When I was a brand-new mom, it seemed I heard more unsolicited advice than during any other time in my life.

Although most of it was well-intended, a lot of–particularly new-mom exercise—advice I’ve been offered is pure, saccharine crap.

We’ve all heard them—those suggestions that truly have no substance, and nothing tangible that we can actually implement as helpful tools within our changing lives, as parents with little kids.

While sharing guidance and strategies that have experientially worked for us is helpful, idealistic, not-genuinely practical advice just adds to our feelings of mother-guilt–that somehow we’ve failed, and it ( falsely) seems like everyone else is performing this all-important role of mother with much more ease and effectiveness.

It’s tips like these that need to go away:

1. Chasing our kids is exercise.

No. No, it’s not.

I absolutely fall into the category of “exhausted mother with two kids under the age of five,” and this is exactly why I do exercise—so that I can keep up with them.

2. Use random household things for weights.

“Grab a soup can!” No. Wrong. Invest a few dollars and purchase actual dumbbells. Women need to stop pretending that we can and should only lift a few pounds.

(Do we really need to continually dispel this myth that women shouldn’t lift heavy weights? If so, it’s been done.)

3. On mommy-and-me classes.

Now, mommy-and-me classes are awesome for connecting with our children—I’m not arguing that.

Additionally, studios and gyms that offer childcare are great ways for parents to get out of the house and have a real workout.

This all said, working out at home is the easiest, most practical solution—especially for those with babies and younger kids. There’s never an excuse to miss an in-the-living-room workout, and my daughters have fun breaking out their own little yoga mats and trying to do some exercises along with me.

And two constructive pieces of advice:

1. Toss out time limits.

Some exercise is always better than none.

Rather than getting overwhelmed with creating an entire hour or more to workout, just grab those dumbbells, a yoga mat, find a podcast on YouTube, and go! (If you’re anything like I am, you’ll find that moving past that initial hurdle of inertia turns into 20, 30 or more minutes quickly.)

2. Just move!

It’s good to switch up our workouts, and it’s also good to discover what we like. I truly believe that everyone loves some form of exercise—we only need to figure out what that is!

Personally, I’m continually trying new forms of exercise. For one, it reminds me why I love what I normally do, like Yoga, Pilates and weight lifting. For another, sometimes we have a talent for, or are excited by, something that we never would have suspected (like how I recently I discovered my adoration for HIIT cardio).

Whatever you do, mama, don’t give up—our kids are looking at us for real-life examples of how to treat our bodies. Carving time out for ourselves can feel selfish, but it’s not—it’s that old “put on your air mask first.”

Do you have a tip for parents trying to take care of their bodies, with tiny people running around? Share in the comments section below!

The post Real-Life Advice for Moms Who Want to Feel Strong and Healthy. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

In retrospect, I’ve definitely been a trendy exerciser.

I’ve done step, I’ve run, I love Pilates, hiking, weight lifting and various forms of cardio. I’m both a certified Spinning and yoga instructor.

One of the main reasons that I’ve tried these different forms of working out is that I sincerely love to exercise. I’m one of those people that just truly enjoys moving my body, sweating, and the glowing after-effects of endorphins.

But now I’m a mom. More, my kids are 5 and 1. In other words, exercise used to be something that I did nearly every day, and it was either planned around work, or securely fit into my schedule as that special time just for myself—something I loved doing, and something that relieved stress. As a mother, however, fitness is something I have to hold on to and work to make time for, rather than something that’s a relatively easy add-on to an already full day.

My husband and I—both avid exercise enthusiasts—can attest to the reality that parenting young kids means that workouts are basically always too short, and never quite as frequent as we would prefer. This said, it is a priority in my life, kids or no kids.

Following are my go-to tips that help ensure I exercise almost every day (even though I’m usually surrounded by two adorable tiny workout companions).

1. Let go of time limits.

It’s wonderful to have goals—such as working out for an hour—but some is always better than none.

My biggest piece of practical advice is to completely let go of idealistic time frames, and simply aim to move—in some way, every day, whether it’s dancing in the kitchen while making dinner, or to an online Pilates podcast found YouTube (hint, hint).

2. “Do it for 10 minutes” philosophy.

This extraordinarily basic philosophy works well. When I don’t want to work out, but I know that I’ll feel better if I do, I subscribe to this concept I made up years ago—I tell myself I’ll exercise for only 10 minutes, and then I can stop if I’m still not in the mood.

In probably 20 years of doing this, I think I’ve stopped twice. Because once I surpass that initial hurdle of just doing it, I’ve wanted to continue for at least another 10 or 20 minutes, or more.

3. Try new things.

This seems like common sense, but it’s easy to get into a routine. It’s ideal, really, to fall into a space in life where exercise is regular and predictable. But sometimes routine can mean rut.

Trying a new form of exercise can get us out of ruts, both mentally and physically. It’s good to change it up, at least every now and then.

4. Buy home equipment.

I have been a gym rat and a yoga studio regular, but my absolute preference is to exercise at home. There is no excuse for missing a workout that happens in my living room.

Purchase a yoga mat, or a set of dumbbells—anything!—and then leave them out in the middle of the living room. Make sure you have to trip over them to turn on the lamp.

This has worked doubly well for me, because I, for example, leave three yoga mats next to my couch—one for me and one for each of my kids. Often, it’s my girls that get out the mats—and how do I not move a little bit when that happens?

