BE PREPARED

What a busy fit mom eats-part 2. How do I manage to serve a healthy meal while taking care of the kids after a day of work that starts at 5am? I am PREPARED.
BUSY FIT MOM DIET

Breakfast
My breakfast sausages are cooked for the week and waiting in the fridge, the strawberries are cut and I make Kasia a sand which when I get up in the morning.

Snacks
The fruit snacks like melon are cut and waiting for Kasia to get them herself. She is always hungry and visits the fridge to get the bowl of cut fruit out for herself. I have shredded organic cheese ready for the baby, Ava and she has rice krispies as well. There is a cupboard of KID snacks at ground level that Kasia also has access to- it is filled with raisins, apple sauce, and granola bars. For myself I have fruit and a 1kg bag of almonds in the house. I keep an apple and a dish of almonds in my gym/work bag at all times. I have a quick Prograde recovery drink when I have a busy schedule at work as I get very hungry and don't have a break.

Lunch
This is usually packed up left overs form the night before dinner.

Dinner
I also cut my veggies and keep them in the crisper. They are readily available for that nights meal. I use my crock pot often, especially when I need to clear a load of vegetables from my fridge. I have my meals organized in my mind for the week. I have been cooking for a family for about 25 years now and am used to this.

Groceries
This is where is begins, the most important part of my eating. I go with a list. I have an idea of meals that I want to make or new ones I want to try and get the ingredients. I don't visit the junk food aisle. I start at produce move to meat counter, go to Organic and them baby food area. (this is already 80% of my shopping) I then visit the butcher area and lastly the frozen and preserved food aisle for a few incidentals.

Visit www.babybumpfitness.ning.com for today's update on what I ate today. Again, I do not measure anything and do not follow a specific meal plan, I just fill the house with GOOD FOOD.

I felt strong today during my workout and did all lifting and pull ups.

BAD WEATHER IS NO EXCUSE

My Mommy max strength experiment is coming to and end this week. I will trying my exercises tomorrow and will post result at the BabyBump-social network link. Over the past 2 weeks I have been woken every night by a teething baby- she now has 4 teeth. At least something to show for all of the sleeplessness. Last night she slept through the night- I was startled out of my sleep at 5:25am by my alarm. When I went out to my car for work it was covered in ice and snow, I had already taken my ice scraper out of my car so I just waited for everything to warm up. I am telling you this because I notice a funny thing at the gym this morning while training my first client- WE WERE THE ONLY ONES THERE. This is a prime training time and is usually busy. A bit of snow and ice and people take the opportunity to skip a workout. Depressing to see ice and snow YES, well how do you make yourself feel better- WORKOUT.

It just seems people use any little excuse to skip their workouts. There is a time to rest and a time to work. We talked about the rest last week- take a day off if you are extremely sleep deprived, fighting a virus, feel over trained or injured. Do not take a day off because it snowed- this is just an excuse that will lead to non compliance. You still have time today to give this Busy Mom Fitness program a go- you are worth 15 minute today.
You are a busy mom and never get to schedule anything, so try this right now as you are surfing on your computer.

BUSY MOM HOME CIRCUT

1. Warmup- leg swings both directions, arm swings, arm circle.
2. 10x body weight full squats
3. 10x/leg body weight lunges
4. Front plank 30 seconds than last 30 seconds perform alternating front plank toe taps.
5. Side planks 10x/side with leg lift
6. Jumping jacks 20x
7. Pushups 10x
8. Reverse fly with just bodyweight arms/resistance band or dumbells 15x
9. Burpies- 10x
10. Wall shoulder rotation with press
REPEAT 2-10 and stretch

Don't let a little bad weather get in your way, stand up and give this workout a try right now- where ever you are. Let me know how you feel afterwards.

HOW & WHEN BUSY MOMS EXERCISE

I will not be performing my max strength experiment this week as I had of food poisoning, thank god it was me and not one of the kids. We have implemented a schedule to accommodate date night/family outing/entertaining in our household. Well this week during our family outing we took the kids to a restaurant and I got sick that night, it's been 2 days and I just ate my first bowl of soup.

