For years past, I was only able to do my work out at night time before bed.  I would take all the little ones down in the basement, put the baby in the playpen or swing and do my elliptical.  With 5 under 5 I can guarantee that for the most part toddlers cried and whined.  There wasn’t as much play going on as they do now.  But it was okay, I just endured the crying and smiled and kept on doing the elliptical.  I knew that for 30 minutes it was not going to hurt them to be unhappy.  There were plenty of toys to play with if they so chose, but for the most part they just cried.  But I made it, and they did too.  Look into headphones:)

That is all I would recommend doing until you have gotten down to a manageable weight.  I didn’t even think about crunchers, pushups, or leg lifts until I had most of my “fat” off my body.  Concentrate on just moving, get off the couch, stand and hold the baby.  Get outside and take a brisk walk. March up and down your stairs.  Anything to get your body moving.

You need to get your heart rate pumping for a minimal of 20 minutes for it to be effective.  If you aren’t sweating, then you are probably not doing a hard enough work out.

Remember sweat is a natural way for toxins to leave your body.  So it is good to sweat. Even though it is gross:)

Plan to work out either in the early morning before your children wake up, so that it ensures you shower and get ready for your day. Or do it at night time close to bed so that you can shower and then hop into bed.  If none of these options works then plan on staying in your pajamas until you can work out and then shower and get ready for your day.  Or get ready for your day and then take a short shower again after you work out.

Whatever works for you, I always like to  get ready in the morning but since I have adopted the workout plan I have now, I have to stay in my pajamas until I work out and that is hard for me.  But I know it is a temporary thing, I am just working on the weight loss and when it is done, I can just  maintain and it won’t have to be so intensive.

Let’s say you have lost most of the weight, now it is time for floor exercises.

 You can do these pretty much anytime you want, like I said before, I would recommend trying to get off most of the excess weight then toning it up.

Here are some simple exercises that I do to help tone.  I do these in my living room while my little ones are climbing around me or playing nearby on the floor.  It is all about utilizing your time.

Crunchers

Okay, I know that after having 10 babies, I wondered if I would ever have a stomach muscle left inside of me.  I am here to say that yes, I do!  They are buried under that belly fat, but I am starting to feel them.  It took a long time to notice anything really but I am slowly making progress.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND SIT UPS.  Those are extremely hard on your back, do crunchers.  Bring your knees up and hands behind your head and slightly lift your head off of the ground, using your stomach muscles.  

 

 

Another variety of crunchers is to extend your legs upwards and lift your head off the ground towards your feet.  You can also alternate reaching to the sides of your legs with your elbows.

How many can you do?  I like to say—-“until your stomach hurts.”  If you need a number do 50.

Push ups

When I first started doing push ups, I could barely  make 5.  My arms would be shaking!  Now I am up to 15 and I usually do that 4 times throughout my floor time.

Do them on your knees to make them easier.

Planking

This is something new that my dear friend told me about.  I looked it up on youtube and it looked super easy, but then I tried it.  Definitely  not easy!!  This is a great core strengthener.  Try it, you will be surprised at how difficult it is.  I hold the position for 10 seconds and try and do that as many times as my stomach muscles allow.  I would aim for 4-5 sets.  It is basically a push up position on your toes not knees and on your forearms.  It is tough.

Leg lifts lying down

These are great do to work on the inner and outer thighs.  I do these until my legs hurt too much:)

Bend your leg on the bottom and extend your outer leg and do lifts toward the ceiling.

Take the knee down to the floor and push it back outwards.  This is great for those outer thighs.

Bend both legs at 90 degree angles and continue doing leg lifts.

 

I would recommend doing 15-20 lifts at a time.  See how many sets you can do

Leg lifts standing up

This is a great stretcher for you legs, it elongates them and helps tighten your rear- behind muscles.

Hold onto a tabletop and then lift your leg upwards.  Your child will still want to be picked up, keep lifting:)

 

Turn to the side and lift your legs outwards.  You can also do a scissor cross in front of your body as you swing your leg in front of you.  These are great for outer and inner thighs.  Again however many you can do.  For me it is however my children allow me to do:)  25 each leg.

Dog lifts

These probably aren’t called dog lifts, I just call them that because my children say it.   This was extremely hard for me to do after I had my babies.  It really does a work on your stomach muscles as well as your rear behind muscles.  If you are feeling any type of pain, stop and do not continue this exercise.  Slowly work up at it.  I would do maybe 5 and now I can do 25 of them at a time, I just needed to heal.

Get on all 4s and extend your leg out and lift your leg to the ceiling.  Stay up on your arms for an easier workout.

Bend the knee and lift your heel to the ceiling.  You can also point your toe and lift that to the ceiling.  Get down on your forearms for a harder workout.  Do 25 of each kind.  As many sets as you can.

STRETCHING

After I am all finished and the children are still playing I like to stretch.

Stretching, this is something I have neglected to do over the years and have only recently realized the importance of it.

When I think of stretching, I like to take all my body parts and give them a great stretch.  Here are some areas I like to elongate:

• Start with your head and  neck  do slow rolls with it.
• Then move to your shoulders and arms and do small circles and large ones. Go forward and backward.
• Take your waistline, and do some twists.
• Sit on the floor and stretch your leg out to the side and reach for your toes.
• Sit butterfly style and try and bring your face down to the floor.
• You can get on all 4s and do a cat stretch.  Raise your lower back up and arch like a cat.
• Don’t forget those Kegel exercises, especially after having babies, we gotta keep everything in shape!!