5. Never give up.

I’ve had two periods of my life when I’ve been unable to workout due to illness, and my husband, when I felt frustrated, would ask me the same question: “You’re in it for the long haul, aren’t you?”

Yes—yes, I am.

I move my body because it feels good. I take care of myself so that I can enjoy my life and health in other ways. I exercise for the sheer pleasure of it, and, equally, because I want to be well for as long as I’m able.

Life brings many variables—ones which we are not in charge of; ones that can leave us feeling helpless. (The best laid plans.) We are in charge of how we treat our bodies, though, and this reality has been empowering to me when I felt out of control in other areas of my life.

What’s one way that you stay motivated to exercise? Share below in comments!

The post 5 Mom-Backed Tips on How to Squeeze Exercise into Every Single Day first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

My body holds my tension from yesterday, unless I unravel it through movement.

I charge myself each morning by moving, whether for 5 minutes as the kids play, and we perform our morning getting-ready-for-the-day rituals, or for closer to 60, if the baby naps and I’m able.

My dad asked me yesterday about my sequence of exercise; for example, do I practice yoga after I lift weights? I told him that I don’t, currently, have the luxury of so much planning.

Instead, I might place my mat on the carpet, next to my daughters’ two tinier sticky mats; where we’ll “play” through some vinyasa yoga sequences or Pilates movements. Other moments, I hastily grab a few free weights, from where they’ve frequently been stashed in my bedroom—much to my husband’s annoyance as he tries to open the closet door quickly before work. I press out a few shoulder sets as the kids and I watch Signing Time on Netflix.

And then there are the mornings, like this one—grey and overcast, with snow barely covering the still-green grass. The baby is in her crib, not yet sure if she wants to fall asleep. (I watch her breathing become deeper on the video monitor, but then she moves, and sits up and starts talking.)

I have my cheap little TENS unit on my back as I write this, preparing my spine and cranky back muscles for, what I’m hoping, will be at least a 30-minute yoga practice.

My oldest daughter is at school, but only for a few short hours in the morning. (I’m grateful for this—I love having her home with me, but she loves school too.)

For me, moving my body isn’t something I have to force. I mean, from time to time it is, but generally it’s a highlight of my day. More, as a stay-at-home mother, it’s something I do just for me.

I love the sensations of tracing my breaths along with the movements of my body, as it flows and shifts through postures, or as I inhale and exhale intentionally while strength training.

I used to feel selfish for unrolling my yoga mat and doing 20 minutes of core work, with the children playing around me. Sometimes, I still do. Mostly, I know I’m a better mother for taking care of myself—my own needs, my own body, my own mind.

Exercise is a mood-buster, when the skies are grey and my temperament follows suit.

I feel the tightness from yesterday, that I carried into today, in my shoulders or jaw, from holding my mouth shut in an effort to not yell at my daughters when I’m intensely frustrated by their little-girl shenanigans.

I feel the emotion lodged behind my heart, where it catches in my shoulder blade, from stifled sobs at watching them grow up faster than I want.

I do cry sometimes—not often, but I do; I yell sometimes—more than I wish I did—and each day I leave behind the one before, as much as I humanly can, through moving myself, and making space within my body.

I make space for new opportunities in a new day.

I’m grateful for my love of exercise and I’m even more thankful that I finally understand balance. After years and years of over-exercising, I accept that I love it perhaps more than the average person, but that life isn’t meant to revolve around working out either.

I told my dad that I workout because I like it, but that I’m conscientious that what I’m doing is functional, for me and for my life.

I told him I do leg weights and hold Warrior poses and boat poses and planks, because I want to run after my kids and have kitchen dance parties. I do shoulder weights so that I can pick them up.

I stopped working out to look good in a bikini the day my daughter was born, and that’s the real secret.

We want to guilt our bodies, shame our hearts, or trouble our brains, and force ourselves to move. I decided I’m not willing to hate my body, or over-train it anymore, simply to look a certain way at 30-something.

The baby didn’t nap. I picked her up from her crib as she smiled into my eyes. We bundled her up and went to meet her sister at the bus, at the edge of our stone driveway.

Inside, I put off making lunch, and I unrolled my sticky mat. I didn’t change clothes. Rather, I tossed my jeans and socks to the side and moved and breathed through a backbending sequence. The baby giggled at me from her swing and my oldest decompressed to another episode of Signing Time.

I felt a tinge of guilt in my mommheart for taking this time for myself. The guilt unraveled and released, along with my back muscles.

I want to create a lifelong love affair with my body, and with myself. I want to show my daughters what it’s like to be in love with ourselves, and not unnecessarily battling for a fickle societal standard.

If we want to love exercising our bodies, then we have to find enjoyment in moving for our souls.

The post How to Love Exercise. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Working out first thing in the morning isn’t my preference, but it’s something I’ve done for years.

I’m not exactly a morning person. I’m not a night owl either. Instead, give me a good afternoon—like lunchtime—that’s when I’m gold.

Seriously, though, I have two young children who I stay home with. Before them I had jobs outside of my home, and exercising in the morning—even if it meant getting up really early—was always the best way to ensure success. For me, moving my body after breakfast or, at least, a cup of coffee sets my day off in the healthiest way possible.

Following are the scientifically-proven reasons I work out almost every day. (Perhaps surprising to some will be that none of these motivations have anything to do with how my body looks.)

1. Energy.

Exercise is scientifically proven to provide us with energy. So when I wake up lacking energy for my day—which is not a good thing since I’m in charge of two extremely busy little children—working out is my go-to pick-me-up. (I’m a coffee nut, too, but even coffee holds nothing compared to the energy-boost of exercise.)

