Inconsistant schedule is consistent. Suggestions please!

[Organa]

Hello friendly folks. I'm hopping back on the bandwagon of healthy choices. Here is one of the primary dilemmas (excuses) I've come up against. My son's dad and I are divorced and we have 50/50 custody of our 6 year old son. So this means I have my son from Monday evening to the following Monday morning every other week.

One week I'm by my onesie, the next week I've got my boy. Add to that a grad school internship and three days away I have a regular 9-5 kind of "job". And two days a week I have class. (I'm going into the final semester of my master's degree) SO...when I do get myself together and start something awesome for myself when my son is with his dad the whole schedule changes. (e.g. - I get up early and go walking) - can't do that at any actual exercise worthy pace with my son - and there isn't time before school days to walk with him.

I really need to separate plans that alternate each week but so far have failed to implement this. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of alternating week on week off schedule? I feel like I either try to cram all fitness things into the early am or later pm just so I can have some semblance of consistency - that way it happens either before my son wakes up or after he goes to bed. So no matter if he's with me or at his dad's I can do the same things. I feel like I haven't come up with the right plan.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

Lou

[Guest Carjack]

Any specific goals?

What equipment is available to you?

Also:

On week: 20 minute bodyweight, dumbbell or sprint circuits.

Off week: http://www.cbass.com/Synaptic.htm

Exercises:

Push up

Row

Pull up

Overhead press

Plank

Bicycle crunch

Pick weight off the ground

Carry weight

Single leg squat or progressions to pistol squat

Any combination you like.

[Leimanu]

Huh. That is interesting. I hope the schedule is working out for your son. And good luck and congrats on the masters degreeeeeeeeeeee!

It sounds like your schedule, except for the son, is actually pretty regular. The bodyweight routine above is quick and effective and it's what I use. Choose 4 or 5 exercises and do a couple sets of each. You could actually hop around and do this while junior's watching tv or homework or whatever kids these days do after school.

My very first thought is to try to include junior in fitness. I don't have kids so I'm at a loss for this. Um, there's fitness games and Wii and Kinect. 6 year olds just like playing around and I'm sure there's an activity for Mom and junior for 30 min throughout the day. Can you two play at the school's or a park's jungle gym? He can climb something while you use the seesaw for push ups

[smurray]

It sounds like you have the desire, now it is time to implement a goal. Having a good solid goal will help motivate you find those hidden minutes within your schedule. Steve has the "Angry Bird" workout and it is designed to take advantage of the few minutes you do find. There is truth behind "If there is a will, there is a way." Good luck with all you have before you.

[citabean]

@Lousie - Darlin, I know how you feel. Being a single mom who shares custody (although not quite 50/50), who works full time and was going to school full time (graduated! Woo!)... I hear you.

What I found that works for me is involving my son in my workouts when he's home. Not only does it get him active, but it is a bonding time for both of us. He also gets to help pick workout activities to do about once a week and is a great cheerleader for me.

Quick story interjection: We went to the school playground to do a body weight workout that involved push-ups, squats, inverted rows and planks... I was doing the inverted rows from inside a dome monkey bar thing... My son got on the outside of the dome, climbed up face height for me and was in my face saying "You can do it mom! Just 5 more!"

Something my son and I decided is we'd have a board where we'd have various workout suggestions and we'd cycle through them starting in January when he gets back home. So together we came up with activities we can do together that qualify as exercise. I also plan on doing structured body weight routines twice a week. Sometimes he does them with me, or at least is in the room doing other active things while I do them. His new favorite thing is to grab a chair and attempt pull-ups on the pull-up bar... or he does what he calls "rowboats" which are basically inverted rows from ropes I have hanging from the pull-up bar.

Weeks where your son is away, you can do the same sort of "pick from the board" workouts on the same days you'd do them when he's home... or have a different structure for those weeks. They can be longer, more intense and have you do things you can't do when he's working out with you.

[Organa]

Thanks everyone!

@citabean - I love the board idea! My son is big into any kind of organizational board business. On nice days we certainly can go to the park. Sometimes we just put music on and bounce around for "exercise".

@carjack - as far as equipment goes, I have two 8lb hand weights and a yoga mat.

Goals - right now, most basically is to eat better and move more. I'd like to increase my aerobic stamina. Increase upper body strength and tone my tummy.

@smmury & @Leimanu Angry Birds workout is really perfect for me because there are no excuses to not doing it. Bodyweight exercises are things I can do easily at home.

Thanks for your encouragement and support y'all.

[bprime]

From what I got from this thread, it sounds like you don't have access to a gym and you're doing everything at home. It feels like your biggest question is working out at the same time every day/other day/whatever. In a vacuum, yes there is a perfect ideal time to work out (I forgot when that is off the top of my head). This is the real world, and honestly it doesn't really matter. Just get whatever you need to get done whenever you can.

Ideally, join a gym that has supervised day care. Not all of them do, but a local one back in my hometown does.

[MatthewD]

I personally was thinking something like Carjack said with a sweet to the point cardio/strength circuit. Also citabean has a great point about going to the playground... I know my kids would have loved going to the playground with me doing something like that...

[Organa]

This week my son is with his Dad and I've been trying a daily workout early first thing in the morning. It's going great! I've also cleaned out my pantry of crap foods and am moving towards a primal diet. Last night I even got to bed before midnight. if I can get to bed early enough then keeping the same schedule for wiling out will be easy enough when I have my son. Plus I think he would get a kick out of "racing Mommy" on some if the times intervals I've been doing. thanks for your support and suggestions!

[shinigamiPUNCH]

That is how my summer visitation with my kids is set up - one week on, one week off. I also work 8am til 5pm and go to a tech college (read: year round) and do not have daycare for my kids (long story short my husband has the custody and decided they don't "need" daycare because they are 5 and 10). The only thing that works for me is to do stuff my kids can do. We go for walks, bike rides, we play at the park (I play too or else my 10 year old won't). We do have a gym membership so we also go swimming and play interactive video games at the gym. Sometimes it's hard because there's 3x the excuses not to do it but my kids seem to understand it's important.

I think baby steps are good, too, when you have so much going on. It took me like 6 months to fully go primal and there's still things I need to work on.

I'm glad you had a good first week - hope your second is good as well!!

[oystergirl]

Not sure if you can fit walking in during your lunch break at work, park your car farther away from school etc. make every day activities a bit more exercise friendly.

I know that some folks suggested doing intervals. I love doing them and I have a gymboss timer and then I pick 4 exercises like push ups, lunges, planks and jumping jacks and I set the timer for 12 rounds of 50/10 thats 50 seconds work and 10 rest so in 12 minutes you get to do 3 rounds of 4 exercises as many reps as you can fit in and you get the cardio benefits of a TABATA (look it up on google)...so I take about 5 minutes to warm up--do the interval and then 10 minutes to stretch but thats cause I love stretching. everything is done in less than 1/2 hour...if you can fit this full body interval in 3 days a week and walk the other days whenever you can, with a healthy diet you should do quite well! Rock on!

[Organa]

Intervals yes! I stumbled upon bodyrock.tv and they post 12 min interval sets daily. I'm in my second week now and loving the "no excuses" -ness of it. My son helped me count exercises this morning and he joined in for the last ten of a set or two. Sowed the seeds of some primal changes with him today. He's a real thinker so I know he'll start coming to his own conclusions about food. Walking at lunch may be an option and would certainly release stress. Thanks for the reminder to park farther away. Used to have that habit and then stopped. That's easy to start again.