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Episode 15 – Why Working Out At Home Rocks

Learn the ins & outs of how we fit mama kick butt while working out at home! Fitness trainer Kim Sanders joins me today to chat more about how she stays fit as a busy mom of twins working two jobs and how you can too! We chat about schedules, how to overcome the “time” excuse, equipment and making it all work- it’s a great episode to get you motivated!

• Introduction (0.28)
• Kim & Why She Launched Her Business (4:24)
• )Why We Skip The Gym (8:51
• Overcoming Excuses For Working Out At Home (11:54)
• )Working Out At Home Equipment (15:03
• Finding A Workout Schedule (17:45)
• Why Working Out At Home Rocks (18:55)
• Working Out At Home With Kids (21:46
• Wrap Up (28:26)
• Resources

Why Working Out At Home Rocks

Welcome to the fitasamama bear podcast. I’m Shelby, a certified strength coach, nutrition coach mama two, and all-around health nut. This show is about a little bit of everything fit, healthy and natural related. So, if you’re striving to smash goals, eat better, feel better, and enjoy the occasional mom rant. This is the place for you. You’re listening to episode 15 today where I’m chatting to the founder of live your passion fitness Kim Sanders. We’ll be chatting about fitness and the easiest way we’ve found to stay fit as super busy moms.

 

)Introduction (0.28

Hey everyone!

Today I am jumping in with Kim Sanders, a busy mom of two energetic twin boys.

Twins.

Really Kim. Really? Oh, my goodness, you’re my new hero.

Kim has been on a journey to help other moms help love themselves so that they can pour that love into their kids. She’s a wellness coach and a corporate wellness consultant and she’s committed to helping busy moms find their spark again and reminds everyone that life is too short to be mediocre, that we’re all meant for greatness.

And today she’s agreed to jump on with me about something I’m obviously super passionate about: working out at home!

As busy moms, we all know firsthand that an exercise program is one of the first things to suffer when you’re busy as hell. It’s one of the reasons I love working out at home every single day through chaos.

Well, I’m sure you’ve all seen my gym set up.

I’m totally spoiled. And in my years of coaching clients, I will be the first to tell you that you definitely don’t need it. I lift because I love it. But there’s so many more ways to stay fit at home, all of which we’re going to delve into.

My biggest goal of this episode is to help all you mamas know that you don’t need to stress over getting to the gym every single week. You can save time, get fit, see results, and feel effing awesome. All at home.

So welcome Kim! First off, twins! I’m still stuck on the twins thing. My best friend had twins and it was just sheer insanity. So how did you feel when you found out that there were two?

This is a fun story. I found out that I was pregnant a couple of months after having a miscarriage. So, I go to the OB GYN and she says, tell me what you see.

And I say, well, it looks like two little dots, but they’re mirroring each other. And she goes, there’s no mirror in there. I said, so what are you telling me? Oh my God, there’s two in there. She said, you’re having twins.

I said, Oh, okay. We were living in California and we were living pretty close to my parents. So, we had a key. We were planning on going over there anyway.

But we walk in the door, my husband goes straight for the bar and make, And I tell him hat’s not fair because I can’t make one!

I don’t love being pregnant. It’s not my thing, but I not being able to drink in stressful situations or just on like a super hot barbecue party day while you’re pregnant is the hardest challenge.

. It’s just isn’t fair. He walked in and he made his margarita and he, he soaked it all in the fact that not only was he having two, we knew we were pregnant, but now that we were going to have to fund two children.

But wait a minute, I have to carry them! So, chill out just for a second. But it’s awesome. Mostly because we only want it to kids.

That’s my girlfriend too. She actually miscarried and then got pregnant really quickly, I think within like six or seven weeks after the miscarriage. And that was her too. She found out she had twins and she was like” there’s two in there”.

But they only wanted two kids and they ended up with a boy and a girl. It definitely worked out for the better. It is what it is. But carrying twins was an insane thing to watch.

