Fit Tip Friday (on a Tuesday): How being a SAHM keeps me fit

Edit: Hey, guys! So, I wrote this last week, but with family in town I never got it up. I was having issues with adding pictures and I kept waiting to post until it was perfect, but something is better than nothing, right? ENJOY! And don’t forget to subscribe via email to know about posts as they pop up! I’d love to hear your tips and tricks in the comment section, and please feel free to share!

Oh hey, there party people! It’s finally Friday! It is so funny how, even with being a stay at home Mom, I can still get so excited about the weekends. Clearly, it all comes down to one thing, my husband. Because let’s take a look at the life the kids and I lead:

We live at my work. 

We live at Ryker’s school. 

We do the same grouping of activities in one way or another, every day of the week. 

So, the weekends don’t really change that much for me and my day, except Daddy is home and that means that we get to watch more Walking Dead at night, haha. We are slowly switching our workout schedules to drop weekend workouts, because we basically never want to do them, but this weekend I think that we should try and make it. Vic’s parents have been in town all week and we’ve been enjoying family time instead of gym time, and we’ve also enjoyed lots of wine and your girl is carrying about FIVE POUNDS of water weight. Yes, I know it is water weight because it happened overnight and I haven’t gone about my normal routines to shed stored glycogen and water. So, today, I got in a good cardio session (I’m at 30 minutes, six days a week right now) and I got in a fantastic workout that focused on squat and bench, with shoulder and chest accessory work for strength and aesthetics. 

Moving on though, I wanted to share a few ways that being a stay at home Mom keeps me fit and working towards my goals. So many women have become bogged down by the excuse (sorry ladies, it is) that being with their kids and having a home to manage leaves them without time to focus on themselves. Well, I’m here to tell you that all you need is a big ole priority shift. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and a family that is led by a Momma that values her health, fitness, and feels good in her skin is a family that also learns their own path towards feeling confident, healthy and strong. 

NEAT: Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is basically what your body burns when you aren’t exercising to create increased output, so walking to your refrigerator, vacuuming, chasing the kids. The more you move, the more you burn, the bigger deficit you create via activity which can then be used to lose weight, or you can make up the difference with more food and increase your intake capacity a bit. This doesn’t mean go do more cardio, this means just MOVE. Go to the park with your kids, and don’t sit on the bench and scroll Instagram, chase your three year old! Push her on the swing! Play hide and seek with the big guy! This can also be as simple as getting up to get a glass of water for yourself instead of asking your hubby to get it. Vacuum that extra day instead of vegging in front of HGTV, you’ll have a cleaner house and you’ll rack up those steps. 

A CLEANING ROUTINE: Now, this goes along with NEAT a bit, but there is also a bit more to the story. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that during my prep I started showing my clean kitchen each night before bed. This habit became extremely important to me, not only did it feel nice to go to bed and wake up to a clean kitchen, but it was a positive routine. You see, positive routines breed like rabbits, they go nuts. You find one thing in your day that is TOTALLY able to to be added to your life but that for whatever reason you’ve been slacking on, and start doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Once you start there, you’ll find it’s so easy to keep up and it becomes a habit, not a new task. That one habit leads to “ok, my kitchen is clean and I want to fold all the laundry that is in the dryer each night”, which later becomes putting that laundry away as soon as it comes out, and it builds and builds and now you’re all over your clean house, rockin’ that Mom life and rackin’ up steps. 

NATURE/DOG WALKS: This tags along with the first two. I’ve talked about it before on my YouTube channel…I hate walking my dogs. I absolutely hate leashing them up, getting the kids outside and trying to coordinate my circus on a 20-minute walk before we go to the gym, but we do it every day that the weather allows. Not only do the dogs need the exercise, but we all need the time outside. Listen, the kids have iPads and Netflix is my sisterwife and sometimes I just want to sit down and hide under a blanket too, but we all feel better once that shit show has made its’ rounds throughout the neighborhood. In fact, for the month of November I’ve committed to either 30 minutes of play at a state or city park, or walking for at least a mile, each day with the kids. This isn’t just about the dogs, it’s about teaching the kids how important it is that every body, animal and human alike, benefits from daily exercise and that it should be treated with the same amount of respect as brushing your teeth. It’s preventative, it makes you feel good, and you’ll feel better all day once it’s done.  The kids are watching and listening, show them positive habits and be consistent! Now, Cora knows to run for the leashes once my last cup of coffee is done and we are out the door!

KIDS’ CLUB: I guarantee that unless you live in the middle of nowhere, there is a gym nearby that has a kids’ club facility and it is the greatest thing in the world. For roughly $50/month I get two hours a day, every day of the week, where the kids can go play with other children, get in their own exercise and I can regain my sanity. Yes, I understand this can be a stretch on your budget because you’ll also need a membership, but for our entire family of four I think we pay about $110/month for our membership and it is worth every penny. Also, that ‘s like one really good dinner out where we order a bottle of wine and appetizers, and we’d totally cut that out to justify the gym. We’ve experienced a wide variety of financial setups when I was in the Navy and Vic was in school, or when we moved to CA for my job and then it was a bust after six weeks, but we also make sure that when we arrange our budget the gym is included for our sanity. 

While on prep, I found a way to get in my prescribed cardio and my lifts within my allotted two hours, so I also learned how to effective and efficient within a short period of time. What I really love about our kids’ club is that they have floor to ceiling windows and the kids can see us on the cardio equipment and at the weights. This has led to many discussions and what and why I was doing certain exercises. Again, monkey see, monkey do. 

Some days can be so hectic, and some days can have a lot more seat work or cuddles on the couch, but overall my day to day life with the kids and keeping up the house leads to anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 steps, easy. I try my hardest to work hard in the gym, but to also hold myself accountable at home and get things done so that I feel productive and avoid being sedentary as much as possible. How do your kids and your lifestyle motivate you to get things done? Could you use some help identifying dead time in your day that could be used for more activity, either in or out of the home? These are the kinds of things that I love helping my clients with! 

I hope you guys had a fantastic week! Time to do my afternoon scramble before Vic gets home, it’s been a rainy day so I’ve got thirty minutes to knock out vacuuming and swiffering the downstairs! Ready….GO!