It finally happened- they broke through. My baby daughter has the signs of her first teeth. Two little white "chicklets" on the top of her mouth. I know they usually get the bottom ones first. Well, we'll take it. She will be turning 1 year old on Thursday as well, this is a big week for her.

As a busy mom how and when do you fit exercise into your day?

1. Being extremely desperate on Friday I exercised in the shower. It's great because I will not be interrupted by screaming kids because I cannot hear them. I performed the BUSY MOM FITNESS mini circuit of 10 squats, 10 deadlifts (waiter bow), 10x 1 legged squats each leg, 10x 1 legged deadlifts each side. I repeated this circuit and got a bit of much needed circulation through my body. DO NOT do this if you are still nursing or on a slippery shower surface.

2. On Sunday I utilized nap time again. I performed 20 kettlebell chops, 10x weighted full squats, 10 pushups off the stability ball. I repeated this circuit 3x. I then performed 1 more circuit again 3x, Bulgarian split squat 10x each leg and 20x reverse flies with resistance band. DONE this took me about 12 minutes. This is a busy mom fat loss circuit.

3. When I do not exercise- when I feel sick or I am fighting something. I am the backbone of this household and cannot afford to go down sick if I can avoid it.

4. When I do exercise- when I am feeling emotionally drained I pull my butt off the couch and do a mini circuit, I always feel better. When I am only slightly tired, I usually feel better afterwards and adjust my intensity accordingly. I try to exercise before noon on days that I work because this is when I have more energy and I find I have better focus when I pick up the kids. I exercise during nap time (1pm) when I have the kids with me, I do not leave this until the end of the day because it will just be another thing that gets pushed until tomorrow.

5. If the kids won't nap- take them to the park and exercise- yeah people stare- so what. Get the kids to exercise with you, this for me is a last resort because I would rather use my exercise time as personal time. Everyone is different and many of you may find comfort and motivation in exercising along side your kids. They are able to do more than you think, and they want to exercise with you.
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So I hope this helped you as a busy mom;
How to exercise-answer very short circuit style training with minimal equipment needed.
When to exercise- whenever you get a chance (nap time, shower, park) and are not feeling sick or like you are fighting a virus

NEW RECIPE AND CRAWLING FOR FITNESS?

A new recipe has been donated by Gayle for Potato and Leek soup at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com in the Recipe group. Note do not use green parts of leek.

So I have a great video of my baby's first crawl. I was very excited to share this with you because it indicates proper neuromuscular development for her. So what does this have to do with you and your busy mom fitness. Well, have you ever suffered from back pain or a back injury?- most likely yes. If so, I want you to try to crawl. This is a primal movement and indicates good spinal health at the L4/L5 level that innervates the lower body. There are certain movement patterns that we are supposed to be able to perform and the pattern of crawling is one of them. So I challenge you- give it a try and see how fluid you are at crawling. Are you moving opposite arm and leg at the same time? Is your pelvis steady while crawling and not dipping excessively to either side. Again look at the video of my baby's first crawl- you'll notice her coordination is not perfect, but good enough to get around. I expect to see this develop rapidly over the next week as she progresses to a fluid, coordinated crawl.

Throughout our life to motherhood injuries and overuse happens to our bodies ( a lot from being pregnant and caring for a baby). This has an impact on our movement patterns. Working on a fluid, coordinated crawl is not just for babies, you can benefit too. Return to your roots and perfect this pattern, this is the start of a great exercise program. Let me know how you perform on this challenge and I may have some more insight for you.

Some great news for BabyBumpFitness:

Hi Jacqueline,

We just posted an article, “Top 100 Healthy Mom Blogs” (http://www.rncentral.com/nursing-library/careplans/top_100_healthy_mom_blogs). I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting. I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

Either way, thanks for your time!

