[btilly]

Let me guess, your spouse isn't in a medical residency?

Before I had kids, I never had trouble finding time to exercise and had little sympathy for people who did. Since I've had kids my ability to exercise has varied with life circumstances. At the moment it is very hard for me because my wife is in a medical residency, so most of the time I'm an only parent to small kids.

In particular in periods when I exercised, I've found that between my personal rhythms and outside climate, morning is the only time that it makes sense for me to do so. (Perhaps you are happy running in 100+ degree heat, but I am not.) But when I'm on my own trying to get 2 kids up, ready, and out the door, before I start doing other stuff, I don't have 20 min where I can safely disappear on them.

[wisty]

Not many people's spouses are in medical residency, and have children who are too young to be left unsupervised for 20 minutes.

Even if you broaden it a bit (single parents, spouse in the military on deployment, etc) you are not looking at 90+% of the population. And most people looking after small children are pretty active anyway (due to all the lifting, running around, and so on).

[btilly]

http://singleparents.about.com/od/legalissues/p/portrait.htm estimates over 13 million single parents in the USA. Granted, not all of their children are small, but a lot are.

Also in every family with small kids, if one parent wants a piece of freedom, it puts pressure on the other parent. So even if it is theoretically possible, if half of those parents get the freedom to exercise in the morning, the other half do not.

Does it amount to 10% with a legitimate difficulty in scheduling exercise? I'm not sure. But it is more than I would have guessed before I had kids.

[dennisgorelik]

Staying as a single adult in the house is a long-term choice. You can: marry, invite your friend to live together, invite your parents, rent our a room or two in your house and ask for occasional babysitting help from them.

You can move into somebody else's house too.

[jules]

How do you find time for HN?

[btilly]

1. I can do HN with the kids in the house and use my ears to supervise. I can't do that with exercise. (My son is right now sitting next to me, counting and recounting his allowance.)

2. I can comfortably do HN while it is too hot outside to exercise.

[lsc]

hm. a machine solves both problems; I mean, I don't have kids but most of the cardio I've done in the last 5 years or so has been on a machine; instead of watching children, I watch silly action movies. For me? it's to distract me from the monotony. Action movies were made for my attention span; but it seems you could just as easily supervise children.

That said, I certainly feel a lot more difference from resistance training than from cardio, and diet changes have been more effective than either in controlling my weight. (e.g. an hour a day of running is not going to keep me from ballooning out if I use mountain dew as my primary caffeine delivery mechanism.)

I mean, you can get a really nice treadmill for a grand and a half; by the standards of medical care, that's really cheap; Personally, I've also had some success using the manual type (which can be had for $50 or so on craigslist) unlike most other cheap cardio equipment (I utterly destroyed a rowing machine through a month of daily use... most low-end cardio equipment wasn't designed for actual use by a 200lb man.) the manual treadmills seem to be fairly durable. "I'm going to go push the shopping cart" I'd say. It does take a bit more concentration than an automatic, just 'cause if you stop, it stops, but eh, it's certainly usable, and you get a little bit of upper-body work done, too; it really is very much like pushing a heavy shopping cart.

[btilly]

This is a reasonable alternative, but I hate it because of the monotony. Taking care of kids involves lots of little interactions and quiet periods, so would not break the monotony. But perhaps I should look into getting a setup where I can do that while I'm on the computer, killing two birds with one stone.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Dove]

Calisthenics can work well while watching kids. With no setup or teardown time, they work nicely for opportunistic, "hmm, looks like he's going to be occupied for a few minutes" holes in the day.

We also went running with a jogging stroller when the weather was nice. Our son usually loved the ride, and was asleep by the time we got home (bonus!). That might not work on its own with kids, but one of the places we went running was a local school with a track and a playground. I know the kids in this house consider a 30 minute visit to a playground far too short, and that's more jogging than I can handle.

[btilly]

I have done plenty of calisthenics. What I've found for myself is that while I am engaged in a workout routine, I'm really NOT available for child care, nor is it a good idea if unsupervised small children are near. Curious small children walking up trying to figure out what you're doing when you're about to, say, go into jumping jacks can be bad...

Families are different. I'm glad that calisthenics work for you in that situation. They have not for me.

For the record, my current lack of a regular exercise routine is temporary.

[Dove]

I understand. I'm not being critical of you -- just trying to help with what's worked for me in a similar situation. I mostly did squats and push ups, and the extent of my son's involvement was to add a little bit of . . . resistance . . . to the latter exercise. ;)

I understand the difficulty; when you're a sole caretaker, focused time to do things tends to be limited to naps and schooldays, and then it tends to be used for more system-critical things like taking showers. I hope your situation improves in time. :)

[brongondwana]

So take the kids to the park and either run with them in a stroller (if small enough) or run around the park while they play (larger kids).

