Do homemaker’s have time to work out?
A homemaker is a busy person. Keeping up with a home, family, and everything in between are full-time jobs. If you have kids or an additional job things become all the more chaotic. Every phase of life brings new changes too. This means just as you find a good routine it is time to change it. Working out has always been the thing on my list of millions of things to do that historically has fallen off the list because other things came first. Was this actually how things should have gone though? I have finally found a workout routine that I have been able to stick to and want to share what has worked for me in all phases of life, including pregnancy and postpartum. Here is my homemaker’s workout routine!
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My Workout History
Don’t worry I don’t plan to back up to working out as a toddler or anything but the last eight or so years feels important to note. About eight years ago I decided that I wanted to be a police officer. I found the agency I wanted to work for and set out to prepare for the PT (physical test). At the time, I had to be able to do a certain number of sit-ups, push-ups, a 500 meter sprint, a run, and I had to be able to bench press 75% of my body weight.
I had never done any type of bench pressing and really had never ventured into lifting weights. I had always been more of a dancer in my early years. This led me to set out on my adventure of becoming a weight lifter and a gym goer. Over the course of the next couple of years I worked for the police department I planned to eventually become a police officer for. I worked the front desk by day (or night) and worked out on the opposite end of the day preparing for the test.
The Best Shape of My Life
I eventually succeeded in becoming a police officer and went off to police academy. Preparing for the PT was nothing compared to the paramilitary workouts we received daily. Let’s just say the entire class of recruits were falling apart by the end of our time in academy with how hard we trained and were worked. It was excellent preparation for the job mentally and physically but boy did it take it’s toll. The toll was especially true when you are a petite female who was the smallest in the class even amongst the other females (though there were few). I left police academy with a busted arm and two dislocated knees – but I made it through and still excelled despite my injuries so I was proud of that!
After I left police academy, I must admit, despite those injuries I was in the best shape of my life. I had high endurance, was the strongest I’d ever been, weighed my lowest (adult weight), but was my most toned. I felt amazing!
It All Came Tumbling Down
Remember those injuries I sustained in police academy? Well, let’s just say they quickly led me to leaving the profession. Prior to starting police academy I noticed that one of my shoulders was weaker than the other. I struggled to come up evenly when performing push-ups. No matter how much I trained or how strong I got my one shoulder that I called my “Nemo arm” (If you have seen Finding Nemo you will understand the reference hehe) struggled to perform.
In police academy I was told it was all in my head, but after academy a new issue with my shoulder appeared. I started to lose feeling in my arm. The loss of feeling would go all the way from my shoulder to my fingers and unfortunately it was my dominant arm – the arm I would use if I ever needed to pull my weapon as an officer. The problem was, I knew if the sensation hit at the wrong time I wouldn’t be able to operate getting my gun out of it’s holster let alone using it.
I talked to several doctors and they all said the same thing – I was a petite thirty something female and the job I was doing was hard. Eventually my body would fall apart, so if I wanted a future where I had the wherewithal to, for instance, play with my future kids, it was time to find a new job.
Finding My New Workout Routine
After all the work I had put into being a police officer it was a hard pill to swallow to leave the profession; although, I have to say, I was sort of relieved to leave and start something new (a future blog post perhaps on this later!). While on light duty due to my injury, I found a new desk job that was remote so I could work from home. Once I left the police world and entered into my new job I was worried about staying in shape and not losing all the strength I had gained. But with all my injuries, weight lifting, at least heavy weight lifting was out even though I enjoyed it.
I also found that due to my knee injuries running and anything extreme was out too. I turned to walking. Around this same time I had gone through a divorce. I moved into a cute little historic house that had a park literally just outside my front door. I walked there every single day, rain or shine, cold or hot. The neighborhood I lived in was cute too, so if I got tired of doing laps in the park it was an easy walk around the block – and I LOVED it! Shockingly, I was able to stay in shape and continued feeling stronger than ever without having to break myself with impossibly hard workouts. I did add in light weights on an occasion or body weight exercises but for the most part it was all about low impact walking for me.
