Keeping Fit as a Mom: Healthy Moms Make for a Healthy Family

Posted: May 8, 2012 at 7:24 AM [May 8, 2012]

Now that I'm a mom Mother's Day has a bit different meaning to me than ever before. I've always had a great appreciation for my mom and step-mom, but with a two year-old little boy I can truly see all it is that the mothers in my life have done, and continue to do!

I also fully understand now the great luxury of a shower, 20 minutes of time to read or even watch a bit of a TV show (if reading seems too ambitious), and the improbability of maintaining a pedicure.
But as the "me-time" moments of my life become fewer and farther between one area that cannot be allowed to fall off my priority list is fitness.

Carving out the time to do my GYROTONIC workouts each day, and to walk as much as possible throughout my day, helps me keep up my energy, the strength to haul a 30 pound strong willed child back to "time-out" too many times to count, maintain my alignment after a third night sleeping  with my little guy tucked under my arm after another bad monster dream, and keep my calm and patience through all of the above.

People often ask me how as a working mom I can manage to keep up my workouts. I can't imagine keeping all that up without my workouts!  But it has to be blocked off on my schedule to make sure it really happens. The other trainers and office staff now know not to ask me questions or try to chat while I'm working out. I find that the more seriously I treat my workout times the more others respect those times as well. When I started to book my workouts as a regular, standing time, and to refer to those appointments as something I "need" to do, rather than something that would be "nice" to fit in, my family and co-workers started to treat those times as important as well.

It's taken me awhile to figure it out, but now I see that a happy, healthy mama makes a happy, healthy family!  

 

To the other busy moms out there, how do you make fitness a priority? How to you carve out time to take care of yourself? How do you garner support from your family so that you can make time to go to the gym or simply head outside for a walk?