How about finding the TIME for exercise?  And what do you eat while trying to lose weight that doesn’t require a lot of prep work because you still have to make meals for 10 other people?  Continue topart 3 to see how it is done.

 

Welcome to our new series on weight loss.  I am excited to be able to share this with you because it has been a challenge that I have personally participated in.

Over the last 8 years I have had 6 babies, one right after the other.  During that time I have gained a lot of extra weight. Seventy pounds to be exact!!! At my highest, which was when I was ready to deliver I topped off at 210 lbs.  For the most part, some of the weight would come off.  But I remained at a steady 180 lbs for quite some time.  After having a baby and nursing them, it seems I would get pregnant again before I even thought about losing weight.

 It seems that losing the weight was ALWAYS taking a back seat.

Days, months, and years would go by with me feeling tired, sick, and fat.  I had to decided for myself that I wanted something different for my life.

So where did I start??

I wasn’t really into wearing exercise clothing because most of my Christian life has been spent wearing dresses and skirts.  But how was I going to go about exercising in a jean skirt???

That was probably one of the biggest excuses I had used when dealing with NOT losing the weight.  I would use the excuse that it shouldn’t matter what I look like under my clothing.  I wasn’t here to look impressive for other people.  Besides you can’t exercise in a long skirt?!?!?!?  I would just continue wearing my skirts, hoping that the weight would just melt off by itself without any work on my part.

Yeah…..that didn’t happen.

So I started.  As a Mom of many little ones, I didn’t have the resources to be able to just drop my children off and go do as I please and have “free exercise ME time.”  That just wasn’t going to happen.  My husband works hard and long for our family, I had to come up with a way for me to be able to work around my obstacles.

I waited until it was almost bedtime.  I nursed the baby and put him to sleep in the swing, which I placed by the front window to check on periodically.  I put the other little ones into their beds and popped in a DVD.  I  had older children help and I put them on watch over the little ones.  I was “on call” if the baby started fussing.  Which he did and I had to end my walking sessions early sometimes.

We live out in the country with no neighbors in sight.  I would head outside, in my long jean skirt and tennis shoes.  I then would do a walk/run around my yard.  We have a circle driveway and I would walk around the driveway and then do a run around my house.  I continued with that pattern until I did it for a full 30 minutes. Everytime I passed the window in the front, I would peek in at the sleeping baby.

I sweated and didn’t really like it very much.  I am not one to enjoy sweating, I think it is gross. But I knew in my mind that I had to work HARD for all of the years of lapsing in my eating.  It was sort of  a punishment for not eating correctly.  I was reaping what I sowed.  So I must work hard to work it off.

Afterwards, I would immediately come inside, take a hot shower, get into my pajamas, and then climb into bed.  I was tired, especially after watching little ones all day but I was determined.  The next day I felt so much better and was able to have more energy in my days.

I was enjoying this.  Then it started to rain, A LOT.  I looked so forward to walking at night and then by the time it would come we had rain.  I was frustrated.  So what did I do?  I put to use the tools I had inside, which was free floor space.  I started moving.

Most of my days are spent, getting this, or cleaning up that, constantly doing something.  But I do have many times that I am just sitting, holding a baby or sitting while my children are playing on the floor.  During those times is when I start taking advantage of some exercise time.

My children would watch Wiggles and I started mimicking the same dance moves as the people.  Do you realize what a workout that is in itself?  It is very hard to do.  Don’t believe me?  Try it?  Plus my little ones thought it was fun having Mom, dance along.

What about if you don’t watch the Wiggles?  You come up with movements on your own:)  I started moving.  I remember Denise Austin an exercise instructor when I was a teen say:

The more floor space you use the more calories you burn.

You just have to move!!!!  It really doesn’t matter what you do, just do SOMETHING!

I would run in place, pretend I was skipping rope, would do a fast high knee march around the house, with children in tow of course.  Any type of movement that you can get your heart rate moving is good.  Do it with your children.  Mine thought it was so great to be following Mommy around.  If you have a little baby, it works at your advantage.  You not only have the extra weight on your body, you have the extra weight of your baby to hold onto while you move.  It is like working out double!!!  Just keep moving.

When I would rock my babies to sleep, instead of sitting in a chair, I would stand up and sway back and forth in forceful paths, so that my legs would get a workout.  All of course while holding baby securely:)

I also used my Moby Wrap and would attach the baby to my body and then do walking.  When I had a colicky baby this was something I HAD to do.  The baby would not sit in the swing so in order for me to do anything, I had to wear them.  Which I did.  When I was finished, I don’t like the sweat thing remember, I would come right in and shower and by that time, baby would awaken from being lulled to sleep against my body.

This was when my husband saw that I was determined to lose weight and wanted to help me out.  He took me and we bought an elliptical machine.  Now I don’t believe in wasting money on exercise equipment because for the most part it will just sit there. Actually I don’t believe in wasting money on anything.    But if you are a determined Momma, this is a machine that I would HIGHLY recommend.  It is great for your joints, you can do a light workout or make it so that you have to endure.  I have had mine for 3 years, and I still use it almost every day.  One of the greatest things we have purchased.

 

If you are serious about losing weight I would recommend doing the elliptical 5 times per week.  For the not so serious at least 3 times.  I like to do my elliptical in the morning now as it is easier for me to wake up and get some chores done, take care of little ones and then bring them downstairs for playtime.  I then do my elliptical while they ride bikes, roller blade, or play in the corn pool.  I then go up and shower and get dressed for my day after I am done.

Want to know how I kept working out and losing weight with lots of little ones???  Keep reading to part 2 to see how YOU can lose the weight also.