5 Ways Getting Fit Has Improved My Life As A Parent

I am not a naturally fit person. In school, I despised gym class. I’m about as good at running as Phoebe Buffay was in Friends, and overall have the athletic ability of a blind hippo on stilts. All that to say, I have never enjoyed exercise.

Sure, like many women, I’ve tried various exercise programs over the years out of a vague sense of duty, but nothing ever stuck. But while pregnant with my first daughter, I developed back pain, which steadily got worse. The next thing I knew, I was 18 months postpartum, overweight and suffering from back pain.

After working with a physical therapist to address my back issue, I was cleared for exercise and decided to try to get strong. Tentatively, I joined the gym. There have been many bumps in the road, including another baby bump, but I have now been consistently lifting weights for almost two years, and it has had a huge impact on my life.

I feel more capable

When my back was at its worst, every day felt like a struggle. Simple things, like picking my toddler up and putting her in a stroller, or walking up the steep hill from the beach, felt insurmountable. I would grit my teeth and then pay the price with pain. This, in turn, made our world smaller, our activities increasingly restricted.

In contrast, since I started lifting weights, these types of moments now barely register. For example, my secondborn decided quite out of the blue, and entirely of her own volition, that she was done with diapers. We don’t have a downstairs toilet, so I have been carting all 12 kg of her up and down the stairs multiple times a day (sometimes multiple times an hour), and I haven’t flinched.

I spent much of this summer on the beach with my two daughters. Sounds idyllic, except that our local beach is quite literally at the bottom of a cliff. So I ended up hauling our all-terrain stroller with the aforementioned 12 kg toddler in it, along with all the required beach paraphernalia (did you know a lobster sand scooper is considered an essential?) down, and more punishingly, up, the steep track. And it was effortful, but doable.

If it sounds obvious, I agree. When you lift weights, you get stronger. But what wasn’t immediately obvious to me before joining the gym was how much that strength would improve my daily life. My experience parenting today, compared with before, is simply night and day.

I have more energy

As a mum, I have found it all too easy to spend my days undereating, often subsisting on a few snacks and kid leftovers, before falling ravenously into my dinner in the evening. This way of eating left me feeling underfuelled during the day and sluggish in the evening.

But once I started lifting regularly, I realized I needed to change my ways. Coffee for breakfast would no longer cut it. And I’m not alone; fasted exercise can spike cortisol, which not only feels horrible in my experience, but over the long term can cause muscle breakdown, fatigue and hormonal imbalances.

I now make sure I eat something before drinking coffee and heading to the gym, which makes me feel energized in a balanced way, rather than jittery. Plus, I find that if I start the day with a balanced breakfast, I’m more likely to continue to eat balanced meals thereafter. Ultimately, this means I have energy in the day, when I actually need it, rather than eating a big dinner to make up for a day of undereating, then feeling lethargic all evening.

It’s a good example for my daughters

I want my daughters to grow up knowing the value of taking care of their bodies. But like many things in parenting, long, lengthy lectures don’t appear to work (as much as I try). In my experience, when it comes to the benefits of exercise, nothing has been more powerful than actually, you know, committing to exercise.

So rather than pontificate endlessly about it, I now take my eldest to the gym with me every time she's on a school break. Sometimes she sits on the chair and draws, other times she stands with me and acts like a mini tyrannical personal trainer. Her favourite, though, is when we build a little circuit for her to do (especially if we do it together and she can give me pointers).

The best thing is, I think it might be paying off. The other day, she was playing with dolls, and I overheard her pretend to drop her baby off at her sister’s. She explained that she’d be back later, but first needed to go to the gym because she needed to be strong (Yes, I welled up.)

My cup is a bit fuller

You can’t pour from an empty cup. How many times as a mum have you heard this simple little phrase? But in my experience, it’s a cliché for a reason.

Whether you’re breastfeeding a hungry newborn, waking up multiple times a night or chasing a toddler around the park, motherhood can be intense, demanding work. It’s hard to push through some of the harder moments when you’re feeling burnt out, exhausted and undernourished.

Making time for myself to exercise has been monumental for my physical health, but I’d argue even more important for my mental health. By taking those three hours for myself a week, and protecting them fiercely, I am communicating to my family and myself that my needs matter too.

And it’s a win-win. I get to take care of myself and feel good in my body, they get a happier, more patient mum who isn’t running on fumes.

It helps me manage stress

We’ve written before about parental stress, with almost half of parents (48 percent) saying their stress is overwhelming on most days, compared with 26 percent of other adults.

I’m not going to pretend that exercise, amazing as it is, is a panacea to all of life's woes. But it absolutely has a place as a stress management tool. Take strength training, it quite literally builds resilience. Each session, you try to push a bit harder, break down some muscle in the process, then it repairs and grows back stronger.

And I find that physical symbol of resilience translates mentally too. Nothing increases my mental fortitude like a brutal set of deadlifts, where my hamstrings scream for mercy but my brain knows it can do it. It’s truly fortifying.

So I now rely on lifting three times a week to keep my stress levels in check. Whenever I find myself spiralling, I know a session in the gym will sort me out.

The bottom line

If, like me, you’re not naturally fit, but you’re finding motherhood too physically demanding, or it feels like you’re running on fumes, exercise (along with decent, adequate nutrition) could be a game-changer. Time spent getting stronger has given me so much, but best of all, it’s helped me to be more like the mum I always wanted to be.