Staying fit and exercising isn’t easy for most people including me. I’ve gotten on and fallen off the workout wagon a million times. But staying fit as a busy mom is even harder because everyone else’s needs become your own and we all need a convenient excuse not to get on the treadmill. Right?

I want to share with you the secret to staying fit and healthy as a mom. And I’ve rounded up some other mom bloggers who share their fitness tips too!

Let’s get started with my hands-down biggest fitness tip for moms getting started with exercise.

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Work out with your kids. I know, I know I can hear the objections coming at me. I get that this approach doesn’t work for every mom and it doesn’t always work for me.

The Secret to Staying Fit as a Busy Mom

But working out with your kids has a lot of benefits. The first is, it creates accountability for you and that’s extremely important! Since kids seem to think all exercise is fun, they’ll remind you again tomorrow when it’s time to work out. And let me just add here that exercising should be fun and if your kids aren’t begging you to do it again, chances are, you aren’t going to want to do it again either.

The second and very important benefit of working out with your kids is you are spending quality time with your kids. This is huge when you have a busy schedule and struggle to find quality time with your children. Instead of going to the gym by yourself, spend an hour racing your kids at a local track or doing a park work out. You’ve just become the fun mom!

And the last benefit of exercising with your kids is you are setting the example and modeling healthy behavior. This one is monumental! Kids don’t do what we say, they do what we do.

Here’s a really fun video example of a fun family workout. This is perfect for little ones who like to get in your way while you’re working out. This way everyone’s having fun. And if your kids are older like mine, just find something fun to do and have them join in.

Like I said, this approach is to help you get started with exercising, especially if its been a while. If it’s working for your family, you can continue working out with your kids. Or if your body starts to need more, and it will, you can gradually add in things like working out with weights at the gym or taking a class.The important thing is to remember to listen to your body and give it what it needs as your body transforms. Just try to stick with exercising with your kids as a healthy and fun activity even if you do decide to become a contestant on Ninja Warrior!

Make a Quality Decision

The second thing you MUST do if you want to make exercise a priority is to make a decision that you are officially doing this. I find that sometimes even when I want to make a change I simply won’t take action and I’ll procrastinate. This is usually because I never stopped long enough to make an actual decision.

Thinking about doing something and even agreeing that it’s a good idea or feeling like you want to do something isn’t making a decision. When you make a decision to do something, action always follows.

Action like putting it on the schedule, making a gym appointment, or calling the kids into the room and telling them everyone’s going running tomorrow.

Making a quality decision also means granting yourself grace in advance for the days you fall off the work out wagon. And not giving yourself permission to stay off. You already know that you’ll have bad days and make bad decisions, but you must move gracefully passed that decision and get back on tomorrow. Or better yet, later that day!

Here are 7 more tips to help you get and stay fit as a busy mom.