Mommy-cise

I’ve never been a member of a gym.  The summer between High School and College I went to our local rec center to work out fairly frequently but that ended as soon as college started.  Hubby and I have talked about getting a membership many times but it’s never happened.  We looked a few different options in Dublin but two things made us decide it wasn’t worth it:

1)       Childcare.  A lot of the bigger gyms offer on-site childcare where you can leave your children while you work out.  Sounds great, until you actually look into it.  The ones we looked at in Dublin charged €8 per hour, per child.  That would have been €32 every time I went to work out (assuming I was there 2 hours) on top of the monthly membership fee and gyms here are not much better.  I decided in Dublin to get a babysitter and go take dance classes instead which I like better anyways and we probably saved money overall.

2)       Location.  We didn’t have a car in Dublin so getting to a gym with childcare involved either a 15 minute train ride plus 10 minute walk or a 20+ minute walk each way.  There is no way I would have worked out regularly knowing I had to then get home afterwards.  Even now with the car, the closest gym with childcare is about a 10 minute drive and that’s 20 minutes of my life I don’t want to spend in my car and gas I don’t want to pay for.

osloSo instead, in addition to dancing, I’ve relied on walking.  I walk everywhere I can.  This morning I dropped Honeybun at school then went to Target for milk before heading home.  Total walking: over 2 miles (not including wandering through nearly every aisle of Target).

I realize walking is not the best exercise, but I figure I get added benefit due to the fact that I’m usually pushing close to 100 lbs of children and buggy (and whatever I’ve bought if shopping) plus it’s a bazillion freaking degrees outside PLUS I have to speed walk to keep the 100 lbs of child/buggy easily moving in a forward direction.

I may not be exercising the way I want to or the amount I “should” but a mommy’s got to do what a mommy’s got to do!