There is still hope for the gym

After about a month and a half of trading off "gym night" with the husband, both of us finally burned out. It was draining both of us to put in a full day of work and then have to work out at 10 pm at night while one of us put the kids down for bed. Our evenings are packed as it is preparing dinner, serving/feeding the kids, cleaning up the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, and then giving the kids a bath. When you add to that another Herculean task like driving to the gym, working out for an hour, driving back home, showering, trying to get to sleep by midnight....there came a point were we just couldn't do it anymore. Last Monday after dinner my husband asked me to go to the gym because he was too tired. He'd rather give the kids their bath and put them to bed, along with himself. I hadn't gone to the gym all weekend, and he was keeping track that it was my "turn" that night. It was only 9:00 pm, and I was exhausted. I told him I didn't want to go to the gym, that all I want to do is go to sleep too. I was seriously thinking about quitting. After a little over a month, I hadn't lost any weight and I was completely dependant upon my husband watching the kids to even go. What was the use?

So today, we decided to give the gym another shot. We decided to go at the same time together after an early dinner at 5:30 pm. The gym's babysitting room was open until 9 pm tonight and my husband said he would sit with the children while I work out for half hour and when I was done, I could sit with the kids in the babysitting room and he could go work out. Given our prior experience with our twins separation anxiety and the rude babysitters, we thought at least they wouldn't cry if they saw one of us in the room. My son is fine with staying in the room without us, but the girls, I guess it's because they're two years old, they act as if we have left them for good and are never coming back to get them.

So today we tried trading off watching the kids in the gym itself, and it worked! In one hour, both of us got a chance to exercise and the twins didn't freak out on us. When I was done exercising, I came to the babysitting room to give my husband a chance to workout and the kids were fine. No crying, no stress. They played nicely in the room and would occasionally come and hug me (probably to make sure I was real and was still there) and then would get back to playing with the toys. I also got a chance to talk to the babysitters in the room at the time, who were new. I asked them what happened to the babysitters that used to work here and guess what I found out? THE BABYSITTING BITCHES GOT FIRED! Apparently I wasn't the only one they were rude to. Since they were only high school girls with little tolerance for children anyway, they were replaced with babysitters who are actually mothers themselves or former daycare workers. Way to go gym manager! In fact I had such a pleasant conversation with these new sitters I asked them their schedule and now I'm going to start trying to use the babysitting service in the gym again. If I get my workouts out of the way during the morning, at least we won't be so crunched in the evening and my husband could get a chance to work out more often during the weekdays. The babysitter I spoke to, Eileen, said that as a mom of kids who've never been in daycare and are very attached, I should start off with daily visits at the same time and sit with the kids five minutes before leaving to workout. Then workout for 5-10 minutes and come back, gradually adding five minutes to workouts each day. I figure it works out because I was already only going 2 or 3 times a week for an hour each time, if I go daily and gradually build up to doing 30 minute workouts, I will probably get the same or even more benefits than now. Eileen was just a delight to talk to, and she's a mom herself so she was very helpful on giving me exercise tips and how to manage working out and balancing taking care of children. She's like my light at the end of the tunnel. Oh and bonus, I weighed myself today and found out I lost 3 lbs. It doesn't sound like much, but I lost as much as a whole chicken. I guess I've been losing about a pound a week, I wish it could go away faster, but I'm told slow weight loss actually stays off longer.