The SAHM Workout: 5 Fat-Burning Exercises You’re Already Doing Every Day
Because, toddlers…
As a stay-at-home mom a few years into the joyride of parenting, one of your biggest gripes, of course, is how much you miss the gym.
I hear fellow moms all the time talking about how they’d just kill for a good sweat fest on the elliptical or a deep burn spin class. (It must be all those extra hormones and pent-up energy we don’t know what to do with since we’re taking an extended vacation from work.)
But alas, we’re stuck at home watching Cocomelon with our toddlers, eating leftover fruit loops, and trying to stick to nap schedules that just don’t mesh with the Zumba timetable.
Fortunately, there’s great news for all of us committed calorie-counters who just can’t seem to beg a free hour in our toddler-led schedules to hit the gym.
Here are 5 fat-burning exercises you’re already doing 7 days a week without the aid of gym equipment, motivational playlists, or post-workout muffins. That’s full marks for innovation, inner motivation, and consistency!
1. Basic Squat
Target muscles: Thighs, Glutes, Core
How it’s done:
1. Pick up the endless trail of stray clothes, rejected socks, shoes, toys, bits of torn-up toilet paper, and unidentified globules your toddler has thoughtfully left behind for your daily squatting drills.
2. Swiftly yet safely pick up and set down 30-pound toddler on demand.
3. Repack ground-level Tupperware cupboard, while ignoring self-reminders of utter futility.
Advanced level (Front Squat): Squat as you carefully extricate toddler from spill/vomit/poo nappy detonation zone, being sure to keep toddler in the fully extended position until you reach the bath or other designated safety area.
Daily Reps: 100+
Weekly calorie burn: Infinite
2. Seated Leg Extension
Target muscles: Quadriceps, Core
How it’s done: Sit on the couch and wait a few minutes. Your toddler will soon find you and climb onto your leg, emphatically gesticulating his desire for a pony ride. Acquiesce.
Advanced Level: Perform while drinking hot coffee or eating meal on lap.
Daily Reps: 10 on each side (+ 1 ad infinitum…or until you keel over in leg cramp hell)
Weekly calorie burn: 5000+
3. The Crawl
Target muscles: Multiple muscle groups (glutes, abdominals, hips, shoulders, calves, etc.)
Note: Crawling is a compound exercise targeting multiple muscle groups and is the latest rave among health and fitness experts. Clearly, babies have long known the secret to getting in shape and working off that baby fat in 6 months or less!
How it’s done: Get down on hands and knees with a cloth in hand, seeking out intentional and unintentional debris and spills from your toddler’s meals, snacks, and sippy-cup adventures.
Advanced Level 1 (Gorilla or Elephant Crawl): Swallow your pride as you crawl-jump after your toddler, pretending to be a gorilla/elephant/lion/bear.
Advanced Level 2 (Table Top Crawl): Perform Mission Impossiblesque clean-up maneuver from one side of the playroom to the other, balancing on your palms and toes, keeping your knees low but being careful not to impale shins or kneecaps on stray Duplo blocks. Keep your core solid with intense concentration/frustration.
Daily Reps: 3–4 sessions per day
Weekly calorie burn: Infinite
4. Bicep Curls
Target muscles: Biceps, triceps, core
How it’s done: From a seated or lying down position, give in to your vertically-challenged toddler’s desperate requests to be lifted back onto your lap, couch, or bed. Wait for her to immediately climb back down (this is one rep). Repeat.
Advanced Level: Lift one toddler with each arm
Daily Reps: 30+
Weekly calorie burn: 4000+
5. Reverse Leg Press
Target muscles: Glutes, thighs
How it’s done: Visit grocery store/mall/doctor’s office with toddler in large pram and overstuffed baby bag on hand. Reverse-push heavy entrance door open with one leg as you try to figure out how to maneuver pram through door while holding said door open. Hold position until stranger offers to put you out of your misery.
Advanced Level: To increase body stress levels, perform with twin pram, or on Saturday morning at the end of the month.
Daily Reps: Limit to 1 session per week
Weekly calorie burn: 1000 (500 bonus when toddler tosses bottle out of pram mid-session)
And there you have it, moms. It’s all in the multi-tasking!
Well done for figuring out the secret to working smarter, not harder!
In just a few short years, we guarantee* you will have sloughed off all that extra pregnancy weight.
- Disclaimer:
1. This guarantee only applies in the absence of further procreation.
2. This guarantee may not take effect where a mom engages in stress-induced comfort eating at the onset of kindergarten.
