Fitness for Frazzled Moms

In the spirit of the “no money and no time” theme here at Making Bricks, we’re going to multi-task our way to better health.

I have actually almost always double-teamed my fitness routine with another essential activity, like making money. That’s why for many years I ran a little dog walking and pet sitting business. It was great when I lived in Northern California (Oakland, but it counts) and could hike some excellent seaside cliffs and forested mountain trails with a pack of crazy dogs, pretty much every day.

But now I have different responsibilities. Now I have kids and about ten different jobs. It’s your basic constant-running-on-no-sleep situation. A hell of a lot of it is driving, and a lot of it in front of a computer. Then there’s slumped-on-the-lid-of-a-training-potty while the kids are in the bath. In between, we try to have the meaningful experiences.

Parenting young children is one of those things that is so draining that you may feel as if you ran a marathon, when in fact you spent much of the day issuing directives from the fetal position.

So how to double-team fitness and parenting young children?

There are a lot of obvious solutions to the fitness problem, including just getting outside and playing with your kids. Walking to the store instead of driving. Playing ball, or Frisbee, or going swimming. But it can still be hard, especially in the dead of winter, to make this happen on a regular-enough basis. We are often managing hectic schedules that are plotted down to the last minute.

Following are just a few ways to get your “kicks” in fits and spurts throughout the day.

Challenge yourself & your kids.

Try saying this (or something else age appropriate) to your children: “Mommy is going to see if she can do sit-ups until you run to your room, pick out a clean shirt, and come back here.” Kids love a challenge, and wanting to see if you’re still doing sit-ups can help expedite their task. So go ahead and keep doing sit-ups until they report back or it becomes obvious that they are never going to.

Encourage their “know-it-all-ism.”

Kids think they know it all. As parents, we spend a lot of time praising them for learning new things, but also making sure they understand how much is left to learn. But when trying to incorporate fitness into a crammed schedule, why not just let them believe they are experts? My son saw me doing some impromptu aerobics one day and said, “I know all about exercise. I’m the best at it. Look, Mommy!” What followed was a highly silly routine devised by him, where each move got weirder and more convoluted. But I didn’t care. We both got our bodies moving and we laughed a lot, too.

Endorphins v. adrenaline

Whenever you get that rising rage that comes from being pushed just a bit too far by your kids, instead of screaming, work it out with say, 10-15 roundhouse kicks. I’ve found that it cuts the tension quite a bit and also resets the kids’ attention spans.

Fitness for Frazzled Moms probably won’t yield those rock-hard abs we envy in celebrities and the childless. But it can help keep us connected to our own bodies during those grueling years when nurturing our children’s health and development takes over everything else.

Rather than struggling to carve out time to exercise alone, adding 10 minutes of cardio or strength-building to a couple of activities you are already doing is a stress-free alternative.

 I’ve found I have better energy and a slightly slimmer waist after a month of exercise multi-tasking. But I still have a long way to go in my overall mission for health, so I can’t wait to see what my son’s got planned for us next.