It was something. I was annoyed by everybody and everything. I was just really annoyed. Everything just annoyed the crap out of me.

So, you weren’t the person that loved being pregnant all the time?

Oh no, I’m just glad that I only had to do this one time. We are done.

 

Kim & Why She Launched Her Business (4:24)

Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself, your own fitness journey and kind of how you came to start live your passion fitness?

So, I have been married for 13 years. I’ve got the four-year-old boys who do not stop talking from the minute they wake up and go to bed.

And sometimes it’s cute and sometimes they’re learning their voice and you know; they think that they can say certain things to mommy and mommy’s not really having it.

So, we’re working on that. By day I work in federal law enforcement as an investigator, but part-time I am an online fitness coach and a corporate wellness consultant.

I don’t sleep much. I have kids too and I don’t sleep.

That’s just a given. I get a solid five.

I guess started about three and a half years ago when I was still working for the government, just not in this role. It was kind of a dead-end job and I was just kind of going through the motions.

I was in grad school and I was trying to manage being a wife and a twin mom. At the time we had just moved from California to Florida.

The boys were about a year and a half at the time and I’m was kind of drowning. Drowning in all of this, trying to manage, how to be a decent wife and be a great mom.

I’ve never been a mom before. I’m just winging it. And I’ve been in fitness my whole life. I a dancer, I was a division one college cheerleader and I was a gym rat.

LI was the only cheerleader that would go lift with the boys. I would go with the football team. So, when they were off for the summer and they would just lift for fun, I’d go lift with them because I love weights.

I could never figure out why I was the only girl and I was like; why do you all want to do all this cardio? I hate cardio.

I couldn’t figure it out anyway. So, I was overworked. I was exhausted. I was a busy mom and I was going to the gym, but I was just kind of going through the motions because I knew that I was supposed to go to the gym. It’s what you do. You’re supposed to go to the gym, you’re supposed to work out. But I didn’t have a specific program.

I didn’t know what I was working towards. I didn’t know what kind of goals I had. It was a fellow twin mom that I’m friends with invited me to try working out at home. Like a Pilates yoga.

At first, I thumbed my nose at working out at home because I’m a gym rat and lifting heavy was my thing. But I tried it, I mean I don’t have anything to lose right?

Except for maybe some more inches!

I was wrong. I press play on this workout and over the next 60 days I followed the nutrition guide and I was like; this can’t be this easy. You just follow the calendar and you follow the nutrition guide and you get results. And I was on social media anyway and I would post like my sweaty selfies at the end.

So, it instantly just kind of translated itself into this business. And I thought if I’m going to be doing this and I can share it and other moms can see that you can do it too, then they can reignite their passion for life and they can find themselves.

And through this, I’m not drowning anymore. Now I’m treading water. Some days when I’m drowning I think if I could help someone, if I could help another mom, if I could help someone figure out that they don’t have to just go through the motions, that they can be great, then why not do it?

Oh, I love that. I love that. Just having a goal and having something to follow makes such a huge difference because the thing is, you know you should work out, but until you actually find something you enjoy and have kind of an outline, it is just motions. And then what’s the point?

But it’s not enjoyable and that’s not fun either.

So, you were a fitness junkie, turned at-home workout star. I like it.

Let’s chat about the gym. Do we actually need it and why do you find that most mommas dread or skip it? Do you think it’s just time-based?

 

Why We Skip The Gym (8:51)

I feel like if you had asked me like five years ago, do you need the gym? I absolutely would say yes. Because I’m a gym rat.

And then I had the twins. And I landed my dream job and then I started coaching and I don’t have the time.

Do I still go to the gym? Yeah, I’ll go. If I’m out of town and the hotel has a gym or if I’m out and about and I can pop into the gym, I’ll go.

But I can get just as good as a workout rolling out of my bed and pressing play and working out at home as I can if I’m in the gym. I find that most moms, they skip the gym and stop working out as a whole because of everything that comes with going to the gym.

