One of the biggest complaints we moms tend to have is about time.

Whether you work from home (yes, being a stay-at-home mom IS work) or you manage your home AND work outside of it as well, I think we can all agree that time is one of the biggest factors that influences whether we work out or not.  Yes, money can be an obstacle, as can motivation, but if you don’t have time, money and motivation aren’t going to get you very far.

As a busy mom of five, I know exactly what this feels like.  Sometimes it feels like a perpetual cycle that can never be broken.  How often do we lament that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done?  Or worse, rationalize that other people must have more free time on their hands than we do?  That’s not to say that there aren’t people who are better situated than we might be, but the bottom line is, we are all afforded the same 24 hrs. in each day.  How you chose to use your time is what makes the difference. 

Here are 5 Steps that I implement in order to maximize my free time and make time for my health and wellness:

Step 1: 

Plan Your Meals

We can all agree that meal planning and preparing can be time-consuming, but a little planning can go a long way!  If you’re looking to transition yourself and your family to a healthier lifestyle, skimping on planning and heading straight for the pre-prepared, processed foods is NOT going to get you there.  I do my grocery shopping on Sundays for the entire week, EXCEPT for meats, fruits/veggies.  Meat will keep in your refrigerator for 3 days.  On Sundays I will plan out what my family will be eating for the week:  Monday (Chicken), Tuesday (Fish), Wednesday (Pork) then I plan meals around it.  I pick a different vegetable for each of the three meals (broccoli, spinach, mixed-green salad), then (but not always) a whole grain or complex carb (quinoa, whole wheat pasta, sweet potato).  By planning this way I know ahead of time what’s going on my family’s table.  On Wednesday I’ll stop at the store again to get meat for Thurs-Sat and pick up more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Step 2: 

Meal Prep 

It’s been several years now since I worked outside the home, but even then my goal was to sit down at the table together as a family each night for dinner.  My parents divorced when I was five, but even as a single parent my mom managed to do this for me and my brothers.  Long before “Meal Prep” was even a buzz word, my mom spent Sundays getting ready for the week ahead.  Though I am fortunate to stay home, having 5 kids is no easy task.  In addition to sports, homework, and social activities, there are always things like dental appointments, orthodontist and doctors appointments to throw into the mix.  If you don’t have the time, or find that meal prep after work stresses you out, take another approach:  meal prepping.  Using a crock-pot, or preparing complete meals in a corning ware dish and keeping your meals ready to go in the fridge, can save you time and frustration later in the week when you’re short on time.  My husband travels often for work and it’s not unusual for me to be home with the kids for more than a week at a time.  When he’s gone, I have to pull double duty and still get a healthy meal on the table.  It may sound “old fashioned” but I am actually laying the foundation for proper nutrition and healthy eating–something my mom did for me over 35 years ago!

Step 3: 

Set aside time for exercise 

It seems kind of obvious, but if you don’t schedule it, it isn’t going to happen.  Success doesn’t just fall into people’s laps, people who are successful WORK at it!  If you have goals about your body or your health, sitting around waiting for things to happen just isn’t going to work.  The key is to keep your goals realistic.  If you’re 50 pounds overweight, it’s not realistic to expect to drop 50 pounds in 3 months.  I struggled with this concept a lot as a young mom.  Not only did I struggle with the idea that “me time” was O.K., the time I allotted for myself was ridiculously near-sighted.  I would allow myself one hour, three days a week, to work out.  I’m not sure what my thought process was there, but of course I boxed myself in.  I could either do weights or cardio, but not both.  More often than not, I chose the cardio because (in my mind at least) I was going to burn millions of calories doing that.  HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) wasn’t even a thing back then and my husband didn’t want me to look too muscular, so lifting weights to grow fat-burning muscle wasn’t on my radar screen then either.  I am happy to say that although I still only spend an hour a day in the gym (I’m a lot more efficient now), but it’s 5-6 times a week, not 2-3.  Giving that time to myself by scheduling it in to my day, not only makes me feel happy, it makes me feel happy about the time I give to my family.

Step 4: 

Have a plan

Just like planning your meals works in the kitchen, planning your workout works in the gym.  Turn off the TV some night this week and set up a work out plan for yourself.  Don’t know where or how to get started?  Join a small group training class or see if your gym offers a personal trainer to show you the ropes.  Working out at home?  Use the internet as a resource or ask someone you look up to where to begin.  Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of working out, develop a plan.  Set goals.  Push yourself.  If you’re not experiences muscle soreness at any point between when you work out and within a day or so after, that’s your body’s signal you’re not working hard enough.  You don’t have to lift gargantuan amounts of weights to achieve this, but you should be working the muscle to fatigue in order to encourage it to grow.

Step 5: 

Be consistent

Consistency, just like preparing and planning, is the 3rd key to successfully reaching your goals.  Health and fitness are a journey, not a race.  Get comfortable with yourself, get to know your body, prepare your mind.  Once you do these things remind yourself that you are going to have days when you don’t feel like doing a thing.  It’s normal to feel that way, but the key is to push through them.  Each day that you do something in line with your goals, is another day you get closer to achieving them.  Enlist your friends for support.  Find like-minded individuals.  Use your calendar to check off the days that you have been consistent.  Set small goals for a day at a time, or a week at a time.  Doing so will keep you moving forward and help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.  Forgive yourself when you fall short, then get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going.  The feeling of accomplishment that you’ll get is a reward in and of itself.  Just keep telling yourself, “I CAN DO THIS!”