by Deborah Lowther
At the top of almost every parents’ priority-list is making sure their kids eat well, stay healthy, and keep active. But what about mom? We may think we are doing enough by eating healthier foods and popping a daily vitamin, but exercising is really the key to better health. Unfortunately, it is typically the first item to be dropped from our long list of things to do.
The people who are successful at fitting in fitness every week have a secret. They know the trick to squeeze exercise time into their busy schedules at work and hectic days at home with kids.
They schedule it. It’s as simple as that. The only way exercise will become a part of my day is to schedule it and make it important. Those who say they don’t have time to exercise are really saying that it is not a priority.
I was raised in an active family and have always understood the importance of a healthy lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean it has always been easy to fit in. As if work and kids are not enough, there are also the physical obstacles like a knee surgery and three pregnancies that can prevent staying active. But you simply start again when you are able.
Once the kids were born, I became more determined to make exercise a priority in order to lose the baby weight. I decided to take up half marathons. I’d always been a casual runner, but this new goal gave me the push I needed.
My three proudest achievements are crossing the half-marathon finish line in three different cities with my husband and each of our daughters in a jogging stroller when they were just 8-months old.
I did whatever I had to in order to get in those runs. I started with a three km run/walk until I could run without stopping. I then added five minutes every weekend. Within a few months I was running for two hours and ready to try my first half marathon with our first child.
Twelve months later I had my second child and this time it was trickier to get out running as I am not a double stroller kind of gal. Determination paid off and eight months later my husband and I crossed the finish line at the Ottawa half-marathon with our second daughter.
When we had baby number three I wondered when I would ever run again. I got up early, I ran in the cold, I ran when I was tired, and I ran when I would have rather sat and had breakfast with my family. I ran to soccer games, hired babysitters, and took my babies to the local YMCA and put them in programs so I could run. Sure enough, eight months later we crossed the finish line in Quebec – with our best time yet!
Today, my daughters are five, seven, and nine and have already done their first triathlon and two family 5km runs – we are a truly an active family.
Choose something active that you enjoy and then make fitness an important item on your to do list, schedule time in your week, commit to it, do it with the family; make it your priority and it will happen!
How do you fit in exercise?
