Personally speaking I know that The Husband and I are better parents when we are fit. We’re happier, we’re able to do all the fun stuff that The Kid wants to do, and that we want to do. It’s hard to do a picnic bike ride when you’re out of breath after five minutes, it’s hard to hike when your knees are already damaged and you’re hailing an extra 20 pounds of body weight around. It’s hard to go for a long paddle when your arm muscles are non-existant.
Of course, also hard is getting fit on the Shift Mama schedule. With The Husband away for long and inconsistent periods of time its next to impossible to find a fitness class that I can attend on a regular basis without dropping an extra cash to pay for babysitting, never mind the fact that we recently located so making the connections to find a sitter is going to take some time.
The Husband is in the same boat, he’s in the middle of opening a new work lodge, that’s long hours at work, and long weeks away from home. His advantage is that he has a gym right on site and of course, no need to find a babysitter.
Together we have watched the pounds add on and we’re ready to battle it. We’re doing it together, just in different locations.
Here’s my plan:
- MyFitnessPal: Both my husband and I have this app, it tracks food and exercise and we really like the fact that it has a scanner so foods with a bar code on them can be scanned directly in. It’s easy to use and always with us.
- Fuel Band: I have a Nike Fuel Band. It doubles as a watch, but also has a feature tracking “Fuel” basically logging how much I move. I set a daily goal and if I meet it the band gives me a fun digital read out. I also earn “trophies” on the website for active hours, streaks (meeting my goal for 3 or more days), and it shows a graph of when I was most active that day.
- Non-gym Workout: Until I find a sitter or a class that happens the same time The Kid is in an activity I need to rely on non-gym time. I have a Yoga app and subscribe to a number of Fitness Magazines (ironic I know) so I will pick a new fitness routine a week from those magazines. I’m also giving up the gas powered mower and will be using my people powered push mower to get an extra bit of cardio in on a regular basis.
- Getting dog and kid involved: These are like my trainers. The dog sits at the door every morning waiting for a walk and the kid likes to be active so they are my motivators!
- Keeping it up when we are together: The toughest part is keeping everything up when The Husband comes home. We like to indulge when we is home and it’s easy to slip into vacation mode when he’s here so we’ll both need to fight the urge to chill and get out and get active instead.
The extra challenge is our love of food. We like to eat out, and we like to create amazing meals at home, never mind the fact we just relocated to BC wine country so there are temptations everywhere. So we’ll work on that – but only a little. There are only so many things that people should have to give up!
What are your best tips for getting in shape?
Everything in moderation! Don’t deny yourselves the good food and wine 🙂
It’s great that you are both using MyFitnessPal – you can kind of use that to keep tabs on each other or set little competitions up, can’t you? And anything that keeps me accountable is good.
I am not a gym person, so my dog and kid are my best motivators as well. Just getting out and getting active with them every day is a great way to start up a fitness routine. The more you move, the better you feel, and the more active you want to be. On to the next challenge!
My favorite form of excerise and stress reliever is running outdoors. We have 2 1/2 year old and one year old girls, so that makes running a bit more challenging. My husband and I found a well-loved (i.e. cheap, but does the job) double stroller on Craigslist so I can still get out and enjoy my runs with our two girls. When my husband is home, we often go out for runs together and switch off the stroller. I also work in P90X DVDs, even if the girls are crawling all over me while I’m doing it. My two year old likes to copy the routines I do and loves “working out”.