Some gyms have a kids club and that’s great, but it’s only open at a certain time. And just the thought of what you have to do to get your kids ready to like go is insane.

Right. I know.

And you’re going to do that multiple times a week, plus travel time and nap times get messed and it becomes a whole thing! Then you still have to go and actually work out!

Then you have to pack them up, get them checked in, find a parking spot, change your clothes, workout, pick them up, drive home, cook dinner, do homework, do bath and bed.

It’s exhausting. It just makes it one more thing. And then you do dread it because it’s a to-do list thing and it’s not something that you even want to do. And it gets shoved further and further down that list.

Exactly.

So, then you end up saying, you know what? Screw it. I’ll just be fat and happy or kind of happy.

But then honestly then that’s one less thing I don’t have to check off my list. I live off of convenience. I do drive up grocery pick up, target drive up to pick up all kinds of stuff if there’s something that I don’t have to do and go, especially with my kids with me, I do it.

So, it’s super convenient to not have to go to the gym.

The best part of working out at home for me, anyway, is working out your pajamas because you don’t need fancy fitness clothes.

It is so much easier to roll out of bed and just get your workout in and do your thing. If any of you’ve seen my videos, you’ll know that half of my workouts are done in my pajamas simply because I don’t want to go back upstairs to wake up a kid and have to deal with that before my work.

So, it keeps life simple. I do find that with most moms then it’s just gets put on the lowest part of the to-do list because it’s such a big freaking ordeal to get out of the house.

Right.

If that’s the case, then find a way to make it work. And for us, that’s working out at home.

Yes. Absolutely. And I don’t have to wear a shirt.

Oh my God. I know, right?

My thing is I don’t have to wear shoes. I’m a barefoot lifter now.

Yup. It is awesome.

So, let’s talk about excuses. We obviously all have them.

 

Overcoming Excuses For Working Out At Home (11:54)

Some of them, especially if your mom is totally valid, but they are still excuses. Walk me through how you chat to clients when you get the popular “I don’t have time even with when it comes to working out at home”.

Oh, that’s my favorite. I don’t know how time is my favorite. It’s my favorite excuse because I don’t have time either.

Basically, from about four-thirty, that is when I’m awake. So, if you can tell me that you don’t have time, I can probably find you 30 minutes to an hour.

The first thing I do is get to the bottom of why they want to start or restart their journey. Because if your why isn’t big enough, your how isn’t going to matter. Right?

Until you’re tired of being where you are, until you’re truly tired of having to take blood pressure medication and heart medication and asthma medication, that are all preventable type things until you’re tired of that until you’re tired of not being able to run the stairs.

And chase after your kid. Until you’re tired of your kid asking you to play and you can’t get down on the floor, you’re not going to do it. You’re just going to BS yourself and you’re going to try the quick fix things until you’re tired of all those things.

You’re not really going to start. And that’s the hard truth that I have to tell people. When they say, well, I just want to lose my tummy, or I just want to perk up my boobs.

 Nope, that’s not, it’s not big enough. There’s no reason enough because as soon as it gets hard, as soon as your kids get sick. As soon as your spouse starts acting like a crazy person, because they will, as soon as your job starts putting all these things on you, then you’re not really going to make it a priority.

You’re not going to make it important. So, we start with the I don’t have time excuse. I ask them to walk me through their day, minute by minute. Start from the minute you wake up. Don’t skip your commute. your lunch. Don’t skip anything. I want to see what you do in include scrolling on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat and Pinterest.

I bring that up because that’s what I find you can get lost in. Just digging around on your phone for 24 minutes, texting, Facebook for 20 minutes. If you eliminate that, you can get in an at-home workout.

Absolutely. Actually, it’s that simple.

 

Working Out At Home Equipment (15:03)

Cutting in here to give a quick shout out to today’s sponsor Pro Source. When it comes to working out at home, most people struggle using just their body weight- unless you kick ass at pull-ups already.

