How do I stay fit while being a parent? Hold on a sec while I stop laughing.

In all seriousness, I have never been a skinny girl and I suspect I never will be. Of course a lot of this has to do with poor body image too. I remember finding my favorite pair of jeans from my freshman year of college and looking at the tag and thinking “oh god, what I’d give to be a size 8 again.” Then I stopped and remembered how even then I thought I was a big, fat cow. Nice, I know. The best I’ve ever felt about my body was when I was pregnant. The pressure was off to have a flat stomach. Round was wonderful, watching my big ole belly get bigger was awesome. Of course then I had Boogie and I was back in my body without the excuse of carrying around another human being.

I have had a real struggle with exercise since I returned to work when Boogie was three months old. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to work, take care of the little one, the house and all the other random crap that I have to do on a daily basis AND exercise. The year before I got pregnant I lost 23 lbs and I went to the gym almost 5 days a week. It became part of my routine when my husband was working nights and I was all alone. Now I have a baby with a bedtime routine that starts at 6:45 and I find it harder and harder to find any time to exercise at all. It doesn’t help that I don’t particularly enjoy it anyway.

I have lost all the weight I gained during pregnancy give or take 5 pounds. Breastfeeding and no time to eat in those early days simply melted it off. Unfortunately being pregnant seems to have moved things around. They don’t tell you that in the books. “Oh, btw, even after you loose that pregnancy weight, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to wear those old clothes again.”

Now on to the more uplifting part of my post, I have found something that I’m going to try. I am skeptical but I’m hoping it works. I have started doing T-Tapp. I first read about this workout on Ask Moxie and then on Summertime. I can’t yet say how well it works because I only just started. The claim is that it only takes 15-45 minutes a day in the beginning and after that you only have to do it two or three times a week. The husband says if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is but I’ve decided that I can commit to that sort of workout regimen. I started this week then of course got a terrible cold so I haven’t quite really gotten into it yet. I can say that it isn’t easy and I can see why it would work, although I’m still skeptical that I will get the results that the book claims with so little time invested. I so hope I’m wrong.

So how do you stay fit while keeping up with the kids? Tell us and you could win a sweet new pair of shoes or even a whole new workout wardrobe thanks to PBN and Ryka.