2. Mood.

I, frankly, wake up grumpy more often than I’d like to own up to.

The thing is, as nearly all parents know, we wake up when are kids do, which is hardly ever when we would choose to get out of bed. Rather than mope around all day, I make my beloved coffee and move my body in some way for at least 20 minutes. I feel almost instantly better after a short yoga practice, or lifting weights or my favorite cardio workout, my circa-1990-something NordicTrack.

I’ll be honest, sometimes when I’m home with the kids, my workout consists simply of pressing out a few sets of free weights while we watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse together.

There are several science-backed reasons for why even these short amounts of exercise create a better mood, only one of which is connected to the release of feel-good brain chemicals like endorphins.

3. Fights off colds.

This is a complex discussion, but, in short, moderate levels of regular exercise can help prevent us from getting sick. Partly, this is because moderate exercise increases T cells.

Exercise doesn’t have to be intense either—conversely, over-exercising can have the opposite effect.

4. Confidence builder.

Working out makes me feel good about myself. For one, I feel like I’m doing something good for myself, and this sets off a chain reaction of better choices throughout the rest of my day (which is another reason I prefer morning sessions).

More, exercise helps me shake off how I felt yesterday; it allows each day to feel like a new opportunity for success and joy. What’s a better self-esteem boost than that?

5. Coping skills.

Especially as a mother to daughters, it’s important to me that I’m giving them the chance to learn healthy coping skills. Exercise can absolutely be a healthy, positive way to cope with life’s inevitable stress and periods of melancholy.

When my husband comes home from work, and my kids have been a challenge that day, and all mama really wants is a glass of wine, I almost never pour that wine until I’ve taken a “mommy timeout” and exercised. Give me 20 minutes of one of my favorite workouts, and that wine can then be enjoyed instead of needed.

And, yes, I have motivations that are related to my body.

Regular exercise is one of the largest reasons that my weight has maintained itself, aside from pregnancies, for years and years. Exercise is good for us, inside and out, but, for me, I’ve found time and time again that my most powerful motivators usually have nothing to do with my appearance.

I think the reality that I’ve learned to accept exercise as a part of my lifestyle—and not centered it around physical appearance—is the top reason that it’s been such a consistent part of my life. Only when we benefit from the true rewards of exercise are we fully able to understand why people want to do it.

In addition to my offerings listed above, there are several other science-based exercise rewards, like better sleep and even a better sex life. Still, I have people tell me all the time that they don’t know how I stay so motivated.

I’ve worked out on most days for years, through pregnancy and child-rearing and chronic illness and, you know what? I’ve decided that I want to share how I stay motivated in the hopes to inspire just one more person to come alive and better enjoy her life by beginning to move a little bit each day.

Why do you workout? If you have a motivation that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you in comments.

The post 5 Best Proven Motivations for Exercise (That Have Nothing to Do with Appearance). first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

We can’t outrun our diets—for a long time I didn’t want this statement to be true. But it is.

We absolutely cannot outrun our diets.

But what can we do?

I’ve written before about how it’s not fair for celebrity moms to pretend publicly that their workouts consist of chasing children. Come on—we all know this isn’t true.

That said, when a mom friend of mine recently jokingly replied to a post of mine about “skinny moms” that, darn we can’t get “skinny” chasing children? It really got me thinking because, frankly—we can.

Because we cannot outrun what we eat. What we eat, how much we eat, how we eat—these things all catch up to us, eventually at least.

I love to exercise.

I do not get to exercise as much as I would like to during the span of my full-time parenting days, but I do move my body often and regularly.

So while we cannot outrun what we eat, we can move our bodies because it feels good and it makes our bodies healthier.

I move my body every damn day. Every day. Still, I made a commit to myself before becoming a parent that I would not let working out be more important than my family. I’ve found, too, that this is a delicate balance at times, especially because my taking care of myself is a positive thing for my family and for me.

I used to run over 13 miles a day, weight lift, do cardio, Pilates, etc, etc—essentially I completely over-exercised and was full-on eating disordered.

Along my road to recovery, I visited a nutritionist who said my diet was wonderful. And it was, wonderful. What it wasn’t, however, was enough food for how much I was moving myself.

Part of recovering fully from my eating disorder was admitting to myself that I do genuinely love working out and moving, and then learning how to be true to my athletic nature while also not becoming unhealthily obsessed with it. I decided it was unhealthy, for instance, to place a workout above the welfare of my family, but this doesn’t mean not prioritizing exercise either; making excuses or not demanding a little bit of time most days.

I remember sitting around a campfire late one night with my husband-then-boyfriend, when we lived in New Mexico. We got into a discussion with another avid backpacker and exerciser that, essentially, we didn’t think a person could exercise away a bad diet.

My husband-then-boyfriend and I shared our passion for movement and, especially, for outdoor exercise, but, equally, we shared the passion for eating good food and eating what our bodies needed. In short, we practiced moderation.

Moderation was not easy for me to achieve.

For years, as an eating disordered person, I spent time either consuming an entire pint of ice cream or banning it from my diet. It took me awhile to finally admit that these two patterns went hand in hand: when we ban “bad” foods, or foods that we can’t control ourselves around, it fuels this lack of control when we have access to them again, because we know it’s limited.

So what I did was simple, but it wasn’t easy.

