Fitness Influencer Ali Kay Reveals How She Keeps Up Her Exercise Routine As A Working Mom - Exclusive
After her second pregnancy, fitness influencer and podcast Ali Kay knew she had to make some changes. She was eating foods that didn't make her body feel good. She wasn't moving her body. She wasn't in a great place mentally or emotionally either. So, she started to make small, incremental changes.
"Really, it just started with me pushing my son in the stroller," Ali told Health Digest in an exclusive interview. "It was five minutes of walking — that's really physically all I could do. But I started looking forward to those five minutes every single day." Those five minutes a day turned into 10 minutes, then 20 minutes. Walking while pushing the stroller became jogging. Soon, Ali was consistently getting 30 minutes of movement each day. And that movement transformed her physically and mentally.
Ali started to share her progress on TikTok and soon went viral. Today, she helps people like her — busy working parents — transform their relationships to food and fitness through her podcast and her coaching business. Ali shared with us how she makes time for fitness while running her own business and mothering two adorable boisterous boys.
Make movement a priority
Ali Kay offers sage advice for anyone looking to maintain an exercise routine: Make exercise a priority, no matter what else is going on in your life. As Ali started to look forward to exercising each day, she also noticed that she felt better physically and mentally when she worked out. Ali said she "became addicted to that feeling" she got when she moved her body on a regular basis, which made her want to prioritize exercise.
Ali also realized that when she didn't prioritize her exercise routine, she couldn't show up as her best self. She was cranky and irritable with her family. She lost her patience a lot. When she did take time for herself to move her body, she became more resilient to stress. She learned that prioritizing her fitness routine was the best way for her to feel good and be the best wife and mom possible. So, she makes it a priority, even when it's hard to fit in.
Adjust your expectations
Of course, getting that workout in when you have two young children is tricky. Ali said that the crucial thing she learned early on was that she needed to lower her expectations of her workouts. She recalled rushing to get her baby down for a nap and hurrying down to her Peloton, all hyped up for a perfect workout, only to be interrupted by her older son. She'd feel frustrated and disappointed that she didn't get the "perfect" workout she'd wanted.
After this happened several times, Ali realized that she needed to shift her mindset and adjust her expectations. Of course, she'd have to stop her workout to attend to the kids sometimes. That's just being a mom! What mattered was the commitment to start the workout again when she could. Sometimes that meant splitting her workout into a few sessions each day. Sometimes it meant getting interrupted, doing what she needed to, and then going back to finish the whole workout.
Once she accepted that she was never going to get that "perfect" workout, she realized that the important thing was to commit to getting the minutes in whenever and however she could.
For tips on how to invest in your best, follow Ali on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube and check out her podcast, "Invest Your Best with Ali Kay."