I'm 46 and I need to lose one stone to return to my pre-children weight...this is 8 years after my twins were born, by the way! Weight is going up gradually all the time.
Problem is, I have no time to eat healthily anymore and no time to exercise. I'm a single mum running a full-time business single-handedly, with no family/ childcare help. can't afford any paid help. I do absolutely everything, all of the time (no ex either). Most days start around 4.30am when I get an hr and a half before the children are up, to do necessary task - domestic and business. After the morning school run, I'm working full on, with barely a lunch time (15 mins if I'm lucky) until I pick them up from school and spend the next 4 to 5 hrs full-on parenting - cooking supper, helping with homework/ music practices, sorting stuff for next school day etc....and then there's another hour wind down for and with them to get them to sleep. By 9pm they're asleep and about 20 mins later, so am I!
There is NO give in this schedule to add in anything more. So how do I get time to make myself healthy meals and to fit in any exercise at all (my job is sedentary)? I don't watch TV - and haven't for 8 yrs, I don't get an evening, I guess because I'm too tired and early morning, I'm already full-on busy, yet never manage to get even the essential household tasks or admin. for the business done.
Other than sleeping less, I can't see how to fit in exercise (and it'd have to be in the house exercise anyway, as I can't leave the twins on their own at their age). If there's any spare time at all, there's always something vital to do either domestically or for the business, eg I was up at 4.30am this morning cleaning the kitchen which hadn't been done for 4 days and then unblocking a 5 day long blocked toilet I hadn't had time to unblock before!!! YUK!
I'm largely vegetarian. I have a treadmill and bicyle trainer in the garage - both currently inaccessible under stuff I've not had time to sort out for years. In the distant past, I used to have to have a certain mindset to exercise and eat healthily. It was a sort of all-or-nothing thing - wheer, once I started being healthy, I was on a roll and sustained it. With children now, I can't manage this. A year or so ago, I did a few days of jogging on the treadmill but then, as always, something happened - children got sick/ business became more demanding etc etc - and so I didn't have time to keep it up. Same with eating: I can decide to buy in healthy stuff but when many of my meals involve only grabbing children't leftovers or whatever's the quickest food at hand to unwrap and eat, then I just don't have time to peel a carrot or make a proper meal for me.
Anyone else here got a similar life and yet somehow DOES fit in exercise and healthy meals? If so, enlighten me: How do you do it!