Marriage, Moving, and a Baby
Life moves fast, and after just a couple of short years I found myself getting married to my wonderful husband, moving to our current location, and just two short weeks after tying the knot my husband and I got pregnant. The area we moved to did not have a park right outside my door, in fact the closest park is probably about twenty minutes away from us. Instead, we had rough terrain, steep hills, and slippery caliche paths. Not to mention, there was no shade for miles around when it came to walking out here, so after finding out I was pregnant I stopped my attempted and now dreaded walks for fear of either overheating, or slipping on the caliche and landing on my stomach.
The first trimester, like many moms experience, was not so fun. I was wiped out and felt sick and ended the first trimester actually sick. Safe to say, my daily walks or exercise of any kind were put on hold for those first three months. I missed my daily walks horribly though, so I set out to find a solution. My solution was purchasing on Prime Day from Amazon a walking pad. We lived in a tiny cabin a little less than 500 square feet with essentially one room so I needed something small that I could slide under furniture when not in use and the walking pad fit the bill. The walking pad I purchased way back when is not on Amazon anymore, but I recently got a new one and while the exact version is no longer sold this one looks identical.
Another New Workout Routine
I walked religiously every single day after receiving my walking pad. After work, I would head straight into my walk and I was thriving. I felt good for the remainder of my pregnancy and believe that those daily walks helped me a lot with pregnancy, labor and delivery, and the postpartum stage. During my postpartum stage I didn’t have much time to workout. I was adjusting to being a new mom and that felt like a workout in and of itself. I would do the occasional and very sporadic workout here and there but for the most part I did nothing but care for my daughter.
While it took me a while to get back to my pre-pregnancy body, I believe this was mostly due to breastfeeding. Some women lose weight when they breastfeed, but others like me hold on to weight so that you have more body fat to produce good milk for your baby. I noticed that as my daughter got older and we began dropping breastfeeding sessions I would lose weight with each session we dropped.
Once my daughter was fully on solids and no longer breastfeeding, which was just over a year I recognized myself in the mirror again. All my pre-pregnancy clothes fit again, and while I had about eight more pounds to lose I was happy with my overall physique. I also started out my pregnancy a little underweight, so holding on to an extra five or so pounds, especially because my husband and I were wanting to get pregnant again would have actually been a positive. Just another month or so later I found myself pregnant again.
Things Are Constantly Changing
When my daughter was about six months old I began putting her in the stroller and walking outside back and forth down our driveway. It was a little bumpy on the caliche but my daughter seemed to be soothed to sleep by it – the only way I could get her to nap; therefore, I happily walked as often as I could with her out on that drive. I started to look forward to our walks as it reminded me of my days of walking in the park outside in the fresh air getting my steps in.
After discovering I was pregnant with our second child, the first trimester nausea and fatigue set in. This once again, put a pause on my walks. I also got sick again, but this time I got sick fifteen times in those first three months (yes, you read that right FIFTEEN times!!). I would get sick, then as soon as I began to recover from one illness I’d get hit by a new bug and this happened over and over and over again. It seemed like I couldn’t catch a break. All the while I felt something was wrong in the pregnancy. It turns out that my mother’s intuition was right, and our second child likely had Trisomy 18 or Edward’s Syndrome. This disorder is one that is labeled as incompatible with life.
With this new information our entire lives were turned upside down and not only did I not have the physical or emotional wherewithal to workout (even though I think it would have been good for me) ALL of my free time was spent caring for my one year old and trying to find answers and sort out the gameplan for our second child.
When Life Doesn’t Go As Planned
After a tough nearly nine months, the next few continued to be tough. Our baby defied the odds and made it to birth, but she died just five hours after her birth. Burying a baby, and dealing with all the bodily postpartum things like drying up breastmilk, recovering from birth, and seeing my freshly postpartum body in the mirror everyday reminding me of all we had lost were not what I had planned for this stage of our lives. The first few weeks of the postpartum stage you are not cleared by doctors to workout, and I am not sure I had the mental or physical ability to take on working out at the time – my body felt like I had run a year long marathon, and I guess in many ways I had in a sense.
