fitness tips for busy moms people running in the park

Fitness tips for busy moms article is all about helping you to find time around your cherished children to help your fitness. On top of the endless other activities, us moms do daily, there’s never enough time in the day. Learning how to manage, mould, prioritise and readjust activities as our baby grows, is crucial for our fitness and energy. Knowing our self and how best we work, is the beginning of understanding what works better for us. Riding the waves in mama style, of whatever fitness challenge we are experiencing that day, in often unpredictable moments as moms, is what can shape our fitness differently.

Table of Contents

    Fitness tips for busy moms Ten Tips to keep note

    1. Know you and your time of days

    Here are some questions to ponder:

    • When do you know you exercise at your best? 
    • As a mom when can you make the time for fitness?
    • Is it a case of setting your alarm an hour before everyones up?
    • Or do you need to wait til night time to exercise?
    • Can you exercise in your lunch break? 
    • What time of day works for you? And more importantly ask yourself why?

    2. Ask yourself why?

    Our why has to be bigger than our why not.

    Fitness tips for busy moms key is finding the right time, that works for you. This is crucial at maintaining your exercise routine. 

    When we understand our why, it becomes better at accomplishing the how.

    3. Organise daily duties differently

    It sounds so simple but when I was a new mum everything felt like a mountain, because everything was new.

    Theres the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the sleeplessness, the feeding, the umpteen changes of clothes.

    You ever heard that saying “Keeping on top of things”

    These 3 daily household necessity changers, helped me find time to exercise around being a busy mom;

    • Cooking.
      • Plan meals ahead
      • This simple task can turn your routine 360.
        • For me not so much when Sebalicious was a baby, but as he entered threenage years and I started retraining and working, definitely. 
        • Being honest with myself about why I was suddenly feeling the way I was feeling, an activity I found so much fun before and was now feeling like a chore,  supported me to realise I needed to change it.
        • At the weekend we cook together and it’s fun and relaxing, during the week I cook at night listening to a podcast. 
    •   Laundry
      • Its a daily user as a mom
      • I started putting the washing machine on at 7am, so that I could hang it up, before we left the flat.
    • Spring clean
      • Prioritising one morning a week, to gutting the house out can calm the clutter 
      • As your kids grow, so do their capabilities. Giving them chores helps them to learn about household shared duties.
    • Washing up and floor wipe
      • are always done before I sit down to relax, because I prioritise exercise first thing most mornings. 

    4. Busy moms need sleep

    Thee best medicine your body needs and the one thing us moms lack, is solid sleep. Our body is amazing at rejuvenating at night and healing ready for another day tomorrow.

    When we don’t sleep, not because we don’t want to, but our cherished children are sick, teething, having nightmares, our body is already working overtime and struggling to help us heal.

    Remember this, by exercising hard during these already challenging times, we can then become sick, because our immune system that helps defend our body, cannot function at its fullest. For the simple reason it is not getting the medicine it needs, sleep.

    Lack of sleep can also affects our metabolism, eating habits, fitness and moods. I found this really interesting article on this subject for more info.

    Fitness tips for busy moms mantra “Be gentle on your gorgeous self” when these times come and compare your progress with yourself, not other people.

    Be gentle, to keep strong.

    5. Make your routine by setting an alarm

    having a reminder set on your phone, in a calendar, on your watch, will really support you get into the habit of making time for you. It is not selfish, we all need time for us, for self love to thrive and good mental habits to expand.

    6. Love to learn to feel

    When we are more concerned with how it makes us feel, rather than how it makes us look, we will learn peace within and learn to love and feed our body.

    When it becomes important to you, to feed yourself love with the foods you eat through to exercising, it will become a part of your priorities.

    By practicing it around and often with our children, it can feed daily habits,  they will learn, knowing, is an important priority piece in your life, that they are more likely to continue, as they grow. I read a lovely fun article regarding workouts to do with older kids, so good to include kids in our likes in life and laugh together.

    Such great bonding opportunities as they become abler to star jumps and burpees. Keep in mind, Monkey see monkey do analogy.

    7. Feed your body with vitamins. and minerals

    A smoothie a day keeps the doctor away. Eating a balanced diet rich in vitamins and minerals will help a host of other elements;

    • Sleep patterns
    • Eating habits
    • Weight
    • Moods
    • Feelings
    • Energy levels
    • Reaction button

    8. Early to bed early to rise

    It sounds so simple but honestly this was a crucial game changer for me exercising for an hour before my beautiful blackbird rose.

    I was a 11pm at the earliest to bed, but now that’s a late night for me. 9pm technology is off and sleeping, ideally, by 10:15. This means I usually awake by 6:15am naturally and can start the day quietly and calmly.

    It can then help facilitate a calmer intended day ahead.

