Be Our Guest Fridays {38}: 5 Ways to Add Fitness to Your Life by Fit Triangle Mom
What are your roadblocks to daily exercise? For me, time, motivation and limited energy from Rheumatoid Arthritis prevent me from exercising every day. I’m not going to be signing up for boot camps or marathons anytime soon and need simple ways I can sneak exercise into my day until it becomes a must-do habit. So I’m happy to share as my guest today my blogging friend Rachel from Fit Triangle Mom and the NC Blogger Network who is sharing 5 Ways to Add Fitness to Your Life.
5 Ways to Add Fitness To Your Life
By Rachel Withers from Fit Triangle Mom
There will never be enough time in the day to accomplish all of our goals. So why is exercising always last on our list of priorities? Some people don’t know where to start and others are just unsure as to where to schedule it into their day. The following is a list of 5 ways to add Fitness to your life. Find one (or more) that works with your schedule and stick with it. I promise, you’ll feel better and smile wider, and those are just two reasons why you should make exercise a priority.
Walking
No special gear needed, just you and a comfortable pair of shoes. I tend to get sleepy after lunch and a nice walk outside invigorates my spirit. It’s a combination of the fresh air and my increased heart rate. It could be a walk at the park, down your neighborhood street or at the mall on a rainy day.
Play with your Kids
Kids seem to have an unlimited amount of energy. Too bad we haven’t figured out a way to harness it for ourselves. Good thing having fun is contagious. My boys love it when we play pass with the soccer ball, catch with a football or baseball, a game of horse with the basketball or just a simple game of tag. Your kids will enjoy playing with you, and you’ll burn some calories in the process.
Bodyweight Exercises
When I’m short on time and can’t make it to the gym, bodyweight exercises are easy and effective. Squats, ab crunches, planks, lunges, push-ups, burpees, jumping jacks, and high knees are a few of my favorites. Try doing 3 sets of 12 of each exercise (rest between sets) or setting your timer for a 1-2 minutes of each exercise. When you’re ready to increase the difficulty, increase your time or repetitions.
Join a Gym
Four-years-ago I joined the gym. It was the exercise escape I needed. They offered childcare, treadmills, and weights. The best part of joining the gym is the friends I have met. Moms just like myself that were trying to add an hour of exercise to their day have since become my accountability partners that motivate me to make healthy choices.
Challenge Yourself
I’m a competitive person by nature, but I have learned that when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, it’s best to compete with yourself. After I gave birth to my youngest son, I had the urge to run a 5k. I was 34-years-old, and never considered myself a runner much less one that would run a race, but I was determined to lose the baby weight. I started training with the Couch to 5k app and slowly transformed myself into a runner and eventually crossed the finish line of my first 5k. The feeling of accomplishment and reaching my goal was amazing that I have continued running and challenging myself. My next goal is to run a 10k.
About Rachel
Rachel Withers is the writer and owner behind Fit Triangle Mom. She enjoys sharing about her motherhood experiences with an emphasis on living a healthy lifestyle and raising two boys in North Carolina. She believes Healthy Moms make Happy Kids.
Follow Rachel on her blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest
I love Rachel’s tip to do bodyweight exercises and stretching. With Rheumatoid Arthritis, I know stretching and riding my stationery bike are great exercise to improve my joint mobility. The less I move, the more weight I gain and the more my joints hurt. Rachel is right, when I do exercise I feel better and smile wider. To help me stay motivated, I’ve incorporated exercise into my habit tracker on my bullet journal. Checking off that I did it usually helps motivate me.
About Be Our Guest Fridays!
Be Our Guest Fridays is a weekly feature where I feature guest posts by my favorite bloggers and authors. I started this feature to encourage and support the bloggers I love and the authors I want you to know. I am excited to share with you these creative and inspiring individuals. If you’d like to be a guest blogger, leave me a comment on this post and I’ll be in touch.
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How do you sneak exercise into your day? How do you overcome your roadblocks and keep the motivation to exercise? Tell Rachel and I in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!
Sorry to hear about your arthritis but it is great that you are keeping fit regardless. As for when I sneak excercise in… well I need to exercise lets put it that way.
I’ve avoided exercise forever. I’m finally going to start trying to start up with walking. I need to do this.
Walking is such a great way to stay fit. It helps so much with your heart health more than anything else, I think.
i keep seeing fitness posts and i think it’s the universe telling me to finally get started on those wedding workouts! noooo universe, i’m lazy!
Congrats on the 5k run, that’s amazing. I would love todo 10k to, would be me feel like I’ve accomplished something great. Some really helpful tips!
I try to take a walk every day now. I hate exercising, so taking a quick walk to clear my head makes getting my heart rate up easy without thinking of it as a “work out”.
I was just talking today about walking and how I need to do a bit more walking, especially since I’m trying to lose a few pounds. This was written just for me.
I love this so much! I get a lot of my exercise riding bikes and jumping on the trampoline with my kiddos.
These are all great ideas. I am going to have to step up my fitness game a bit. I like to eat too much.
Joining a gym has been critical for me, because I find that if I’m at home, I’m more tempted to do other things like clean, laundry..you see where this is going! These are great tips 🙂
Yes, I definitely make all kinds of excuses and am easily distracted by my home to do list as well. We have three pieces of gym equipment, I just have to make myself use it!
I have been trying to exercise more. My excuse it I just don’t like it!
I don’t enjoy working out like I used to either, i like how i feel after but not the activity itself. I have to make myself exercise as hard as I can 15-30 minutes to get it done with quicker.
These are great tips. I find it so hard to workout since having a child but I recently started taking advantage of any time I had to spare with body weight exercises as you mentioned above. It has made a world of difference and actually made me want to start working out for an hour every morning before my child wakes up! Once you start seeing results it is so addicting.
Rachel’s body weight exercises were a good tip. I always forget to do things like that too. You’re right it is easier to keep motivated once you start seeing results. Thanks for commenting.
These are great ideas! 🙂
Great ideas! I try to participate in daily physical activities with my students. We follow Zumba and yoga videos for kids or during PE, I will join in running around. We also have an iPod and it tracks your steps so I make sure to hit my 10,000 in the day, squat when helping students, etc. Every little bit counts!
That’s so great you get your exercise in with your students. What do you teach?
That’s awesome. My son’s class does yoga when they can’t go utside for recess. Thanks for teaching your students the importance of exercise.
I try to incorporate these types of activities in my daily routine as well. Another good option I’ve found is doing an exercise video online. There was a great one on Self Magazine’s website the other day. I found your post at #SmallVictoriesSunday
Online workout videos are great too. My Self magazine came the other day. I’ll have to check it out. My cable company (TWC) offers On Demand fitness programs.
I love every single tip.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that make of exercising something complicated. I used to be one of them until I was faced with the slow recovery of the brain tumor surgery.
Great reading!
Thanks. Exercising is easy, but sometimes intimidating. . Finding your fitness fit is important. Awhile back I guest blogged for Tanya about accepting your limitations.
Hi Tanya and Rachel – these are great tips – ones that I try to include in my days/weeks. I joined the YMCA several years ago and it was a godsend with the childcare. It really helped me to get in the habit of exercise. Rachel, I too did the Couch to 5K app – I always joke how it took me a year to finish, but I finished! Last year I ran my first 10 mile race and that was a huge accomplishment.
Congrats on your 10 miler! I’m still training for a 10k. My Stay-at-home mom duties take precedence, but a little bit of exercise each day does wonders. I hope to conquer the 10k this year.