It’s been a real challenge trying to stay fit ever since Hannah was born. Back in my bachelor days, I generally started every morning with a long visit to the gym, complete with a 10 minute session in the steam room to clear my body of all of the toxins that it inevitably and inexplicably accumulated over the preceding weekend. 🙂 When Rebecca and I tied the knot, we started going to the gym together, but with far less frequency. We’ve always enjoyed going on walks together, and slowly those walks replaced more vigorous trips to the gym.
After Hannah was born, Rebecca and I continued our habit of going on walks, and simply took Hannah along in her stroller or strapped to my back. So, while I was still getting some decent exercise, it was nothing like the vigorous trips to the gym that I was accustomed to. Then, as things became more busy with Hannah, Rebecca and I would often feel exhausted by the end of day and in no mood for a walk.
Having said that, now that Hannah is about a year old it has become a bit easier to manage our lives and squeeze in some self-care every now and then. I can tell you from experience that the first 12 months of being a parent can be a whirlwind experience; you are suddenly responsible for a living creature but lack most of the knowledge and experience required to do so! That tends to lead to a very high learning curve, which squeezes out most time to do anything else.
Now that Rebecca and I have gone a fair amount of the way up the learning curve, I finally have a bit more time to hit the gym. There is a great gym about a 10 minute walk from our place with great fitness classes held four or five times a day. In particular, there is a high intensity interval training (HIIT) fitness class first thing in the morning around 6 AM every weekday. Given that I don’t need to be at work until 9 AM, I figured that I’ll start attending this class. I know it will be painful to get used to vigorous workouts again, but I think it’ll be a quick way to relieve stress and maybe do away with this “dad bod” that I’ve been carrying around for far too long. 🙂