How A Morning Routine Helps Me Stay Fit

My Quest For Fit Mom Mommyhood

Fitness can seem like such an elusive goal. Especially for those of us with small children. It’s not easy juggling them and a barbell, or kettle bell, or whatever your favorite workout tools happen to be. 

If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, you probably remember the series of posts chronicling my pregnancy fitness journey a few years ago. It was tough! But it was so, so worth having the improved functionality, and much easier (and shorter!) labor and delivery. 

Somehow though, during our long and drawn out transition to Texas, I managed to lose track of my fitness and screw up my eating habits, so that now I find that some of my clothes no longer fit. Eek! That’s never a good feeling. 

I’m honestly still at a very healthy weight, but I also honestly don’t want to go out and buy new clothes when I have  closet full of clothes that I like very well thankyouverymuch. Plus, shopping here isn’t as easy as it was when we lived within 30 minutes driving distance of six nice Goodwill/thrift stores. 

So I’m on a quest to get stronger, eat better, and maybe lose a little fat too.

How A Morning Routine Helps Me Stay Fit

I think that your daily routine can make or break your fitness. If you don’t build your exercise and/or healthy eating into your day, if you don’t make it a habit, it’s just not going to happen. not consistently anyway. So here’s mine:

6:30 A.M. – Rise and shine! I’ve tried to become an earlier riser, but no matter what I do, 6:30 just seems to stick with me. So, I get up, dress/wash face, etc. Then take care of some blogging business matters (mostly scheduling out Facebook posts). 

7:00 A.M. – If Haddassah’s not up yet, I’ll take the opportunity to do some writing. Much of the time, it’s just rambling thoughts, other times, it’s blog or freelance articles. 

7:30 A.M. – If Haddassah still isn’t up, I take the dog for a run, if she is up, I feed her a quick snack after some cuddles, put her in the stroller, and take both her and the dog for a run. it’s not long – about a 1.5 miles total – but there are very few days we don’t start with a run. 

(I promise, despite the picture I rarely push the dog!)

 

8:00 A.M. – Housework, breakfast for the kids, schoolwork. The whole drill. 

10:30 A.M. – My breakfast time. Usually three eggs, scrambled with spinach, other times, poached with a side of broccoli or another vegetable. This also doubles as the kids’ snack time, because if they see me eating eggs, they want some too! I know a lot of people who feel more satisfied if they eat carbs with their breakfast, but I prefer to save my carbs for later. I know myself, and that as I get tired or stressed out during the day, I want to eat more, so I save the majority of my calories for the afternoon. 

The onset of summer forced me to move my runs to the morning, and that’s when I learned how important it is to build exercise into your routine. 

During the winter, I would wait to run until Gabe could watch the kids, which led to often not running at all, and feeling guilty about leaving them. But now that I’ve got it scheduled for the morning, whether the kids are up or not (Garrett doesn’t usually get up in time, but when he does, he loves to ride along on his bike), whether Gabe’s home or not, it happens every single day. 

I’ve found that spending the money on a jogging stroller in oder to make this happen is a worthwhile  investment. Personally, I chose to buy a convertible bike trailer because it gives me the ability to bike as well as run. It may make a funny looking jogging stroller, but it’s very functional, and I’ve been more than happy with the way it handles as a stroller and highly recommend it.

One more thing that’s been huge factor in making me a consistent runner is the dog. Yup! A dog is great motivation to get up out of your seat! I feel like such a bad person if I don’t get the dog her exercise, especially now that she’s come to expect it and runs to the door every time I make a move until it finally happens in the morning. 🙂 Even on days when I don’t feel like it, I often get out the door, telling myself that I’ll just walk around the block a few times, because the dog needs her exercise. 

At first, I wasn’t convinced that she could handle it, being so tiny and all, but Pebbles worked up to the mile and a half pretty quickly. Nothing like having the most fit chihuahua in town! 😉 

Your turn: What are you doing to get fit right now?

P.S. Look for a follow up article on some more ways I’m getting fit and healthy soon!