Recently we celebrated our little boy’s first birthday. It honestly feels like it’s been much longer than 12 months (I’m sure many parents can relate). Obviously there has been a lot of adjusting and at times trying to maintain my fitness levels, learn the role of a new parent, and run a business in the middle of a pandemic has definitely had its challenges.
I do believe today I am far more equipped and have a greater understanding of the challenges a parent faces when trying to stay fit, today I am going to share with you some of the lessons I have learnt;
Home Workouts
If you are someone who has been relatively fit prior to having children then this can be difficult to get your head around. The reality is when you have a young child the chances of you getting the time to get your ideal training session in can be limited (especially for mums) so many people end up doing nothing.
In those first 12 months home workouts are so important because you often are not in complete control of your day. It does not matter if you can only get a single 10 minute workout in, doing something to get your muscles engaged, and get those positive endorphins flowing will keep you feeling far more positive about your body and fitness than if you do nothing for the next 12 months.
There are so many effective home workouts without equipment you can utilise, if you are a mother who has given birth we strongly recommend consulting your physiotherapist or maternal health nurse first. If you’re healthy and ready to go here is a video with some home exercises to lose weight.
Include Your Children In Your Exercise
The numbers don’t lie, in Australia the number of children that are overweight or obese has been rising with it estimated that in 2017 24% of children were overweight or obese (1). In many cases Australians choose to go to the gym to workout but that might actually be robbing us of modelling what’s required to be fit and healthy.
Including your children in your workouts by creating fun games is the perfect way to raise fit healthy children, our 1 year old already thinks its a fun game and tries to get involved. Use going for a walk as an opportune time to connect with your children instead of leaving them home, if children see you being active they are far more likely to model that in their own life.
It’s recommended that your children spend at least 60 minutes per day performing moderate intensity activity (2), that could be a fun workout with you, a walk, going for a kick of the footy, or even using something like the wee active.
Prioritise Nutrition and Sleep
It makes complete sense that if you are not getting the quantity and quality of exercise you once were before having children that one of your concerns might be weight gain. In previous blogs we have talked about the role caloric intake has on body weight with it arguably having the single largest influence.
It also just so happens that one of greatest challenges a parent faces is the lack of quality of quality sleep which can in turn have a detrimental impact on caloric intake (particularly at night) (3). Another study showed that as little as one day of sleep deprivation can reduce our energy expenditure (4) so on one being sleep deprived is causing an increase in caloric intake and on the other a decrease in caloric expenditure.
This is one of the biggest reasons we strongly recommend that if you are not getting sleep you make sleep a priority even over getting in that daily workout as it will assist in not only weight loss but your mental and emotional health.
We totally understand its very easy to feel like you have dropped the ball with your health and fitness, we also know what it feels like to compare yourself to a time before children and wonder if getting started is worth it. The truth is you wont regret getting started and utilising these 3 tips might be the step in the right direction for you regaining your health and fitness.
Your’s In Health & Fitness,
Chris
P.S.: Whenever you’re ready… here are 3 ways we can help you with your health & fitness:
1. Join Us For Semi Private Personal Training – Semi private personal training is signature service running both morning and night. What makes it our most popular service? It’s personalised, cost effective, and it gets great results. Contact us now with ‘Semi Private Offer’ in the subject line to learn more.
2. Join Us For 1:1 Personal Training We realise some people want to do the work on their own, we also know many of you have goals that are personal to just you and that you might want a program written specifically for you. Contact us now with ‘Personal Training Offer’ in the subject line to learn more.
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