I stocked my freezer, at first with pint-sized ice cream containers and insisted on having part of it, in special little bowls, without just ripping into them with a spoon. There were many nights when I overindulged and wanted to once again ban ice cream from my freezer, but I didn’t. I kept trying and doing this, until it registered subconsciously that I would always have ice cream in my freezer, if I wanted it.

I “upgraded” to stocking larger containers of ice cream.

It took trial and error, but it worked—having foods that scared me around my house helped me to not be afraid of food in general.

When we were younger, my husband-then-boyfriend and I loved having Cheetos as a treat. He always bought smaller bags and I, being frugal, always bought the larger. He—this guy who has always had an unusually healthy relationship with food—told me that he didn’t know how I could stop myself from continually reaching my hand into the larger-sized bag. I told him that I had “trained” myself.

He moved to New Mexico a college semester before I did. After he moved, I realized that I still wanted to have Cheetos every now and then—it turned out that my college boyfriend wasn’t the only one I kept them around our apartment for.

But, still not fully recovered from my eating disorder, foods like that scared the bejeezus out of me. So I, having even less money as a poor student who now didn’t have her boyfriend as a roommate, still bought the large-sized bag, but I would come home from the grocery store and immediately divide them into smaller, individual “servings” in Ziploc bags.

However, by the time I moved out to New Mexico, I had already “graduated” and didn’t need to divide them up anymore—I had, again, subconsciously recognized that the Cheetos weren’t going anywhere and that I could have more at another time. Because the following is the biggest, overall nugget of truth that I’ve gleaned on my quest to be an eater of moderation; this is what always helps me to not overindulge.

There is always tomorrow.

Truly.

I don’t need to have a third helping of Cheetos because I can eat more of them tomorrow if I still want them. Spoiler alert: you won’t usually wake up still thinking about one more Cheeto, or that extra spoonful of ice cream.

This also helps during those times when I do eat a little too much: there’s always tomorrow and a healthy diet and, more, a healthy person, is not created by one day of living.

No, our lives are made up of our choices, and our choices become our habits; become our lifestyle, become our days, become our lives, become our stories.

My story sometimes involves ice cream—and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ll be honest, I don’t eat really Cheetos anymore. It’s not that I don’t like them, but I don’t run 13 miles anymore and, even if I did, it’s just not what I typically crave as my indulgence.

Because I’m not a celebrity stay-at-home mom with a nanny or even an extra set of hands on most days, unless you count my five year old, who genuinely loves to help.

This said, I’m glad that I got out of the trap of needing to workout in order to burn off what I ate the day before—that’s an awful cycle to be in. Now, I move my body because I want to, and while I don’t eat everything that I sometimes want to, I found another secret of being a balanced eater: I don’t find my joy in my food.

Not that I don’t love food—I do.

Not that I don’t believe that food is something that is meant to be enjoyed and appreciated—I do. But people who are able to say “no” or, as my twin sister and I did when my dad was pouring us milk as kids—“when”—know that happiness will never be sitting there waiting at the bottom of an empty ice cream container. And that’s the real thing to address: is food something that we are enjoying, or has it become a frenemy?

I made friends with food.

After a long time of being outright enemies, and then frenemies, I made peace with my diet; my diet that I can’t outrun or out-lift or out-Pilates.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the one that works. For me, this was true. Food will always be there tomorrow. So will second chances.

So today was a day of choices you wish you hadn’t made? The great thing about life is that each day is a new beginning; every day is an opportunity to become a new “best.”

It starts with making friends with ourselves.

We can’t outrun ourselves either.

The problems that I carried inside moved with me to New Mexico. I had to address them there, unless I wanted them to move with me again, when we got married and moved to Pennsylvania.

Eating too much, running too much, drinking too much: these are all covers for what is going on underneath our surfaces. Self-discovery isn’t always fun—it’s not always pretty and easy to deal with—but it’s necessary, if we want to ultimately like ourselves.

My food choices reflect my self-love—the self-love that I worked hard for.

I reached a point in my life years ago, where I got tired of hating myself and tired of having a bad relationship with food—so I said “when.”

The funny thing is that when I stopped fighting food, my relationship with it healed almost naturally—that’s why having “scary” foods around the house helped: food wasn’t actually my enemy, I was.

And that’s exactly the piece of knowledge that helped me the most: I had to stop placing my self-love and acceptance into bowls with my ice cream.

The post How I Made Friends with Food. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Are you there, yoga? It’s me, Jennifer.

Sometimes I subconsciously, and consciously, avoid my yoga practice—moving my body in a myriad of other ways—simply to not have to look in the magic mirror of my sticky mat.

Because my yoga practice doesn’t lie.

Some days, my practice lets me know that I’m exhausted—depleted and pushing through the day as a stay-at-home yogi with two active children, because I have no choice.

On days like these, I feel grateful for this revelation, but, simultaneously, I feel cheated that I can’t listen to what I genuinely need.

What I need is sitting on the couch poring over a novel. What I need is to eat more than normal or to take a day and nap and not eat much at all.

What I have is two kids who need routine—two extremely mobile little people who can’t have a mommy sitting on the sofa reading and napping and munching on peanuts.

So, instead of unrolling my sage green sticky mat, I bring some weights up from the basement and press out a few sets, to lift the fog of being up with a teething baby all night; to get my heart and blood pumping; to feel alive and alert because there is not enough coffee in the world for some rainy, grey mornings.

This is what I normally would do on a day when I need rest but can’t grant myself permission to take it.