After I got cleared by doctors to take back on regular activity; however, I looked at my body, and while I was thankful for all it had done and I loved thinking of both my children, it also hurt. My body looked a lot different after our second than it did after our first. My stomach had new loose skin that, if I am being honest, unfortunately grossed me out. I was heavier than I wanted to be on the scale and felt physically heavy. I was determined to get my body back and it gave me something outside of loss and grief to focus on.
Finding My New Workout Routine
Working out with a toddler is not for the faint of heart. You basically work out all day chasing them around, and if you are a homemaker you also have a labor intensive job of cooking and cleaning. I was on my feet basically all day long, but that was not cutting it for my body bouncing back this time postpartum, so I set out to find a routine that fit into my schedule and was low impact and postpartum safe. I was also convinced I had diastasis recti (DR), something that is extremely common for pregnant women to get.
In pregnancy, your abs separate to make room for the baby, but some women retain the separation after the birth of their baby. If left untreated the condition can actually continue to get worse. I didn’t think I had DR after my first, but I realized that I likely had a mild version of it and then getting pregnant only one year following without having worked out or done any repair to my abdominal muscles probably caused me to have a noticable separation after my second child was born.
I decided that the first thing I wanted to focus on was healing my DR. It was a common postpartum condition and there were a lot of workouts designed to be safe specifically for freshly postpartum women. After healing my DR I would turn my focus to weight loss and gaining back endurance, and then would come strength and gaining muscle.
Healing Diastasis Recti
Fortunately, my diastasis recti was not terrible. I had about a two or three finger gap. If you are wondering if you have DR and how to test it this is a great video for that! I healed most of my DR with this video and this one too, both by Fit With Sally on YouTube. Although my DR was minimal, I later realized that while I had healed the separation at my midsection (around my belly button), I still had a separation in the lower part of my abs. What it took me a long time to understand was that the lower abs are much harder to heal than the other ab areas.
After several months of trying to get my tummy back to it’s pre-pregnancy shape, I still looked like I was slightly pregnant. I found myself feeling discouraged. I also began to worry that I might have an internal issue that would require medical treatment. Then I came across a woman on Instagram, who I have since not been able to find again – but she gave some excellent advice! This opened up a whole new door to my workout journey.
No More DR and a New Workout Phase Begins
The woman I stumbled upon on Instagram worked for a PT rehab facility that specifically focuses on DR and pelvic floor healing and talked about lower ab separation and how it is harder to heal. She stated that the typical recommended DR floor exercises are not the best for the lower abs as gravity actually works against you. Instead, she suggested doing standing ab workouts.
This started me on a whole new ab healing journey and I began to look for standing DR workouts. Fit With Sally has one that I enjoyed and believe healed me the rest of the way. I began incorporating a few other general workouts by Fit With Sally that were safe full body postpartum routines, until one day I decided it was time to add in weights. I also during this time decided to add back in my walks, so out came my trusty old walking pad.
The Next Workout Chapter
Unfortunately, while I loved the Fit With Sally workouts and was reluctant to leave as she had healed my ab separation, I was finding that I needed some workouts that were a little more intense and used weights which she has few weighted workouts on her channel that I was able to find. I also wanted to keep doing DR workouts because I found they were great ab workouts even after my DR healed. In fact, I had struggled to have strong abs and a strong core, even during my police academy days. For the first time in my life, even after two kids, I built the strongest core I’ve ever had—and I owe it all to the DR workouts.
This led me to search for another YouTuber who offered good and free workouts that used weights but that also had a standing DR workout. I found Lauren Fitter and she has been my go to ever since! I still do some Fit With Sally workouts from time to time to switch things up or go a little more low impact some days, but most days if I am doing weights or core I now use Lauren’s workouts. When I first found Lauren Fitter’s YouTube channel I started out with this video and this one too for standing DR workouts. This then led me to this standing strength workout and I knew I had found my new workout channel.
When You Are Short On Time
Believe me, after having my toddler, I realized how little time in my day is my own. While I am totally okay with this because I love being a mom and that is just parent life, working out has become so much more of a challenge. Let alone, trying to fit into my day the laundry list of things I have to do daily, working out can feel like it just doesn’t fit into the day. Sometimes it doesn’t but most days I have found a way to do it. What helps is smart working out. I need to pack a punch with my workouts and check all the boxes. That’s why I love my YouTube trainers I found because they pack a lot into a short window of time.
