Is Exercise Worth the Effort?

Exercise for moms and dads can feel like one more thing on the to do list.

It was the springtime of 2014. Our house was a very busy place with our 6 kids, ages 10 and younger. We found out we were expecting baby #7, and we were very excited. But we also knew we had our work cut out for us. This new baby would mean needing a bigger vehicle and maybe a bigger house.

I remember consciously making a decision that I wasn’t going to bother with exercise for a while. I was going to be gaining pregnancy weight AGAIN, and there was sooo many things to do and think about. It just didn’t feel like it was worth the effort.

Exercise for moms or dads with littles is frustrating!

So many times when I had a nursing baby I would want to exercise, but it rarely worked out. The baby would be teething that day, or have a growth spurt and need to nurse longer, or have a cold and not want to let me go. Or they’d lay down for their nap, I’d turn on my exercise video, and three minutes later they’d wake up. Ugh!

Exercising with toddlers isn’t much better. So many times I’d go to jog around the room and my little one would cry because they couldn’t keep up, so I’d either have to carry them or call it quits. Then there were the days I’d want to work some muscles and here would come my littles, getting under my squats or pulling on my clothes or sitting on me during floor work. Waaa!😭

Exercise for full-time moms and dads looks different than it did before kids. 

When my older kids were little, I still thought of exercise like it used to be before kids. But that’s not how it was anymore. It was definitely not like in college where I would walk all the time, push myself hard in marching band, and go to the gym 3 times a week. And it wasn’t like when we were newly weds and could go hike a couple miles a few times a week.

I longed for that consistency and freedom, and when I knew there wasn’t a chance for it that year, I gave up. Was that a good idea?

Does exercise make a difference to how we feel? 

Let’s go back a few more years to my college days. I thoroughly enjoyed marching band. It was hard work, and left me sweaty, tired, and sometimes sore, but it felt so satisfying to play my heart out on that field! One day my throat was sore and I considered staying home, but was afraid I’d fall behind or be in trouble, so I went anyway. I was amazed the next day that my sore throat was gone. Could that exercise have made my cold go away faster?

Before kids my hubby and I loved going hiking together, and it seems like once a month or so we’d be out on a backpacking adventure. That had to slow way down when our babies started coming. But every once in a while we’d get someone to watch our kids overnight so we could go to the mountains. On one such occasion, I think when we had 5 kids, I had been so stressed with life, and needed a break. As I hiked up that mountain with my love, in the quiet away from the noise and cars of the city, pushing my body to keep taking the next few steps in front of me, my mind became so clear. I felt like I’d left all my troubles behind me. That’s a feeling I needed more often.

So 2015 rolled around, and looking back at it, I realized I’d been sick more often and worse the previous year than any other year I could remember. Among other illnesses, I had even ended up in the hospital for a few days with an abscessed tonsil. ☹

I talked to my husband about it one evening when we had a chance to go out together, and he talked about the things we do to take care of our bodies, asking me if there was something I was missing. Was I not eating healthy, not drinking water, not sleeping enough, not exercising? 😬 I knew in that moment that my efforts to exercise had been doing a lot more for my body than I had realized. I promised myself I would never give up exercise again. And I’m happy to report I have not had another sick year like that one!

Exercise for moms and dads is worth the effort!

When I was expecting baby #9 a few years later, I finally learned that it’s ok to do more than just walking for exercise when you’re pregnant. I enjoyed finding prenatal workout videos, and discovered that I had so much more energy after I did them. I felt better during that pregnancy than I had through the previous 8, even having to put up with my kids interruptions. Boy did I wish I’d known about that lots of years before!

Exercise has been one of my best stress relievers over the years, too. And believe me, this job comes with a lot of stress! Much like my troubles got left behind hiking a mountain, many big stresses have been put into perspective as I’ve worked my body and given my mind a break.

I’m still not exercising like I was before kids, but my expectations have changed. If I can exercise for 10 minutes twice a week, I count it as success! A lot of the exercise I do these days is with my kids, like bike rides, trips to the park, and exercise time during homeschool.

More exercise than that feels like a treat, like in my post Stealing Some Time. At this point it’s a lot less about getting back to the ideal weight, or defining my muscles, and a lot more about just the fact that exercise feels good! Yes, exercise for moms and dads is worth the effort, and it doesn’t have to be scheduled or perfect to be good for your soul.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked it, share it. And try to get some exercise, because it will help you enjoy your adventure.

P.S. Some of my favorite pregnancy and post partum exercises are found on Bodyfit by Amy and Pregnancy and Postpartum TV.

For more about nutrition see Fitting in the Skinny Pants.