For this reason alone, I always send my new clients home with resistance bands, especially new moms. They’re simple to use, low impact, and beyond cheap. I am Dutch after all.

Pro source offers resistance bands and any other home fitness equipment you can need at great prices. I truly believe that working out at home helps you stay consistent and while I do have a killer setup now, I trained for years using just bands, one kettlebell, and some suspension straps.

Especially as a new mom, resistance bands are the biggest bang for your buck. You don’t need a fancy setup. But having some options to train your body properly helps. Head on over to prosourcefit.com and save some money using code mama bear 15 and set yourself up. Then stay consistent and smash some goals.

And once people actually see it, it’s just like keeping a food journal, right? I know you have clients, you probably asked them to write down what they’ve been eating. Seeing it on paper or seeing it in front of them makes all the difference too. Maybe making that shift.

Maybe your why wasn’t big enough before we started talking and now that you’ve seen that you waste an hour and a half scrolling, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest. Now you have time. Now I have found you 30 minutes.

Maybe I found you 22. For example, when I first started working out at home, I would go to work early. I go to work at seven o’clock so that I can get off at three-thirty so that I can get 30 to 45 minutes in before I pick up the kids at five or five 30.

Their school will let them stay to like six, but I try to at least get them picked up and dinner on the table at certain times. It leaves me very little wiggle room. I’ve got to get in, get out, do what I got to do. And that’s even if I’m not going to the gym.

If I happen to be at the gym, then I only have time to go and change my clothes, do my workout and get out. I don’t really talk to anybody.

And so that’s me too. I’m a morning person now. I do mine in the morning because I have issues working out later in the afternoon. I just get sleepy. But the same thing.

We’re early in my house, my girls are up at five forty-five and we leave the house at about seven twenty. So, between five forty-five and seven twenty, we are eating breakfast, doing a workout, getting dressed and probably having some sort of tantrum in there somewhere.

It’s chaos and there’s no wiggle room but it gets done.

Lately, I’ve been working out in the morning, so I’m in getting up at four-thirty or five o’clock and getting it done. I’ve actually been doubling up on my workouts so that I have my weekends free, do whatever I’m still done by the time they start stirring at like six-thirty and then we get them up, get them breakfast, get them out the door by seven-thirty to go to school.

 

Finding A Workout Schedule (17:45)

One thing to note for all the moms listening is that you and I both get up really, really early to do this. That is definitely not a necessity. It’s just what we prefer, where we can fit it into our days.

For any other mom, if you’re a stay at home mom rock it into nap time or honestly while your kid is eating yogurt because that’s like a 45-minute adventure.

Or if you’re a working mom and you can do it between picking up from daycare or school or right before dinner when your kids are maybe having a little bit of screen time, finding those 20-minute intervals based on your own schedule is the best way to do it.

And sometimes that’s going to be different every day. It’s not always going to be at six forty-five in the morning. Sometimes it’s going to happen sporadically or when your kid’s not freaking out. There’s no one set thing.

No. And I’m not against turning on a show so I can get a workout in.

 

Why Working Out At Home Rocks (18:55)

We’ve already talked a little bit about why working out at home rocks, mainly because we can work out on our pajamas.

But what are a couple of other things that you love about working out from home?

So besides not having to wear a shirt or shoes. Yeah, the shirtless thing is really crucial. To be perfectly honest. The fewer shirts I wear less laundry I have to do, so I just wear fewer shirts.

I feel like it’s efficiency from an efficient perspective too because you can play while you work out too. If you have a dog like me or your kids in between sets and really that counts as parenting and a dog walk.

Yes, it does. So, you’re mom of the year basically?

Yes.

You know what, one of the things that I’ve really enjoy is that working out at home has gotten more and more versatile.

Right? It’s no longer just a crazy weird Aerobic DVD. Now it’s on-demand. These apps provide versatility and structure.

