Workout? Now? How?

At BYU one of the core classes you have to take is Health and Nutrition. A major part of your grade is to maintain an exercise plan, three to four times a week. It was the toughest thing I ever had to do. I hate to run, tennis is wonderful but takes another player, the list goes on…I just couldn’t find anything I enjoyed. Later things got harder when I had children and yet the need was greater due to baby weight and added stress. Here are some things I’ve learned over the years:

1. Start small, like with walking 15 – 30 minutes a day.
2. Exercise with your children. Elmo and Barney both have exercise programs that you can do with your toddlers.
3. Make it a priority. (Hard to do when it’s all you can do to get a shower or a few minutes sleep)
4. Find some exercise buddies who you can depend on and who depend on you.
5. Find your favorite music and listen to it while you workout.
6. When you are working out your body tends to crave good food. Afterwards, reward it with a refreshing whole food, fresh veggie or fruit.
7. Don’t worry about making it big just do something each day. If you have to travel to the gym, take a change of clothes and pack a huge diaper bag, snacks and drinks, it might not get done. Try to find a way to move around at home, even if you do house work at an accelerated speed.
8. Find a reason to workout other than to lose weight. The mental benifits and stress relief are just as powerful, with more imediate results. And focusing on those benifits will eliminate the discouragement.
9. Leave the scale alone and only weigh in each week instead of everyday. Try not to micromanage your body’s weight loss. You could be losing size before losing pounds anyway.
Just enjoy the other health benefits and before you know it you will be looking better in your jeans and then soon enough you will be in your skinny jeans and then…you will be buying a smaller size.