Are You a Louisa?
Mum of 3 school-age children and works 4 days a week
Incidental exercise is important for Louisa to fit exercise into her (and her kids’) busy schedule. The convenience of doing LIVE STREAM classes also helps to make it a regular event.
There’re so many seemingly plausible reasons to miss exercise when you’re a young mum but Louisa knows that if she wants to live a pain-free life, daily exercise is non-negotiable.
As a parent, it often feels we aren’t in control of our time. But we are.
Louisa’s Top Tips for Fitting It In
I try to incorporate exercise into my lifestyle. The four of us only have one car and we live near a train station. Whenever possible, I use the train instead of the car.
I live in an apartment, so it’s not worth it to hire a cleaner, and I end up cleaning the house myself. When lockdown started, we invested in electric standing desk, I try to stand up working at least once a day.
What are some of the things you’ve done to fit in exercise with the demands of your family?
LIVE STREAM exercise classes work well with me. I prepare kids in the morning, work (while doing laundry on the side), finish work and then exercise before dinner prep.
Just the other day, while doing LIVE STREAM Barre from home, I put the instructor on mute, followed her visually. And at the same time, I listened to the school Zoom presentation! I knew it wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t want to miss the class.
I try to be active on the weekends, too. The kids and I often go and explore the outdoors, bush walk, clean the house, or shopping and cooking. During lockdown and remote learning, I used to take my kids out to nearby park/suburb around 4-6 pm. We just walk and scooter around the blocks before dinner. A good tip is to open google map and look at the green area and zoom in to find new parks.
Currently during school pick-up, the parents are met by an educator at the gate and ask them to call our kids out. During that 5-7 minutes waiting, I walk about at the school gate.
I do the same during my children’s music lessons. And sometimes, I’d arrive 30 minutes early and walk the rest of the way to the music teacher’s studio.
I just changed one of my child’s music lesson and drop-off pick-up roster with my husband, so I can join Friday afternoon Yoga.
I know it can be hard to find a nice 45 to 60-minute block of time to exercise when you have children, I guess the key is to be creative and always adjust and find a way to fit in small bits of exercise into the ever-changing schedule. Every little bit counts! – exercise doesn’t have to be in large blocks.
What’s your view on work-life balance? Do you need work-life balance to find time for exercise, or would you make the time for exercise to get work-life balance?
I don’t think it’s about work-life balance; exercise enables me to work and to live. It’s as simple as that.
I had a wrist injury about 5 years ago and went to a hand therapy clinic. I thought they would give me steroid injection and cast. But they gave me a long list of prescription exercises!
I was appalled, and thought they were cruel.
But the prescription exercises worked. I got discharged after 6 months of ongoing therapy.
I then realised that exercise is not merely for losing weight or looking good, it’s to allow me to do all the things I do for the family.
Even now, from time to time, my wrist would play up, there’s a tingling sensation that I know would progress to pain. I then lift some weights to get rid of that, the effect is instantaneous.
When I don’t stretch or do Yoga for a while, my back would be the one playing up. My wrist and back are my natural alerts.
