How Can You Find Time For Exercise in Your Busy Mom Life?

How Can You Find Time For Exercise in Your Busy Mom Life?

Running a business, grocery shopping, making dinner, cleaning the house, spending quality time with my daughter, making time to catch up with friends, attending birthdays and weddings, sleep...where do I find time to workout? The answer is I don't "find" the time, I "make" the time. If your life as a mom is anything like I just described, then you most likely will never "find" time either. This however, doesn't make working out impossible, and doesn't mean you should skip exercise until your schedule is "less crazy". What it means is that you're going to have to shift your mentality, and use some strategy to make physical activity a constant in your busy mom life. Exercise is not a luxury. Physical activity is essential for your mental and physical health so let's take a look at some tips that will help you "make" time for exercise.

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3 Exciting Games to Give Your Kids a Workout (and you too!)

(guest contributor)

As a parent, your child’s health and happiness are always your main concern, which is why it’s important that you teach them the importance of exercise from a young age. However, a lot of parents have trouble balancing family and exercise and they don’t know how to get their kids excited about staying active. Not every child is going to love structured “workouts/exercise”. But most will love playing games, and they will be way more engaged. There are some great active games you can try that will get them outside and moving around, so they can stay healthy (and you can move with them!).

Here are some active games to help your kids get more exercise. Get out there and have fun!

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Scavenger Hunts 

Scavenger hunts are always a great way to get your kids moving, and it’s a great option if you want a fun activity to keep them busy at home. All you need to do is hide some items around the house or yard, and challenge your kids to find them. Give them a few clues to get them started and they’ll soon be running around all over the place. If you want to turn it into a workout in disguise, you can put tasks with each item, like do 10 jumping jacks, for example. 

Bean Bag Toss 

Bean bag toss isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you are thinking of fitness games, but it’s actually very beneficial. It improves hand-eye coordination and there is a bit of cardio involved as your child runs back and forth to collect their bean bags. This article that answers questions like, how far apart are the boards in bean bag toss, will help you set up your own game in the yard or park. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon and it’s also fun for parties too. Your kids will have so much fun and they won’t even realize they are exercising. 

Capture The Flag

Capture the flag is a fun way to get your kids running around and get their heart rate up. It’s a simple game you can play with two to four teams of any size, and a few items to use as flags (they don’t need to be actual flags). Set up the flags and assign a base for each team. The aim is then to catch the other team's flag without being tagged. If you want to add an extra element of fitness, you can have the kids do some frog jumpss each time they get tagged before returning to their base and rejoining the game, or change the movement from running to base to skipping. You can have endless hours of fun with this one and it can be played anywhere, but it’s particularly good in a large open space, so it’s perfect for the park. 

Getting kids to exercise can be a battle against toys and screens, but if you play these exciting games with them, you can get them to do a workout without even realizing it.  And I’ll add once again, you get your workout in too!

Six Healthy Habits I'm Happy I Stuck With (Part One)

Six Healthy Habits I'm Happy I Stuck With (Part One)

I’m going to share with you Six Healthy Habits (2 part post) that I believe has made a difference in my daughter's health and perspective of what healthy is. This all comes from a week of reflection as she turned six...hence the 6 tips. Hopefully you can find that one of these is helpful and makes sense for you and your family. And if you don’t agree with any of them, I hope you at least enjoy the perspective that no matter how hard it is to maintain the habits when your kids are toddlers/preschoolers, it can prove to be worth it when they’re a bit older.

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7 Best Ways to Balance Family and Fitness

7 Best Ways to Balance Family and Fitness

Is there such a thing as balance when it comes to fitness and family? Finding time for fitness has always been a non-negotiable for me. I need to exercise just as much as I need my daughter to understand the importance of exercise. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it’s definitely doable if you want it to be.

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