How To Get (and stay) Fit Once You Become a Dad!

Lets be honest – getting to the level of fitness that most people want isn’t easy, especially once you are no longer in your 20s! Life doesn’t wait for everything to fall into place for you, and things are constantly going on. Relationships, work, family, it all adds up (similarly to how it would for women, but the tips in this blog are more aimed at the dads!). Once you factor in everything, trying to be a fit father and husband can feel almost impossible. It can feel like everything in your life is done to provide and bring everyone else up, and usually you end up putting yourself last.

While I am not personally a father (other than to a dog), I have seen this happen time and time again over the last 16 years. So here are a few of my tips to the fathers, to hopefully  help inspire all dads to make time to get fitter and healthier.

Being fit and healthy requires time, and trying to fit that in amongst work, wife and kids can be puzzling. Prioritizing your fitness requires you to bump something down the list. Ultimately, as much as you want to put everyone else first, if you are constantly putting yourself last, then eventually you wont be able to put others first. The first tip is a simple one, and it is simply to make time for yourself!

The amount of time that we think we need to get and stay fit is also a huge factor that prevents many from even getting started. Many people think they need to be doing at least an hour a day, every day, otherwise why even bother. Here is the good news – even at just 30 minutes, twice a week, people can get and maintain results! A single hour in the whole week all of a sudden seems much more achievable, right? So the second tip, is that every little bit counts, and it honestly takes far less time, when doing something structured, to get a great result!

Now, obviously every workout that you can make time for is going to be beneficial, but the ones that are really going to help you blast towards your result are going to be the ones that involve resistance training. Working your muscles out not only burns calories while you are doing it, but will also continue to burn calories after you finish. That means that while you are working, spending time with the family, or doing literally anything else, you will keep burning extra calories! If you can reliably allocate 30 minutes, twice a week, my best advice would be to do 1 session of upper body resistance, and 1 session of lower body resistance. This gives each half of the body plenty of time to recover between sessions, and allows everything in the body to get a good workout! The third tip, if you hadn’t already guessed it, is that resistance training is going to be absolutely king for you!

Finally, as you probably already realise, unless you are genetically gifted, things simply aren’t going to be as easy as they were when you were 20. You likely won’t have as much energy, things will feel a bit slower, and you will take a bit longer to recover from each session. The thing that you will also need to realise and appreciate, is that that is 100% OK. The amount you lift, and the time it takes to do it, doesn’t actually matter. What matters is the amount of effort you put in when you do train, because that is what your body is responding to. As long as you are pushing yourself consistently, and not feeling like you are “slacking off” for any of your workouts, you are going to get the results you want. So, with that being said, the last tip here is to not criticize or judge yourself, but feel good that you are doing something for yourself, that is also making you a healthier dad!

Hopefully if you are reading this list, and you are currently unsure of what to do or where to start, it will help to motivate you to make a start!

If you still feel like you are a bit uncertain on where to begin, you can reach out to us, and we can organise a time for you to come in for a free consult, where we can go through what you are doing, and how to make that work a bit better for you, so that you can get the best start.

You can reach out here: https://newstartpt.com.au/contact/