Today, however, I unrolled my sage green mat—I sit here typing this on the carpet next to one child playing and another sleeping in her electrically moving swing—in double pigeon pose—after a juicy yoga practice.

Okay, it was a dehydrated yoga practice.

My body did not feel supple or strong today.

No, I felt the fatigue rippling deeply through my tissues from running and weight training and Pilates and other days’ yoga practices. I felt last night’s lack of sleep and this morning’s rainy haze.

I switch shins, so that my other hip is now opening up in double pigeon.

The soft tissues surrounding my hip joints begin to feel more pliable—more ready to release a difficult last two weeks and, possibly, opening up to prepare for more challenges, more joy and other general life occurrences.

I switch my shins again, so that my tighter right hip has another opportunity to let go of stale, residual tension—and I feel ready to stop fighting.

I feel ready to stop fighting my daughter as she tries my patience.

I feel ready to stop demanding that my husband do things my way.

I feel ready to listen to the reality that my own busy body needs to take it easy—at least for today; at least for a few hours.

My hips suddenly feel deliciously relaxed.

I change the crossing of my legs one more time and notice the adjoining lightness in my chest.

Sometimes, we don’t have the space within our lives to stop and sit, when we have active little children or a job that doesn’t offer a day off when we desperately want it, but we can give ourselves the space to listen to what we need and crave.

And that’s the thing about being a good listener, both with ourselves and with those around us—often, just being heard is enough.

Photo: Flickr/just listen to her cropped; Flickr/14er Yoga Gurus.

The post Why Yogis Are Better Listeners. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

One of my current pet peeves is reading a celebrity interview where a Hollywood mother of young children says her workout is “chasing the children.”

Come on. We all know it’s not.

You have help with the kids and a personal trainer and exercise at least three days a week, and you know it. Stop making other mamas feel like we should have six-pack abs and chiseled deltoids from cruising after toddlers.

That said, I workout almost every day and I can vouch for the reality that it’s not easy. It is, however, a priority. Here are eight realistic tips for any parent who wants to get into great shape, all while the little ones are around.

1. Don’t wait for help.

Sometimes it feels like my husband and I could spend an entire Saturday piggy-backing workouts. Actually, we have.

I don’t live by my family or have a babysitter to help out. These tips that are about to follow have been created out of pure necessity within my life.

My most important advice to all moms out there who want to exercise and feel good about themselves? Don’t wait for help. We can do it.

If you can clean up more poop in one day than you can count and you can grow a baby inside of your body, you can find thirty minutes a day to exercise.

(Here, I’ll help you. Keep reading.)

2. That said, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Typically, my exercise has been completed by the time my husband comes home from work.

For one, if I waited for him, I usually either wouldn’t workout or wouldn’t workout to the same capacity because, news flash, it truly is exhausting chasing children. (Which is why we need to exercise—so that we can!)

Additionally, he wants to exercise too.

Regardless, there are definitely days where my head is spinning and my tongue is nearly being bitten off to not lose my temper—and it’s days like these that I give him the kids to figure it out while I work out.

Sometimes everyone needs help and it’s absolutely true that being a stay-at-home mom is the most demanding (and rewarding) job out there.

3. Be creative.

Realize that while “chasing children” isn’t enough, that we are at a stage where we likely will not get as much exercise as we want—and be okay with this.

I’m one of those people who could—and has—exercised for hours a day, given the opportunity. This, though, is not one of those places in my life. (Not if I want to be present with my children the way that I want to.)

So I’ve come to accept—on most days—that I’m not working out to win races or competitions. Know what else, moms? Someday much too soon we will have more time on our hands than we desire.

Don’t wish your life away, but do acknowledge that some things aren’t for forever—for good and for bad.

4. Stop using children as an excuse.

This said, our kids, in my humble opinion, should never be used as excuses for why we don’t take care of ourselves. It’s not true and it’s not fair, so don’t do it.

5. Exercise early in the morning.

It’s hard to come up with as many reasons for why we didn’t exercise that day if we get right to it. Try as hard as you can to carve out thirty minutes for yourself after breakfast.

6. Let kids feel like it was a team effort for mom to complete a session.

This morning my husband went mountain biking and I just didn’t want another weekend day that was over before it started because I was waiting to lift weights until he got home. So I put the baby down for her usual nap and took my daughter and her Cozy Coup car down into the basement.

Yes, there wasn’t a lot of driving room around my workout area, but she had her little red car, two of her favorite books and was ready to help Mama count out her reps.

And when I finish a set or my exercise all together? We high five and say something cheesy like, “Go team! We did it! Hooray!” Kids love this. At least, mine do.

Another tip? Don’t wait until the kids are entirely sick of watching you exercise to finish up.

For example, when my four year old and I were downstairs, she was being so good that I was really tempted to crank out a few more back exercises that I hadn’t gotten to yet, or to add it in some arms or more cardio. But the key here is to have this be a part of your regular routine.

Instead, I looked at her in her little red car and the baby still asleep on the video monitor and asked if she wanted to go upstairs and read together for a little bit. Because honestly, that extra set or ten minutes on my circa-1980-whatever Nordic Track are not that important.

7. Acknowledge that often watching mom exercise stinks—but there are rewards afterwards.

One of the main reasons I exercise in the morning is that it impacts my mood for the entire rest of the day with my kids. I’m also honest with my children that mommy works out because while it does take time away from the beginning of our day, it makes mommy much more patient and fun for the whole day after. Kids may have limited ability to understand a verbal explanation like this, but the proof is in the pudding.