Not only are both Lauren’s and Sally’s workouts twenty minutes or less but they give a lot of variation, are full body workouts, and are low impact and safe for my postpartum body. Because they are low impact they are also great for me to continue doing due to my past injuries. Along with my daily walks on the walking pad I was finally starting to see results!
My Current Workout Routine
Currently, (well we will discuss my pregnancy workout in maybe my next blog post because this one is getting pretty long!) I do a daily walk on my walking pad first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I read that walking first thing in the morning and on an empty stomach is a great time of day to walk and doing it fasted can give your metabolism a little extra boost. Recently, I also added in a weighted vest on my walks. My husband got me one for Christmas that uses sandbags as the weights so you can adjust the weight accordingly. I started out with just the vest which I believe is about five pounds, and have gradually added two sand bags in (each weighing around 2.5 pounds). I aim for about 5,000 steps each walk.
The cardio I do is low impact. I walk at a good speed, but I am not out of breath despite staying at a good pace. Most recently I went from doing a variation of weight lifting full body workouts via Lauren Fitter’s YouTube channel and began to do a lower body, upper body, and core / ab day. Sunday is the only “rest” day when I do not do strength training, but I still do my walk. The most recent update is trying to work out closer to failure. This can be tough when it comes to working out online. Using timed videos can make it hard to reach failure because you may struggle to reach failure in the allotted time. For me, this is still a work in progress but definitely my next focused phase.
Slow But Steady
It has taken time to get my body back to feeling good and strong. After two pregnancies my body is not what it was during those police academy days, and probably never will be, but I got my strength and endurance back, I look and feel good, and I am able to keep up with my toddler and all the housework while feeling great and not falling apart. That’s a huge win in my book! Even though I’ve met my goals, I keep setting new ones because I’ve come to love my workouts and feeling my best.
The last two years have been tough, a lot of work both physically and mentally went in to healing my body. Working out has helped my mental state just as much as focusing on my mental health. I am pregnant again, but determined to be my healthiest in pregnancy yet and hoping it helps my postpartum timeframe to be smoother, especially compared to this last postpartum experience after having a whole pregnancy of zero working out.
No Matter Your Stage Of Life – You Have Got This!
No matter if you have had children, are pregnant, or in that postpartum stage now, or years past that point you are not alone. There are women out there in every stage working to get back to feeling their best inside and out. I am so grateful for women like Sally and Lauren who create free and accessible content for people like us in every stage of life needing guidance on where to even begin. My toddler is finally at a point where it’s easier to workout, but this ebbs and flows. No longer do I feel like my caring for myself in working out is the first thing I slide off my list of to-do’s when that list gets too full though. I realize how important it is for me and how much better I am at being a wife, mother, and homemaker when I care for myself.
Don’t get me wrong, some days I just can’t get my walk or weights in, but as long as I am making the effort, having consistency and showing up most days (and don’t forget the incidental movement through your day – cleaning, cooking, etc.) I feel good and have been able to keep a good and realistic homemaker’s workout routine – and you can too!
Looking For More Inspiration?
Stay tuned for a more in depth pregnancy workout blog post if you are currently pregnant too and looking for a pregnancy safe workout routine. I have taken the above discussed workout and have adapted it to work for me in pregnancy. I will link the videos I have been using to make sure that my workouts are all pregnancy safe but still effective!
Speaking of pregnancy, I just announced my pregnancy in this blog post which is all about how to handle big life changes. If you are in a season of excitement or struggle I think you will enjoy the read. I also added my Spring 2026 Bucket List blog post where you can get inspiration for all things spring and download your very own, hand-painted watercolor (by yours truly) bucket list for free. It is reusable and free to download!
Speaking of free and spring – spring is upon us and that means so is our urge for some spring cleaning. I offer a free year long cleaning checklist to make sure your home is sparkling clean all year long. It has a bonus cleaning idea for each season, including, of course, spring! You can download for free by simply going to the Homepage and clicking on the button that says “Download Your Checklist!”.
