A Little Fitness Help for the SAHM, WAHM, WOHM
June 1, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Nutrition
The news that mothers who work outside (WOHMs) the home tend to be healthier and slimmer than stay at home mothers (SAHMs) is still echoing around the world press. I assume the findings also apply to work at home mothers (WAHMs) like me.
Acronyms aside, according to an article in the Irish Independent, this need not be the case. In How to Be a Stay at Home Mom… and Keep Fit, writer Sue Leonard interviewed a doctors, a stay at home mother, and a Weight Watchers’ leader. The quotes reinforce that people use staying at home, working, living alone and a number of other excuses factors to explain their weight-gain or falling fitness levels.
From the article, I gleaned the following tips to help all new mothers lose the baby weight:
1. Don’t eat the kids’ leftovers. I hate to see food wasted, but I really don’t need the cold pasta my little boy licked and then rejected.
2. Set a schedule for the whole family to eat by. Adjust snack times and meal times so that everyone eats together. If something between those times is really necessary, limit it to fresh, raw fruits and veg.
3. See your doctor regularly for preventative health care. Catch a little problem before it becomes a big problem.
Hi
Being a ’stay at home’ mother who puts on more weight than if she went out to work is just another excuse in the long line of excuses women make about their increasing waistlines.
If you are lucky enough to stay at home there are endless opportunites to go to the gym. No excuse – use the creche.
Eating left overs is weak willed and
it is not stressful caring for your own children
Well, Jaks, not eating the leftovers is actually a sin. Ever heard of something called famine? Ever heard of the morality of “waste not want not”?
Also, not all gyms are family-friendly, affordable or with creche. In fact, many communities don’t even have gyms.
The best solution for women who are stay at home mothers is to exercise with their children. It takes creativity, it takes motivation and it takes inspiration.
Funnily enough, none of your comments reflect any of those three things.
And, as for the “it’s not stressful caring for your own children” is only the remark of someone who has never done it.
I went back to work so that I could actually relax and I know hundreds of other mothers who feel the same way.
I stayed at home to bring up my 2 children, which were the best years of my life.There are many aspects of life which are stressful and for me this wasn’t one of them.
I did succumb to the left overs but never used it as an excuse for putting on weight.
As you so rightly say there are other ways of exercising without going to the gym.
Like walking in the park, playing games with your children and not being lazy about letting yourself go.