If your like me, you want to get fit to feel better about yourself, to be able to fit back into your clothes and to have more energy to run around with your kids and have fun together as a family. I will try to fit exercise in any way I can, like on the days my husband is home from work, at night once the kids are in bed or during the day I may get 10 minutes if Im lucky while my baby sleeps and my toddler is distracted beside me for ten minutes with her favourite toy or doing some colouring in or pastings. But these things dont always go to plan or as smooth as that sounds, soooooo I have found other ways to start getting fit and losing a few kilos.
And the most exciting thing is, IT IS WORKING................
Here is an example of my incidental fitness session yesterday:
- Dancing around the lounge room to music with both my kids, we did this for about 20 minutes, half of which I had my baby in my arms (so there was an extra 10kg of weight while I bounced around). I really danced, so my heart was beating fast for the entire 20 minutes, I incorporated exercise moves into my dancing to work a little harder, like lifting my knees up to my hip level in a run type motion on the spot, doing star jumps, lifting my knee up then kicking out front alternating legs and going faster as I went and clapping high above my head over and over (my gosh this works the arms after 30 times continuous). My kids thought this was great and joined in, my toddler thinks its so much fun to run on the spot while dancing around and we all giggled so much.
- During our outside play, my toddler was playing in our sand and water table and my baby in the swing, so as I was pushing the swing I would do star jumps. My baby thought I looked hilarious obviously as he laughed at me the whole time. I was able to do 100 star jumps, it was great. After this, I ran around the backyard for another ten minutes while chasing after the dogs with my toddler.
- Our house is up stairs (about 14 steps), so while my toddler played happily with chalk on the concrete at the bottom of the stairs, I had my baby in my arms and after walking down realised I left a drink bottle at the top of the stairs so raced back up with bubs still in my arms to grab it. Racing back down, I realised I had just made myself puff from three quick trips up and down the stairs, so off I went.... My toddler was loving her chalk drawings, so the baby and I ran up and down my 14 stairs over a dozen times and boy was that a good workout. I am still paying for that today, haha.
I had just done a workout session with both my children, without any time away from them, without any hassel, tears or stress. Happy kids, happy and FIT mummy. YAH!
Use music that you LOVE and will motivate you and get you pumped. Burn a compilation of your favourite exercise songs onto one cd or onto your ipod/mp3 so you can use that. -A really big thanks to my very good friend wonderwoman for her time & effort to make my music so awesome and motivational, it truly makes all the difference to having fun and keeping fit.
Another thing I do each week for ARM EXERCISES, other than carrying around and picking up my children each day is:
- When all my jobs are done at night, often my husband and I sit down together to watch a movie or a taped show. So twice a week I will lift some dumbbell weights by choosing 3 arm exercises and doing 3 reps of each. This is over and done with in 20 minutes max, but as were watching tv and chatting, it feels like 5 minutes. Its not every night, so for 20minutes twice a week you will be glad you made the little extra effort because your wings, I mean arms, will thank you.
Dont forget to give yourself a reward at the end of the week if you have stuck with your goals and done these exercises. Dont use food, choose things just for you like a nice warm bath, or buying your favourite magazine, or giving yourself a manicure, pedicure or facial. Make sure you compliment yourself on your hard work, you deserve it.
JUST REMEMBER THESE EASY STEPS........................................
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
USE EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES AS WORKOUT SESSIONS.
BREAK IT UP...... 3 ten minute activites is great and achievable.
USE TV TIME AT NIGHT TO DO A FEW ARMS EXERCISES, JUST 10 MINS.
PUT ON MUSIC THAT WILL GET YOU MOTIVATED.
REWARD YOURSELF (but not with food).
