Maximize Your Minimums: The Key To Working Out With Kids

Working out.

We all know we need to do it (supposedly every day!), but let’s be honest. That’s not reality.

Okay, maybe it’s just me. But between waking up at 7 AM, nursing a 2 month old, getting my 2 year old up at 7:20 AM, feeding him breakfast, cleaning up from breakfast, rocking the baby to sleep, sitting down to play with my toddler, nursing the baby again, playing again, cooking and cleaning up from lunch, putting both boys down, picking up the house, prepping dinner and then basically starting all over again after nap time…..yeah, a work out at the gym just isn’t going to happen. Honestly, getting the recommended 10,000 steps in a day might not even happen. This season of life just isn’t one conducive to a solid work out schedule.

I was despairing over this reality of never being able to work out one night over dinner when a faint memory of a speaker I’d heard in college came back to me. . .

Maximize your minimums.

Meaning, make the most (maximize) of the small amounts of time you have (minimums).

So here’s my new theory on working out in this stage of life:

Instead of doing nothing, I am just going to do something.

I am just going to work out when I can, and here’s how:

• My boys love to go for walks in our double stroller. (Can I get an Amen for the warmer weather??) So my goal is once a week to grab a friend and go for a walk. But not just walk, I am going to add lunges, squats, and periods of sprints into my routine.

• My toddler loves to play outside, so I have moved my yoga mat, weights and exercise tube outside. When he’s happily playing in the sandbox, you’ll find me holding a plank for 20 seconds, doing some bicep curls and working my leg muscles with the exercise tube.

• I can’t really diet right now because I am nursing(don’t even get me started on Jessica Simpson’s weight loss), but I can watch what I eat. In fact in talking with my doctor (and every person is different, so make sure you chat with your doc), she told me that my milk supply is more dependent on how much water I drink versus the recommended extra caloric intake. Since watching what I eat is important and I still need to hit the recommended caloric intake a day, I have started replacing my breakfast with a smoothie. I put 1 cup of greek yogurt, 4 tbs of chia seeds, 1 cup of mixed frozen fruit, a banana, some honey and however much water I feel like in a blender. Voila, breakfast! This is the first smoothie I have ever found to keep me full – I can drink it at 7:45am and be full until lunch at 12:30pm! 4 weeks in and my pants are already feeling a tad looser!

• I’m not big into home work out video’s because if I have the time to do a video, I probably have the time to work out at the gym. That’s just me though. For a while I tried the Lindsay Brin’s Moms Into Fitness workouts and loved them. They ultimately weren’t for me, but I found one nugget of gold that she said, “No BLT’s – bites, licks or tastes.” Meaning, don’t try any of your kids food if its not in your healthy eating plan! I can happily ignore my sons goldfish but if I have just one taste of one, I am sunk for the day.

We all want to work out and know it’s healthy, but sometimes in certain seasons of our lives, it just can’t be achieved. So instead of doing nothing, join me in doing a little something! It’s not much, but when I do hit a season of life where I have time to work out, it will be nice to start from something instead of nothing!

What are you work out tips?

Have you found something that works for you and your kids?