FeelGooder Fitness Tweak: Single Mom Needs a Little Push

Lisa H. is one of my favorite people on Twitter. She is warm-hearted, funny, a Florida Mom with three kids, and someone who has a super-busy schedule.

She home-schools her kids, and works full-time from home as a freelance writer and professional blogger.  She gives 100% to her kids and her career. She just needs to give herself a little attention too.

The situation

Lisa’s not unhappy with the way she looks, but would like to get a little more toned. She also has noticed her blood pressure has been creeping up and finds herself stressed out at times. She loves fruits and vegetables (good) and also likes cheese (not as good!). She’d like to find ways to cook healthfully without spending as much money at the grocery store, and she mostly cooks from scratch.

Available equipment

An elliptical trainer.

The plan: cardio

Lisa’s already doing one long walk a week with her kids in one of the local amusement parks in Florida. That’s great. Lisa, while you’re doing it, think about adding a little speed. Maybe you can “race” your kids from point A to point B to get a little goose out of your calorie burn. Unless you’re breaking a sweat, it’s movement … but it’s not cardio.

For the rest of the week, combine what you love with what you’d rather not do. Record one of your favorite shows, like “Glee,” and only watch it on the elliptical. Go for a minimum of 20 minutes, but if you’re enjoying the show and want to, go longer, and enjoy! Do this four to five days per week.

You mentioned that you can get stressed and you want exercise to reduce your stress levels. Think about the most stressful times of your day and time your exercise to coincide with that. Another possible way to use exercise is to think of it as a transition time. So, you could home-school your kids, do some cardio, and then move on to work. Try a couple of different times of day to see what works best for you.

The plan: weight training

Lisa mentioned she’d like her arms to be more toned, and to work on her abs too.

Pushups are the answer. Start from the knees and make sure you body is in a plank position. To get in the plank there are three things you have to think about.

1. Squeeze your backside and keep it in line with the rest of your body.
2. Pull your abs up away from the floor, and think about lifting your belly button up and under your rib cage.
3. Your shoulder blades should slide down your back toward your backside. Don’t let them come up to your ears.

This should put you in an absolutely straight line—the “dart” position. Lower your body down by flexing your elbows until the elbows are at 90 degrees. Make sure you get to 90! Do as many as you can the first day to figure out your threshold. If it’s one, it’s one … just start from wherever you’re at. From there, add one more pushup every other workout. This will tone your arms, chest, and back.

Another great arm exercise is my Hollywood Arms workout. You can literally just use soup cans to start with but if you have one- or two-pound weights, that would be ideal. You don’t need a lot of weight here to get an intense arm workout—it took me a year to get up to three pounds! You can check out the video if you like.

Hold the weights in your hands, with your palms face-up. Your arms should be stiff but the elbows should have a slight bend to them, and your hands should be directly in front of your body. Start to do small, tight circles keeping the palms up the entire time. Gradually start to move the hands away from each other, moving them about 90 degrees to the sides of the body. Pause. Reverse the direction of the circles and very slowly pull the arms back to the start position. Repeat the set a second time with the palms facing the floor. These work great! I use them all the time with brides, fashionistas, and local celebrities.

Abs

We’re just going to do crunches to start. But I’m going to give you my secret weapon: kegels! Kegels are the stop-your-pee exercise that moms frequently learn after giving birth, but they’re also great at getting rid of that post-pregnancy bulge.

Lie on the floor with your knees bent, and back flattened against the floor. Put your hands behind the head, your loosely intertwined fingers supporting the base of the skull, and your elbows wide. Inhale to get ready. On the exhale feel as if you have bungee cords at the base of your rib cage pulling your ribs down towards your hip bones. Lift your head off the mat and flatten your back into the mat. This is just a basic crunch but I want you to feel the work in your abs. I don’t want you to just yank your head up with your hands and call that an ab exercise! Pull your belly button up and under your rib cage, and add a kegel! Do one long set of 15. Work up to 20 by adding one rep every other workout.

Once you get to 20, lift your legs off the floor into what we call “tabletop”—you have a 90-degree angle at your hip and 90 degrees at the knees, and your legs are together. Go back down to 12 reps and work up to 20 again. This will increase the intensity of the exercise. I’m using Pilates form here because it’s so effective for postpartum work. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how effective this is!

The second exercise here is for obliques. Focus on your core muscles again. Come up and hold the crunch position, focusing on your abs and your kegel. Your fingers should be lightly supporting your head—they’re not helping with the exercise. Pretend your have a dinner napkin on your tummy. Two corners are on your hip bones and the other two corners are at the bottom of your rib cage. Keep the belly button pulling up and under the rib cage and fold the imaginary napkin from corner to corner as if you were folding it into a triangle. Your shoulders and arms should be quiet—they’re just going along for the ride. All the work should be in the abs!

I can’t tell you how many people I see doing obliques incorrectly! Do ten on each side and work up to 20 by adding one rep every other workout. As above, when you get to ten, bring the legs up into tabletop position.

This is a very basic resistance training program, but because of your high blood pressure I want you to focus on your cardio. It’s important to make sure that’s in check so you can give your kids the best Mom they can have.

As for eating on the cheap, I’m totally with you. I just bought Eating Well on a Budget by Jessie Price and the Eating Well Test Kitchen. It’s got great recipes broken down by cost per serving, and focuses on meals for less than $3 per serving. It also has a great section about stocking up your pantry so you have almost everything you need at hand.

Hope this helps Lisa. :et me know if you have any questions. If anyone else would like a FeelGooder fitness tweak you can contact me at my blog, LisaJohnsonFitness.com.