Always on the run, but no time to jog? Or bike, hike, swim, or otherwise participate in activities that would mean better health, more energy, and even fun?If this sounds like your life, maybe it’s time-- in the rosy glow of the just-dawning New Year-- to consider how you can get off that routine treadmill of busyness and blaze a new trail that allows you to be physically active while completing important tasks. For inspiration, meet 46-year-old Taimi Henderson (pronounced Tammy), who had three kids in two years and eight months, raised them as a single "soccer mom"—before that term existed—and survived to smile about it all. Acknowledging the hard lessons of organizing life with two young daughters and a son, Taimi admits feeling envious when she heard other adults say they were heading off to the gym or signing up for aerobics classes: "I would think, ‘I so want to exercise!’ But I couldn’t. I was too busy to be active." Faced with mounting mounds of laundry and pre-teens who would "freak out" because a special shirt wasn’t clean when they wanted to wear it, Taimi said she realized "something had to give." As a result, she drew up a new battle plan— one that involved time-saving strategies to help her keep her sanity. First on the list: setting up the household so that her children could take on more responsibility. "They’ve done their own laundry since they were 10, 11, 12 years old," she says, recalling with a chuckle how she got her darlings their own clothes baskets and held a group training session to show them how to use the washing machine. They also learned at an early age to cook meals, as well as rotate kitchen cleanup and other daily chores. While it wasn’t always smooth sailing— "I learned really quick that they needed assigned days to do their laundry, because they would all wind up trying to do their laundry at the same time and it was ugly"—Taimi says she learned as she went, and the additional responsibilities were good for her kids. Slated next for a new plan of attack was the weekly marketing, since "I hated everything about grocery shopping." Though there were limits to how much she could reduce this task, she simplified the process by instituting her own ‘Deal-a-Meal’ lists, with dinner menus on one side and the necessary ingredients on the other side. "That way, I could plan out 6 or 7 different dinners every week, and already have the list. I couldn’t change the need for shopping, but I could get it done quicker." Continued › |
The Soccer Mom Fitness Trap
You're Busy, But Not Active
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