In other words, they will see how you are before a workout and after, and they will get it.

8. Know that rewards might be delayed.

I’m still at the point with small children that this is my “one day” hope: my aim is that my kids might remember how I had to work at staying fit while they were little, and that this helped them to develop a healthy attitude about exercise—and the priority that we should be placing on it.

Remember that previously declared pet peeve? It’s a problem, to me, to have this attitude that we “don’t have time”—for both exercise and caring for ourselves—in front of our children.

I am raising two daughters. I want them to grow up with healthy body images and I want them to know that I value myself as a human being outside of being their mother. Staying active and keeping my body limber and strong are some of the easiest ways I can think of to work towards this otherwise challenging goal.

Because, at the end of the day, I workout largely so that I can chase my children—staying healthy and in shape for, ideally, a lifetime with them is one of my best motivators.

But my biggest motivator is simple: I want to feel good and treat myself with love, and exercise is just one thing that everyone should be trying to squeeze in every day.

Some people might think that stay-at-home moms have it easy; that there’s no reason for us not to exercise—but, moms, we know it’s not that convenient, right? So here’s one last tip: be patient with yourself.

Know that being in your best shape doesn’t mean looking like someone else.

Honor fitness goals like “nail that yoga pose” or “see more definition in my triceps,” but recognize that the best reward for working out is simply to feel good and be the best version of ourselves, not a crappy version of someone else.

After all, we are raising tiny human beings, and they do see and emulate our behavior. Make sure your workout time is adding to your self-esteem and your self-care rather than detracting from it.

Most importantly? Give yourself a huge hug for working so hard to take care of yourself in front of your kids.

Photo: Author’s own. (Heh heh heh…)

The post 8 Realistic Tips to Get a Stay-At-Home Mom in Her Best Shape Ever. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It all began years ago, my love of weight lifting.

I used to lift tiny weights for many repetitions and run my butt off, literally—I actually had an eating disorder and, on top of this, used exercise to deal with the stress of college.

It took me years to learn how to accept that I love working out, genuinely do need it to cope with life’s ups and downs, as well as to come to terms with what healthy exercise is.

For me, healthy exercise is something that improves the quality of my life rather than detracts from it.

For example, back when I was in my early 20s and running about 13 miles a day, I received a monthly running magazine. In it, one month, a person was writing about how on weekends she spent hours away from her husband and children to “train,” and that her family had just come to understand that this is how she spends her weekend mornings. She said that, yes, it means missing her kids’ games and activities more often than not, but she was okay with this. Well, the thing is—I wasn’t.

I mean, what another individual wants to do with her Saturday mornings is obviously fine with me, but in that moment I vowed to myself that when I was married with children I would never let exercise become more important than my family.

This said, the recent holiday of Easter had me thinking about this vow.

My children are four years old and nearly six months old and my husband and I were hosting the rest of our families that day. On Saturday, I doubled up my weight routines so that I could leave Sunday open for a total rest day, to focus on my kids and cooking.

Still, when Sunday rolled around, the eggs were all retrieved from their hiding places and my oldest child was happily nestled in Daddy’s lap eating jelly beans, I looked at this cozy threesome and announced that I was heading downstairs to lift. After all, I had only recently gotten back into it, also had a week or better of being sick under my belt and, additionally, felt that this exercise could help me best enjoy the rest of the day and our company. So I worked out.

From what I understand, most people lack motivation, instead of having to continually check in, as a former exercise over-doer, with what is healthy for their bodies and lives.

Friends tell me all the time that they don’t know how I push myself to get on my yoga mat at home, and to workout in general all by my lonesome. I guess what I don’t understand is not wanting to exercise.

When I went to my first yoga class, at my challenging Baptiste-style studio of choice, in months—like eight months—I felt strong. I felt flexible. It felt great. More, I was relieved that my “home work” was really doing it’s job of keeping my body fit.

Yet, the reasons I actually came back to weight lifting are many.

From super cold temperatures making a toasty home practice less practical, and natural means to cope with the post-baby blues, as well as wanting to, frankly, fit into my clothes again and strengthen my body so as to lessen discomfort from my physical ailments, such as scoliosis, I got back into pumping iron.

On top of these reasons was the all-too real reality that my mind was wandering a lot when I did practice yoga or try to meditate and, with weight lifting, I was a beginner again—my mind was entertained with focusing fully on the sensation of my biceps during preacher curls, for instance, or with holding my lower belly in tightly when properly executing bent-over barbell rows.

In other words, I was actually practicing my yoga much more efficiently when downstairs in my home gym and not on my sage green Jade sticky mat.

And then I got the new Israel Nash album. I yearned, the second I heard it, to flow through vinyasas to his jam-band music and Neal Young-esque voice. So I did. And when I finally did, I realized that my heart and mind were in it, for the first time in what felt like forever.

So I got on my sage green yoga mat again the next day. And the next.

This wasn’t different, mind you, as I have always gotten on my mat regularly. What was different, though, was that I had my flow back—I had my yoga back. When I reflected upon what had changed, it hit me like a fifteen-pound weight (ha): in stepping out of my comfort zone of vinyasa yoga and into my old tennis shoes, I had gotten myself out of a rut.

I had moved through my post-baby blues—the world now seemed sunny when I woke up, excited to get downstairs and lift.

I had gained strength—my chair poses, planks and half moons felt glorious.

I felt like a beginner in my yoga practice again, because I had again developed a beginner’s mindset elsewhere.

