Making Time for Exercise: Family Edition + Get Motivated Mondays!!

Exercise.  Sometimes, I hate it.  Sometimes, I love it.  I always need it!  Our family has been trying to get a bit creative in finding time to exercise, but it can be tricky when we have 8 people living here.  It seems like there’s always something to do and always mouths to feed, but I do believe we’re getting better at it.  Here are some of the ways that we are able to get our exercise in.

We had pulled this old desk out of the basement to take to the metal recycling place, but not before we had some fun jumping off of it first!

• We joined a gym!  Yep, it’s true.  We got a good discount on the gym, thanks to my husband being a veteran, so we took the plunge.  We can take our 12 year old and 14 year old along with us to use the equipment and the younger kids can sit in the waiting area (as long as they’re good!) where we can see them.  The best thing about belonging to this gym?  I actually go to exercise classes with my friend Kathy.  I’ve always been a bit timid about my awkwardness in a class setting, but surprisingly, I’ve been very comfortable, yet uncomfortable (ouch!).  The last class I went to, I was able to do 100 girly push ups.  I’m still not doing them really well, but I can tell that I’m getting stronger!  While I’m at the gym over lunch, my husband comes and plays Walleyball, which he really enjoys!  They even got me to play a game of Walleyball with some good friends of ours one night.  I actually had a really great time, even though my skills are a bit to be desired (so far anyway)!  We are also playing racquetball occasionally, just trying to fit exercise in, whenever we can!  I love that my older children can come along and work out and my younger children can be right where I can see them.

• Family Walks & Bike Rides – We live a few miles from the local State Park, so on Sunday afternoons when it’s warm, we like to pack everyone up and head over for a walk.  We’ve even been able to do that a couple times this January, believe it or not!  It’s been a strangely warm winter here.  In the warmer months, we will put the trailer on the back of our van and pile all the bikes on, letting the kids go crazy riding bikes throughout the State Park.  They all really love it!  While they ride, the adults walk and push the stroller. Sometimes, we let them play on the playground while we walk briskly.

• Karate – My 3 older kids take part in a Tang Soo Do Karate program here in our town.  My 14 year old will be testing for his black belt toward the end of the year.  I’m amazed at how much stronger he’s gotten in the past 5 years and how much more confident he is, too.  The exercise they all get while taking karate is awesome!  Here’s a video of my son, doing a jump back kick and breaking the equivalent of a 2×8 with his foot, this past Friday.

• Exercise Videos – I’d like to be better with this.  My aim is to do T-tapp as much as possible, but here lately, unless I go somewhere, I don’t exercise.  I don’t know if it’s because there’s always so much going on here at home, or why?  When I’m at the gym, I’m usually guaranteed an amount of time of not having to take care of the baby and that is motivating.  I do believe that T-tapp is probably the best for my body in losing inches and cinching things up tighter, so I do hope to get into that again soon.  I just have to figure out when the best time for me to do that is.

• Active Play time – This is more for the kids than it is for me, but I always try to provide some amount of time during the day for active play time.  They got a trampoline for Christmas, so they’ve been using it a lot as well as riding bikes outside and playing on their swing set.  Of course, this is harder to do when it’s really cold outside.