    I said intended ? Don’t get me wrong, most often then not, it doesn’t pan out that way, but the days intentionally seeds are planted.

    Ain’t kids great at teaching us about fluidity and flexibility? 

    9. Home workout kit

    Having workout kit at home will drastically improve the likeness of you exercising. Mums including myself, commonly say we haven’t time to make the class.

    It’s totally true I really get it that’s why I started Exercise Anytime Anywhere because our times precious.

    This is why having the kit at home, really can support you Exercise Anytime Anywhere.

    The great thing is, you don’t need a massive space to do it and really doesn’t need to cost a lot.

    Nothing is set in stone

    Nothing in life is set in stone, except death and taxes.

    Life’s a journey not a competition.

    Go with the flow, ride the waves of what the day brings you especially in the first few years of motherhood as you adjust.

    Remember being kind, loving and gentle on yourself, will support you grow fuller, healthier and fitter as a busy mom.

    7 exercise hacks for managing your time

    Find the flow.

    It sounds so simple, but when we can learn too adjust our fitness around being a busy mom into our day differently, we can learn a much softer way of finding new and inventive ways to exercise and increase our fitness.

    We really don’t need to be at a class or the gym to be exercising, especially when our kids are little and already running us ragged.

    Of course it’s great to have a bit of time alone and not be constantly thinking about your young cherub, however when they’re under age 3 it can be challenging time consuming space for many moms.

    By incorporating exercise into our day subconsciously we find fitness freely and everywhere.

    1. Using a baby carrier

    By using a carrier as much as you can it supports strength to your body and aids toning to. I used a Moby wrap for the first year and then got an awesome osprey carrier.

    Literally used the Osprey til Sebalicious was 2.5 years and by that time he was on his balance bike and we were cycling mostly everywhere. 

    Fitness tips for busy moms Baby sleeping in an osprey carrier

    2. Shopping and fitness

    By using a rucksack for shopping, it becomes an extra weight, strengthening your back muscles, hips, shoulders, legs and core.

    When our babies little and in an Osprey carrier, like Sebalicious is in the photo.

    Using shopping bags as an extra weight and walking the mile home, is a workout like no other. It can tone muscles you didn’t know were there and definitely turns the sweat on.

    3. Cycling

    fitness tips for busy moms mum and baby cycling

    By cycling in the city, it really limits time and is great for pulling in and toning the side abs.  

    It’s a cardio workout and can build back postnatal muscles we thought we never had.

    I bought a bike when Sebalicious was 18 months, because its the best way for us to move quickly around the city.

    At first, it was really tough to learn to cycle having the extra back weight of Sebalicious.

    My muscles were still really weak and the thought of standing up and cycling, petrified me.

    Really didn’t feel strong enough to even try it.

    But like life, the more you practice the better you become.

    Through the months, I stopped feeling tender on the side abs and started feeling stronger. Strong enough after seven months cycling, to cycle standing going up hills, something I never thought i’d be able to do.

    4. Walking

    If not cycling, try walking as much as you can.

    Why you waiting on the lift go climb the stairs?

    Getting creative with exercise as a busy mom, is the key to finding freedom and flow.

    5. Swimming

    Swimming is such a great skill to learn young. The younger the better if you ask me.

    By starting young it grows their confidence in the water.

    We started at 6 weeks, I swum under water with Sebalicious to support him hold his breathe and be comfortable in the water. Much to the social shock of the older generation of gossiping granny bystanders, simply appalled and shellshocked at what I was doing to the “poor baby”. That concerned I had to enlighten them.

    Although it took 3 and a half more years to actually be able to swim on my own, it planted those seeds of ‘love to swim’ and now he’s 6 we can swim together.

    Plus so many great memories. 

    6. Running

    Running with a buggy seems to be a popular fitness workout for busy moms.

    Its a great workout for losing weight and toning muscles. Releasing fire, working the heart and strengthening muscles.

    I started getting back in shape after giving birth by running 20 minutes to pilates class at Infinity Yoga and walking home.

    These days I run up and down stairs.

    7. Kettle is boiling strike a fitness pose

    Most of us use a kettle right I love a cuppa tea. Or we have a daily dilemma out with our control and the cortisol levels rise.

    While the kettle is boiling, strike a yoga pose.

    Regain a 2 minute window of tuning in to you. I usually do tree or standing bow pose and often these days we do it together.

    This can help find the lightness, distracts the chaos by tuning into our wonderful self and remembering to flow on the go busy moms.

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    Published by Danielle

    I am a certified yoga teacher and have been practicing yoga for over 12 years. I have an honours degree in Sociology whereby I carried out research into peoples eating habits. Fitness and food are my forte. Become a mum in 2015 I combined everything I continue to learn and started  Exercise Anytime Anywhere