When I travel for work or for fun, I don’t have an excuse anymore. So that cuts out one extra excuse, right? Like I travel a lot for work. You don’t have an excuse anymore

There’s always a workout you can find to enjoy. There are so many different styles of home workouts now that you don’t have to follow along with anything.

You can pick and choose what you enjoy and what’s more geared towards your goals or your abilities. There is a lot more versatility now.

And it depends on the equipment. If you have some equipment, if where you’re going has no Wi-Fi, then you can always download it to your device.

What I’ve found is that they now come with nutrition guides. So, if there’s one less thing I have to worry about or think about or plan, that’s better.

If you’re going to tell me that I’m going to have a world-class trainer on my laptop, that’s going to give me a nutrition guide and all I have to do is put my food together and press play. You’ve got me.

It’s that makes your life easier, right? I think that’s what it comes down to. If it makes your life easier, you’re also more likely to stay consistent.

I’m sure by now we all know that the basis of results for any goal be it fitness, health, nutrition or work-related is just your consistency. You just have to show up.

The biggest thing of at-home workouts is they allow you simplicity and make your life easier so that you can show up.

 

Working Out At Home With Kids (21:46)

We’ve chatted a little bit about working out with kiddos. Now obviously my girls are in the gym with me every day because we do work out early mornings.

But why do you think that having your kids with you or work out with you is so important?

I’m going to sound like bad mom of the year, but I work out when my kids aren’t awake or around, if at all possible.

I do not include them in my workouts if I can help it. And here’s why: I do have a few videos on my Facebook live where I didn’t have a choice.

The kids were here, I needed to get a workout in. I press play. They came in, they did flips, they got in my way. It’s chaos. It’s a tornado wrapped in a hurricane.

Yup. That’s basically my life.

But that’s because there was no other way for me to get it in. So you either make the excuse or you get it done and I chose to get it done for me. My workout is my happy place. It’s my refuge. It’s my peace.

It keeps me sane so that I can deal with my children who are amazing. But they’re four, and there’s two.

But they do understand that it’s important that mommy works out. It’s important as parents that we instill good habits from the beginning.

If we show these tiny humans that fitness is a part of life and that it’s a priority, which also means not making your children your first priority during those 30 to 45 minutes.

You put on Netflix, you put on Paw patrol, you put on whatever it is, you let them watch that so you can do what you need to do and your kids will understand that fitness is important.

It’s not going to be a separate thing to do, they’re going to take that through life with them. I let my kids join me to make my shakes.

We record it now and they call it smoothie splash or smoothie smash. I show them what I’m cooking. I don’t cook separate meals for them.

And that’s because they need to understand that to eat balanced meals is not just chicken nuggets and fish sticks and French fries and yes, they eat that, but that’s not the basis of their nutrition.

We have water challenges; we do push up challenges. I show them how to lift properly, with like one-pound weights.

Fun fact: my toddler always uses “her weights”, which is the 2.5 plates. But lately she’s been picking up heavier ones and she’s 4.

I always watch her sister around the kettlebells because I don’t want them to tip on their feet. My oldest was like, “Oh, I got it mom”. And I was like, no honey it’s a 20-pound kettlebell… that she just huffed up and started walking with!

“You can lift 20 pounds”? It was awesome.

But I don’t think that makes you a bad mom because the truth is, I work out with my kids out of sheer necessity. That is just the only way that it works.

But it is not a calm, stress-relieving workout, to be perfectly honest. I get it done, I enjoy it, but it’s not a calm scenario.

Whereas on the off chance that I get to work out without kids, it’s a luxury to me. It’s awesome. I can zone out, I can hammer, it’s great.

So, I totally get if you are able to not work out with them.

Which sounds terrible.

You’re right. It does sound like a bad mom, but I totally understand doing that if you can swing it.

I just make sure that they understand how important it is to work out. That’s part of the reasons why I take the weekends off.