Kelly Sonora

Sleep Deprivation and Max Strength- my experiment day 2

Another tid bit of information regarding sleep. Over the past 3 nights my baby has been sick so I was averaging about 3 hours sleep per night and completing a course through the day (so not napping). WOW, has this ever affected my maximum strength. I did have a good night sleep last night but, I was only able to complete 4 berpie pullups in total today (last week 5 then 4- 2 sets) and dropped 20 pounds on my near max cleans (3 reps)(barbell pulling motion). I know factors like nutrition come into play as well, but I feel my accumulation of sleep deprivation was the kicker. I am putting myself through a little challenge where I am trying to improve on these 2 exercises every Tuesday. I will let you know my conditions (sleep and diet) and my improvements. So the question is, can a new mom dramatically improve her strength results? With constant set backs like the flu, lack of sleep and emotional stress, what is realistic? You can loose fat with the quick Tababta style fat loss workouts and being organized with your diet, I am living proof of that. Now the question is how and when will I regain my pre-pregnancy strength- if ever. My busy mom fitness strength workout today- dynamic warmup, standing lat pulldowns, lunge press, shoulder rotations, elevated prone plank with knee ins, 4 Berpie pullups 1 set, 2 sets of narrow grip pullups each 4 reps, circuit of front squat-pushpress-bulgarian split squat 2 sets. Now it is time to try cleans, warmup goes well so I add 20lb and able to complete, I add 10 more pounds to complete 5x but not maxed out so I add another 20lb to try for my 3 rep max- NO DICE. I could not complete this complex lift today. I altered my lift to a high pull 5x, then backed off on the weight to complete 5 more lifts. I proceeded with post rehab hamstring and glut medius exercises. I will be reporting on this every Tuesday for the next month and let you know how far I have come and under what conditions, I will perform these 2 exercises at the same point in my workout each week. I know strength training may not be your goal, but there are some great benefits to it. It is a great way to shake up your program, decrease boardum and allow you to set mom fitness goals for yourself. In the long run you will be able to lift more while you are circuiting, therefore cutting more fat. All training I talk about is strengthening, but I am specifically referring to trying near max lifts. I do feel I am ready for this as my baby is almost 1 year old.

2 DIFFERENT SLEEP DEPRIVATION WORKOUTS

I have been getting some more response regarding the recipes and realized people without a blogger account cannot comment on the blog. If you want to share your recipes with others mothers please email me at jacqgradish@hotmail.com and I will post your recipes or you can sign in http://babybumpfitness.ning.com and post your recipes in the busy mom group, this way everyone will get to share the information.

This is a comment that Denise had emailed to me to post-

Hey Jac

I just wanted to let you know that the pulled pork was yummy, yummy, yummy! Leah helped me sprinkle the spices over the meat and then kept asking me all day "WHAT is that smell?" (I thought it smelled great!). She gobbled it up and so did Jeff. We're going to try your second recipe next week. I liked that I could have the spicy stuff I want, but still have Leah eating the same meal as the entire family (by taking some non-spicy meat out to the middle). I hate having to make her something different because I feel like something spicy.


Thanks,

Denise
Great feedback Denise, thanks. We can really support one another through our journey as parents, please share anything that you may think another mom may find helpful.

Today in busy mom fitness I want to talk about working out while sleep deprived. As a parent I think you have a new sense of "normal" when it comes to the amount of sleep you get. If you are only moderately sleep deprived like one bad night, but you still have you regular "mom" energy level you can still get a great benefit from performing Tabata fat loss circuts. These are the short 4 minute circuts I post with 20 second work 10 second rest intervals, repeating the circut 2 to 3 times. These are intense while you perform them and have a great after burn affect for fat loss. The workouts are short enough that you can manage them with less sleep and intense enough to help increase you growth hormone for a great health benefit.

If you are extremely sleep deprived or feel like you are fighting a virus I suggest performing a joint mobility workout with foam rolling ending with some static stretching. You should feel energized by getting your blood flowing, release some tension and you will not be lowering your immunity by performing intense muscle breakdown work. (As a bit of back ground this is how muscle grows- first by causing micro tears that stress the muscle tissue during your workout and, then repairing it with proper sleep and nutrition) When extremely sleep deprived you do not want to start this breakdown cycle, you want to focus on maintenance and relaxation.

As a busy mom integrating fitness into your life you have to trouble shoot what you need and what you can manage. We have talked about two totally different types of mom workouts that are both beneficial depending on your unpredictable schedule.

I will post examples of each style of workout at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com. So visit and give them a try.