And the most important change that had occurred? I fell back in love with my yoga practice because I decided it was okay to fall out of love with it in the first place.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is question why we do what we do every single day—because just like that our habits become who we are.

And I didn’t want to be monkey-mind, semi-half-ass yogi Jennifer any longer. No, I wanted to be strong, supple, powerful gym bitch Jennifer. What surprised me, however, was my ability to be an entirely unexpected Jennifer simply because I began to question why I was pigeon-holing myself into pigeon pose.

Actually, there are many weight-lifting yogis. Regular practitioners know that our yoga practices can be greatly improved by adding in strength training, especially as we do become more flexible.

So, yes, some days I’m gym bitch Jennifer, pumping out shoulder presses to Rage Against the Machine or The Verve and others, I’m yoga girl flowing through sun salutes to the sound of my breath. Yet, in both places, my downstairs gym and my yoga room, I’m me—I had just forgotten that I could have so many facets sparkling all at once. Or, more accurately, I’d let a few get coated in dust.

And in blowing off the ashes of my self-imagined limitations, and in seeking to find who I actually am, after the kids go to bed, I got acquainted with someone it turns out I honestly like quite a lot; someone who still loves yoga; someone who loves her yoga practice enough to be okay with not loving it all the time.

Who are you? Where are you limiting yourself? What habits of yours could be changed or, at the very least, questioned? Will you have the motivation to step up and step out of your comfort zone?

You know where my self-motivation comes from? Curiosity.

I’m interested to see if I can make the muscles around my spine healthier. I’m curious to see if I would miss my yoga practice if I gave it a tiny rest. My recommendation is that, today, we get back in touch with our curiosity. (This is easy to do when raising children.)

And even though I was afraid I was falling out of love with yoga, it turns out I wasn’t—I was just allowing myself the space to fall in love with a few other things too.

Photo: Flickr/Child’s Pose.

The post How I Fell Back in Love with Yoga After Falling Out. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It took me many, many years to learn whether or not I need to take a day off from exercising—or push through.

At one point in my life I ran a 13-mile loop every day, as in seven days a week. I also weight trained and rode the stationary bike at the gym. I would work out for hours a day, and sometimes more than once; obviously, I had a problem.

And then my body gave out in various ways and I was forced to take down time, but I was also forced to recognize that I love exercise.

I love sweating and pushing through and endorphin release—and even yoga clothes.

I love Spinning and running, walking and hiking, yoga and Pilates—you name it. So the choice I had to make was, to me, quite simple: I had to learn how to be an exercise enthusiast without going overboard, and what I’d like to share with you here is what years and years of experience have taught me (as well as a few of my favorite “day off” suggestions).

If you’ve pushed through for a couple of days in a row, it’s time for a rest.

If you cannot remember your last day off, it’s time for one.

If you feel depressed and sluggish, it’s time to push through.

If you are sick from the neck down, it’s time to take it easy.

If you woke up feeling tight and sore from sleeping incorrectly, it’s time to push through, but gently.

If you’re tired from not sleeping long enough, but not so tired that you could injure yourself, it’s time to invigorate the day with a workout.

If you have a slight cold or feel a cold coming on, it’s time to have a slow-paced, short workout to boost immunity rather than deplete.

And my favorite: those times when I genuinely don’t know what to do; when I really am having a hard time listening to my body because my brain wants to workout or my heart needs to be silenced for a little bit, I begin to go through a yoga flow or a trek on my 1980-whatever Nordic Track—and if I’m still not into it after ten minutes, I stop.

Let me say, however, I’ve only stopped twice to my recollection.

Moreover, our muscles cannot become their strongest if we never take time to let them be at ease. Actually, this is why yoga is so ideal: it encourages both release and relaxation of the muscles and also tone and strength. Still, those days off can be tedious for our brains in our monkey-mind society, so, in order to make the most of my days off, I try to do one of the following.

I schedule a massage. 

A massage is the perfect way to treat an athletic body during rest days. Even a 30-minute session is remarkably wonderful for our bodies (and, also, for our wallets).

I do something else I love during my exercise time-slot.

I love making crafts with my daughter, indulging in crappy Netflix shows and reading, so a day off is a great way to celebrate with one of these other activities.

I schedule a phone date with a friend.

I’m a mom who never talks on the phone. For one, I don’t want to take time away from my children to talk and, for another, they are young enough that it really isn’t practical. That said, I miss my friends and my family that I love talking with—which is exactly why I occasionally skip my morning workout and call a friend instead.

I meditate.

Now, to be fair, I love going through a short, simple yoga flow that almost feels like a day off—it’s so gentle and low-key—but it focuses on opening my shoulders and hips so that I can sit without discomfort for a longer period of time. This suggestion of meditation, I feel, is crucial. If we are constantly running away from our lives and minds during our workouts then, in my experience at least, we’ll often find that the problems we are running from have grown in size instead of shrinking.

In other words, taking the time to sit in complete silence gives us the opportunity to find mental relaxation without requiring movement. 

And, really, shouldn’t a day off feel glorious and not forced?

Simultaneously, if we find exercise and movement enjoyable we’ll do more of it, naturally, without having to push through. In this vein of thinking, a day off is actually the perfect way to celebrate being an exercise enthusiast.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get ready for my massage…

Photo: Nick Webb/Flickr.

The post How to Know Whether to Take a Day off from Exercise or Push through (and Rest Day Suggestions). first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

At 34, I sometimes feel like an old fogey in my yoga practice.