I’m not in a program on the weekends because I want to go to the park with them and we can practice our pull-ups there. Or I just want to run around with them. Or maybe I just want to throw them in the air, and you know, do those sorts of things.

I feel like fitness isn’t just the gym or working out at home. It’s supposed to be functional.

The point of lifting weights and getting stronger as a mom for me was so that I can pick up my kids and do those things that they want to do and not have to worry about my joints and my not being able to say, Oh, mommy can’t run that far.

It’s more important than the weight that you can squat. When you can’t pick up your kids anymore, that’s dependent on how much you can squat.

You want to get stronger; you want to get healthier so that you can do those functional things with them and for them and show them that this is what your lifestyle should look like. It should be balanced.

Yes, we eat vegetables and we eat lean meats and things like that. But we also go to the football game and we also eat hot dogs and popcorn and nachos because that’s fun.

It’s fun when they realize that you work out so you can play. O that you do your exercise programs so that you can do things and have fun. It makes it really big difference to them.

One of the things that I say to my moms is that I don’t personally like or train the workouts that slaughter you that leave you sore for days where you have trouble getting up in the morning or up and down the stairs.

And the reason why isn’t because I’m against crazy muscle growth, but it’s because that’s not practical for a mom.

If I hit my legs so hard that I can’t chase my kids, how is that a good workout to me? How is that a practical fitness routine?

Right, right.

The purpose of working out as a mom, yes it can be to lose weight and to have to hit certain performance goals and whatnot, but it’s to keep up and be able to play with kids.

That’s the biggest one and why I work out. It’s what the majority of moms want to be able to do so make your workouts around that.

And what you can also do is just taper back. You don’t have to hit it so hard. You can do the same program with lighter weights.

It’s not meant to be cookie cutter. Fitness is meant to be customizable to your life and your goals and your circumstances. And that way you can be more consistent.

You can show up and that’s how you find these pockets of people. You’re a fit fam, you know? You can bond with and hang with and say, Hey, I’m going through this. My children are acting like Eden’s and I don’t feel like working out.

And then you have your other mom that friends that are like “go work out the window”. Yup. It’s true. It does keep you saying

It’s a big thing.

 

Wrap Up (28:26)

All right. So, before I literally chat all day long about how awesome working out at home is, I think we’re going to wrap it up here.

So, Kim, thank you bunches for coming on today and kind of shooting the shit when it comes to workouts for moms and how awesome and practical home workouts are. And for acknowledging that wearing shirts and shoes during workouts just isn’t necessary or fun.

For anyone who wants to connect with Kim, you can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. So, Instagram and Twitter are @KimSandFit31. And on Facebook, you can find her at live your passion fitness.

I’m going to link to all of those in our show notes because if you’re anything like me, I can not spell worth a damn with people telling me on podcasts where I should be.

For all of you are looking to step up your home workout game. I have a ton of videos up on my YouTube channel if you need them. Seriously, they are sweaty, fast and beyond simple. Check them out if you need some ideas.

Once again, I can’t thank you all enough for listening. I’m loving having the ability to chat to so many amazing people.

If you’re loving what you’re listening to, please subscribe, rate and share the podcast. Not only does this give helpful information to others who may not know where find it, but it also helps me out too so that I can provide you with more.

And remember, if you’re in need, a fitness tips, workouts, amazingly healthy recipes, you can check out my website at https://www.fitasamamabear.com and of course you can hit up the show notes to find and connect with Kim.

On that note, check back soon to catch the next episode of the Fitasamamabear podcast. And if you took one lesson from today’s podcast, I hope it’s that working out at home makes life less stressful and helps you stay fit enough to keep up with your kiddos.

 

Resources

• Why moms should work out at home (a blog post)
• Killer at-home workouts (youtube channel)
• Why I work out with my toddler (a blog post)
• At-home workout equipment (a blog post)

Connect With Kim

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter