Blog 9

The biggest challenges I face to regular exercise and a healthy diet is time and a good support system. Including exercise and a healthy diet on a daily basis also requires prioritizing and organizing. I am taking a Health & Fitness class and we are implementing a 7 week program for a target behavior. My target behavior is to increase my exercise activity from 30 minutes 2 days a week to 40 minutes 5 days a week. It has been a challenge. As a mom-and pregnant, wife, full-time employee and a student priorities are constantly shifting. I have learned that it is important to have support from your family and to include them in your exercise routine and healthy eating. Otherwise you are constantly working around them or missing out on time with them. I am fortunate enough to have a supportive family. However, we've had a few obstacles because my husband was not as "gun ho" about it as I was. Many times he would say, "let's just sit on the couch, eat munchies and watch a movie." As tempting as it was it took plenty of will power to tell him no and let's stick to the game plan to go for a jog. We always felt better after making the right decision but it is so easy to falter.
These challenges will definitely change as our kids get older we will have to readjust our priorities. I should definitely be finished with school within the next 5 years so that will provide more time to other areas in our life. My goal is to make exercise and eating healthy a priority for my entire family so we can support each other when the temptations are great.