To be fair, I’m absolutely a little bit of the old-fashioned type and I’m definitely kind of old soul-ish.

And I think the term fancy yoga poses can surely be relative.

When I say fancy yoga poses I generally mean most inversions like handstand and headstand, as well as basically all arm balances, and we can also go ahead and throw in poses that require excess flexibility too.

Yet these are the poses that people are Instagramming. These are the postures that people are rocking out in Facebook profile pictures. (I guiltily hang my head at that one.) And there’s a reason for that—they can be fun to practice and fun to look at.

At the same time, these poses are unnecessary, in my book at least. Why? Here are a few reasons.

1. We don’t need them.

The physical practice of yoga exists to make our bodies healthy for our inner growth, development and enlightenment (or, more simply put, self-awareness). We hop on our yoga mats and move through our asanas so that we are physically capable of sitting for meditation and other mental, emotional and spiritual work that arises during our day.

A more modern perspective on this is simple: I practice yoga so that I can have the patience and necessary attributes to best parent my child throughout the rest of my day. Possibly yoga helps you with anxiety, depression or management of stress levels. Maybe you practice so that you can focus more at work. (I think you get the picture.)

In short, we do not need to contort ourselves into crazy pretzel shapes or bust out insane inversions—they’re simply unnecessary because we can work our strength and create flexibility in other more moderate poses that are ubiquitously accessible and significantly safer.

Are these dramatic poses valueless, though? No, of course not. There’s a reason that we rock out these postures—but we’ll get to that later.

2. We can work harder while doing less.

This one is often lost on new practitioners (which is why this philosophy tends to creep into our practices as we age).

Check out my blog on how we can tell the difference between our quads, glutes and hamstrings within our postures. These suggestions are micro-movements and deep mind-body connections to dig into on the mat—and it’s easier to experience these “minor” yet profound actions within our bodies if we’re not pushing ourselves too far or too hard.

Working “average” asanas like the sun salutation series and warrior poses will allow us to get in touch with ourselves as well as possible, so that we can translate this back into these other—fancier—poses—and sun salutes not flying arm-balances are the morning standard for a reason. (They do the job—working every part of the body effectively and safely.)

3. Go with the flow.

Okay, I said that we would get into this subject later and here it is; we’ll touch upon it a little bit now.

The main reason to practice poses such as arm-balances and inversions, besides their own individual benefits, is that for practitioners who are strong and agile, these poses can once again allow us to get inside of the body and out of the head by offering something more difficult—and I do think that this reason is worthwhile and has its merits, but as I get older my thoughts on this are definitely changing.

Let me tell you why.

This is personal opinion and my experience as my practices continues to mature, of course, so some might disagree, but I find that as I get older I still want challenging classes and sweaty mat sessions, but I’m drawn to classes with more “normal” poses and flows and I’m tending to steer away from classes that tend to wind up with my foot behind my head, for example.

The thing is, I’ve worked patiently and diligently over these years to gain both strength and flexibility (I was never a dancer, a gymnast  or anything of the sort), but I find myself more likely to enjoy mellower sequencing because I can really, truly focus on my breath and these aforementioned micro-movements and I just don’t feel the need to do crazy things every single time I want to practice. On occasion, sure. Regularly, not so much.

Additionally, it is easier to stay present—and practice real yoga—when I’m rocking out a super demanding pose—and I guess you could say that I’m finally up for a real challenge.

4. We don’t need to watch the teacher show off.

Often, when these poses are practiced in class, there are only a few people present who can get into the posture.

Now I teach and have taught these “fancy” postures—and I do agree that understanding we don’t need to get into the full posture to be successful is a great lesson to also experiment with on the mat. Still—and I hope I don’t sound cocky here because trust me when I say that I am no Instagram queen—I am, at least from time to time, one of these few people who can get into the full, fancy pose—and from my point of view it’s just awkward to have the majority of the class stop their practice entirely to gawk at those who are trying or, worse, to turn the class into the teacher’s asana ability version of show-and-tell.

If you want to practice fancy yoga poses, here’s what I suggest: go to a specific class where those showing up want to play around with them or attend workshops specifically for inversions or arm-balances; and, teachers, you might want to contemplate exactly what type of class—and what intentions—you’re bringing into your classroom with you.

Most people are taking the time out of their daily lives—and time away from their special people—to attend a yoga class in order to become healthier, fitter, happier versions of themselves—period.

Fancy yoga poses, like I mentioned earlier, can certainly be both fun and entertaining, but I think there’s a genuine reason that seasoned practitioners tend to get more “boring” as their practices age with them—and these reasons I have listed above are just the tip of that iceberg.

So, new practitioners, here’s an idea: begin to play around, not only with trying new poses on the mat, but also with backing off slightly.

Try going 50-70% on the mat instead of 120% and see what happens. My bet is that we all might begin to become aware of sensations that we hadn’t previously recognized—like the work of our strong hamstrings in wheel pose—because over-working in more localized regions of the body has lessened.

In other words, yoga is all about balance.

The “advanced” practitioner isn’t one who can do handstand with lotus legs, it’s someone who understands that backbends are all about lengthening the spine and opening the heart—so if you’re jamming your lower back and stressing out to get there, the end does not fit the means.

Food for thought.

Now get on your mat and have some fun, with or without fancy yoga poses.

Photo: Blanca/Flickr.

This article was previously published on elephant journal.

The post 4 Reasons We Don’t Need Fancy Yoga Poses. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.