I’m slipping back to having a hard time making time for exercise and its only on day 5!!!!!! Its frustrating and embarrassing, especially since this is playing out so publicly.
Anyone have any ideas on how to prioritize/balance out all the things that you have to do in a day in addition to exercise? I guess I mean how to do you prioritize when there seems like an overwhelming amount of things that must get done? Between the normal “must dos” of dishes, laundry, making food in advance, vacuuming, washing the floor, cleaning bathrooms, putting clothes away, tidying up.. besides taking care of/feeding/playing with the kiddos, there is little time for “extra” stuff. Throw in a busy weekend and forget it. Its hard to simply keep up with cleaning and making sure the house is in some kind of order, never mind exercise. And when I mean cleaning/order I mean I shoot for 80%!
Good lord is this hard. Not that its hard to actually exercise, but finding the time among all the daily things that come along with keeping up with 3 little girls. Today was one of those days where we didn’t do much, but somehow it consumed our time. We went to Wegmans to get groceries with the girls which, including lunch was a 3 hr. trip. That’s another thing- normal things take extra long. Time seems to slip away faster that way. Then it was dinner, then sorting clothes for our upcoming garage sale/consignment endeavor (another 2 hr. ordeal), on and on. JD was so wiped from the day he fell asleep snoring sitting up on the couch with baby clothes strewn all over him and his foot in a clothes sorting bin!
With that said, neither of us did any actual exercise today. 
While walking with the girls yesterday, I got to thinking that the only way I might be able to make exercise work is if it involves my kids. I spend so much time with them and to be able to exercise with them would show them that its the way life should be lived- actively. Not that I am a couch potato at all (that’s hilarious!) but I think that sitting for copious amounts of time is not good for the spirits or body. I think that there are tons of interesting and active things we can do to keep our bodies healthy and our minds satisfied at the same time. Being outside as much as possible is the natural solution to this, in my opinion, even if its reading under a tree for example. So, maybe the solution for keeping up my quota of exercise is to think about how I can do it while I am with my kids. The obvious challenge here is how young the kids are and the limitations that come along with that. Hmmmmm…
In the meantime, this little experiment has made me think about exercise not just like “working out”, but how it can be a part of our lives as a family and as a couple. We used to have lots of time to do this sort of thing before we had kids and it was naturally and leisurely a part of our lifestyle, but now that life has changed so much for us its harder to make sure we are staying healthy with all the attention we have to give our little ones and not ourselves. As they grow I think it will be easier. Also, its been a lot of fun to think about what we can do to get in our “30 minutes” and its become a very entertaining topic around here. For example, I suggested to JD that I do 30 minutes of running in place in the middle of the living room or the front lawn so I can be available if anyone needs me at a moment’s notice! Or I can just dead lift the kids all at once or something. Can you imagine what my neighbors would think!? HA!
Anywhoo…thoughts on how to balance this all and include exercise??
I would argue that chasing toddlers around and cleaning the house count as exercise!