 nights a week after the kids go to sleep. Some of those nights my hubby helps get the baby to sleep so I can get my workout in without staying up all night. I have an elliptical and an exercise bike in the basement. I use watching fun TV series as my motivator. It is my time to watch stuff my hubby isn't interested in. We also have been going out on our bikes with the kids in the trailer the past couple weekends. Pulling 55 pounds of kids plus 35 or so of trailer plus gear is a lot harder than just biking alone!

Hey Everyone. Feel free to add me as a friend so we can support each other! 7 lbs down 43 to gooo!!!

See post above.

Wow, you are all doing amazing things! A lot of inspiration here, and I so admire those of you w/more than multiple kids...I only have 1 amazing, beautiful 5yr old, and find myself not knowing what day it is at times trying to keep up with everything between her, hubby, work, and life in general.

For me, I had to finally just be a little selfish and trust hubby was going to get whatever needed to be done for himself and DD while I took some me time to work out 3 days/week right after work. I learned taking classes were way more beneficial for me than going to the guy or doing stuff on my own...I committed to a 5:15p spin class Mon/Wed/Fri right after work, no going home in between (I would never be motivated to go if I went home first), and it feels wonderful! That's pretty much my "me time", and the selfishness is paying off in my weight loss, health, and overall attitude. Makes for a much happier mommy!

On the weekends we make time to get out of the house as a family and walk, go the park, etc. Desperately trying to teach my daughter the importance of moving and being active, and the fun we can have together outside. This doesn't always happen, sometimes life gets in the way, but I also found for me it's ok if I can't get in exercise everyday, committing to class 3x a week, and something on the weekends is pretty darn good.

From now until May, all I can do is eat the best I can and get in an hour of exercise Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My schedule sucks! After work, then school then homework, I go to bed about midnight or 1, then wake up at 5:30 to get to work by 7am. Two days a week my husband is able to take the kids to school so I have slightly less to stress over on those days.

I'm trying to prep and freeze a weeks worth of meals on the weekend. Then I can just thaw and throw in the crock pot in the morning. My house only gets cleaned on the weekend aside from the dishes. That's just how it HAS to be for now. Make do!

Time management is so difficult with our busy lives. I hear it from everyone and I go through it myself as well sometimes.

I am 38, wife of 13 years, mother of 2 (9 and 11 yrs old) and I too work full time outside the home. Before I got on my weight loss kick back in August 2009 I too believed that there just weren't enough hours in the day to add in exercise. Boy was I wrong. Once the light went on and I decided to dedicate myself to getting rid of the 7 year old "baby fat" hahaha, I found that not only was there enough time in the day but I had so much extra time to kill. Strange how this happened. I found myself pacing in the living room after the kids went to bed thinking...I'm bored and there is still 2 hours before bed time. It was the weirdest feeling. I found that I was never sitting on the couch anymore watching my shows but instead I was running around constantly getting things done just to burn more calories and take more steps each day. My mom used to make jokes that I was like a cricket bouncing around the house...lol

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that I was determined to get the weight off and even though there was the same 24 hours in my day as before, I was able to learn how to manage my time better which meant I could do my normal daily things and still have plenty of time to work out.

I thought about cancelling the cable but my mother lives with us and she almost had a stroke when I mentioned it...so much for that idea