A balancing act – Here are 6 important steps to get you back into your training again.
Becoming a parent is full of so many mixed emotions. Excitement, worry, stress, pain, happiness, heartbreak, guilt and overwhelming love and that is naming only a few, not to mention what it does to our bodies and our minds. Suddenly you have a brand-new roll in a completely different body, who are you? You feel and look different. You are exhausted, emotional and not sure if you should be feeling this uncertainty about it all. Being a Mum is exceptionally hard, and if you are a Mum reading this right now, you are amazing and doing a bloody fantastic job!
Now to add a spanner into the works. So as well as running around after a teeny, weeny, demanding little human who occasionally poos on you or vomits in your hair, you also have to keep the house in check, feed your pack and if you are back at work, juggle that in as well! You haven’t even thought about how you are going to get your training back in? Yes, that’s the spanner I was talking about. It seems impossible to fit it in too, doesn’t it?
It is hard to try and do everything and yes, your bundle of cuteness is your priority. But you are important too and you need to look after yourself to be able to give 100% to your babies. When you feel good about yourself and confident in your appearance and mental health, you will thrive. So, let us help you get a training programme incorporated back into your routine and get you back to feeling like your old self again.
- Find some exercise groups you can join! Likeminded people are essential to keep you motivated! You will make new friends and most of them will be parents too, doing exactly what you do. It’s good to have a group of friends to encourage you to keep going, to get you feeling good about yourself again and to be able to chat to about your little people at home!
- Routine is Key. It needs to become part of your daily schedule to be successful. Once you have found the training group you want to join, sit down with your partner and/or other family members and get some babysitters scheduled in!
- Be patient with yourself and set realistic goals. Depending on the birth you had, how many babies you had, if you had a short space between pregnancies and so on, your body has just adapted itself, created, nourished and carried another human being around! It takes 9 months to grow not to mention the ordeal of giving birth! It will take at least that time again to get back to what you would deem normal. Even then your body will probably still look different to you so just be kind to yourself and go at your own pace until you feel confident to push a bit harder and create bigger goals.
- Stay motivated! Its so hard, especially when you aren’t getting enough sleep and feel so tired. Try and eat healthy meals and snacks and stay away from the sugary quick fixes, this won’t help your fatigue. Also, when preparing or clearing away the kid’s meals, try not to prevent waste by eating up what they don’t want! Kids food/meals are usually high in calories and fat so you could end up having two dinners. We all do it! It’s so easy to pop that yummy looking fish finger or two into our mouths, sometimes not even thinking about it! Like we mentioned above, get to those group classes and make sure your friends nag at you to come along to at least 3 classes a week! Make sure you schedule in rest days, especially at the beginning. You need the rest to recover. On your rest days, try and make sure you still go for a nice walk if you can. That’s good for the babies and kids too!
- Try not to talk yourself out of a workout. If its scheduled in, do it. If you talk yourself out of it once, it will become a habit and you will end up never going. Make the habit your workout! If you are tired, just take it easy that session, if you have a cold, go but try not to breathe or sneeze on anyone! The times where you don’t feel like doing it are the times you feel exhilarated after!! It’s always worth it. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes you will have been up with the baby all night and you got about 5 mins sleep, in cases like this you are probably best off not to train. Swap over your rest days and try and get some sleep instead. There will be times when you can’t get out of the house, but you can always do something at home instead. There are lots of YouTube videos you could search through. It doesn’t have to be much; something is always better than nothing.
- Have goal in your mind. It could be anything, but you will need to focus on it to keep the motivation there. Could be a photograph of you before the baby, or it could be an event you have always wanted to do or could be an achievement that you never quite reached before. Set it up and keep to it. Don’t stop until you reach it. Once you do, which you will, then find another! You are amazing and capable of so much. You know you’re strong, you gave birth, now use that strength to achieve your goal. Remember to enjoy it, it will be fun, we promise. Good Luck and don’t forget to let us know how you get on.
Comment below if you have any tips or advice, you’d like to add to this to help the other mums out there struggling to feel like themselves again.
