Five ways to fit fitness into any crazy busy mama day

Long gone are the days when we could plan our days and they would actually go pretty much like we’d imagined.

I’ll bet we’ve all thought of ourselves as flexible in our past lives – at home, at work and with friends.

But – correct me if I’m wrong – NONE of us even so much as knew what that word meant until our gorgeous babies came along.

Cue….daily chaos. Of the most beautiful kind.

As welcome as this beautiful chaos is, it makes planning our time damn. near. impossible.

Especially when it comes to fitting in time to exercise.

If you’re a member of a gym with a crèche, great. If you can exercise while your kids are at school, nursery or with family, awesome.

But HOW THE HELL can it be done alongside all the other billion things you’ve got to fit into an already seemingly unachievable day?

Girls, we need to readjust our expectations of what meaningful exercise involves.

Here are five ways we reckon should help you to fit fitness into any day…..

1. You don’t need an hour.
   
   You don’t even need half an hour.If you could find just 10 or 20 minutes in your day 3-4 times a week, you could fit exercise into your mental life.It doesn’t need to be at the same time, or on the same day each week. Just whenever you can find those minutes.

2. Make every minute count.Here’s the key – it MUST be HARD AND INTENSE for every single one of those precious minutes you find to focus on YOU.To get the benefit from such a short amount of time, you need to go hard. Interval training is perfect for this sort of short burst training, as is Tabata training. (More to follow soon in future posts about these types of workouts.)

3. Think about where you can steal the time from.Perhaps you could find the time by cutting the time you spend on all the yawn-inducing jobs at home (not easy I know – especially when you’re already going at break-neck efficiency speed to get ‘em all done), or arrange for someone to pick up the kids for you.Switch to online shopping to claw back some time, or – if you work – sneak in a quick session in your lunchbreak. If you watch TV, do your workout while watching.There MUST be somewhere you can free up 10 or 20 minutes in your day!

4. Get the kids involved.You definitely don’t need to be alone to get a brilliant workout.If you have a small baby who still uses a buggy, go for a run or power jog with the buggy or make sure you squeeze in a quick workout during their sleep time.If they’re older, get out in the garden with the kids, make sure they’ve got plenty to keep them entertained and create a small circuit of jump squats, fast lunges, burpees, push-ups, punches and kicks for you to go through three or four times.

5. If you really can’t find 10 or 20 minutes at once, break it down into smaller chunks.As long as you keep the pace up, this can be just as effective as doing it all in one go.Run up and down the stairs for a few minutes. Add some energy to your housework or games with the kids and get a sweat on.Do press ups, squats and lunges or on-the-spot running while holding the little one or get older kids to see if they can do the exercises too – make it fun!

There’s no easy way to put yourself first, make yourself the top priority and commit to doing this regularly. But if you do, it won’t just be you that thanks – well, you – for it. Your partner, kids, family, friends and colleagues will all notice big changes in you physically, mentally and your body language will change too.

Hurrah!