Either way, get them up earlier and out with you while you run. Good for them too!

[btilly]

My daughter needs over 12 hours of sleep, and has trouble falling asleep before it gets dark. I'm not going to make her get up earlier without very good cause.

Also I would not trust you to supervise preschool children in a public space. You clearly do not know what is required to do so responsibly.

[dennisgorelik]

Over-supervising children hurt them more than helps. Children need their freedom too.

Besides, if you do not exercise - it's bad for your children. It's especially bad if they do not exercise either (because you don't have time to play with them, and don't allow them play alone, because you want them to be extra safe).

[btilly]

Ah, classic. Everyone always thinks that they know better than you how to take care of your kids. I have never understood how people like you don't realize exactly how rude you are.

But for your information, over-supervision means different things at different ages. It is not over-supervision to insist that there is always an available adult that a 4 year old knows how to get the attention of. It is over-supervision to insist that you always be within earshot of a 14 year old. It is one thing for my daughter to be playing in my back yard with me inside of the house. It would be quite another for there to be no adult available when she suddenly realizes that she needs to poop because I am running around the block and won't be back for 15 minutes. (The problem is not that she will have an accident, it is that she does not wipe herself sufficiently well.)

Also what is exercise is relative to your abilities. For instance yesterday we went on a 2 hour hike up a mountain before the heat of the day set in. For her there was a definite cardio element. For me, traveling at her pace, not so much. (My wife and son set out a bit earlier and went at their pace. When we met up they had done 3x the vertical that I did, and had much better exercise.)

[dennisgorelik]

How about hiring teenager next door to watch for your kids while they are sleeping and you exercise?

[btilly]

They are all getting ready for school in the morning themselves. And besides, have you ever tried convincing teenagers to get up earlier in the morning? (The ones that I know around here would prefer to sleep in.)

[dennisgorelik]

My now teenager wakes up for school herself at ~6am starting from ~age 8.

Though I know that other kids might be different. But you need to find only one babysitter.

How many teenagers in your neighborhood did you ask?

Besides, there are not only teenagers, but housewives who wake up in the morning anyway.

Or how about this: you exercise while your wife and your daughter are sleeping (or your wife is getting ready to go to work. Or while your daughter is sleeping alone.

Or take your daughter on a run with you in a stroller. She may keep sleeping if it's an issue to wake up.

You may ask your older kid to babysit younger daughter while you are taking 20-minutes run with your cell phone and give another cell phone to your older kid.

You may take two 10-minutes runs if you worry that kids cannot be left alone for 20-minutes.

There are so many ways to find a way/time to exercise ...

[btilly]

I've talked to every teenager that lives within a block of me. Which is about 7. Only 2 are potential babysitters, and neither is available at times that interfere with school, including the morning. The housewives that I know have their own children to take care of and would not be interested in visiting my house that early.

My wife's schedule is highly variable from day to day and week to week, but is generally pretty crazy. She's frequently up and out of the house before 5 AM. Or works overnight. Or sometimes is lucky stays at home until 8:30 AM. Scheduling my life around hers is a complete non-starter.

My daughter is unfortunately easily awakened in the morning. Her grumpiness when she lacks sleep lasts all day. She resists afternoon naps even when she doesn't have activities swimming lessons to be awake for. Interrupting her sleep so I can take her running at 6 AM is therefore very much not in her best interest.

As for regularly leaving the house empty with sleeping kids while I go for a run..how about I let you have that argument with my wife? I'm quite aware of what will happen, and don't disagree with her.

My 7 year old son with ADHD is NOT an adequate caregiver. (I can just see it, now you're about to give a lecture about how ADHD isn't real. Please resist the temptation until you read up on the last 15 years of research...)

Are you done being a complete ass to a random internet stranger yet?

(Incidentally, you've now topped my list of people I dislike here.)

[dennisgorelik]

It seems to me that you are looking for an excuse for not exercising as opposing to looking for a solution.

Could you please share what exactly you don't like about me?

I just shared my perspective on how you and other people could fix their lack of exercise problem. That somehow triggered your negative attitude toward me. Why?

[btilly]

Could you please share what exactly you don't like about me?

My theory would be that what I don't like is that I don't like you being a moralizing ass who is quick to judge, lacks empathy, and always missing the mark.

Start with your first entry in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372686

Continue with everything else you've said. Up to and including your last post where you assume that I'm just looking for an excuse not to exercise rather than the truth that I'm a person with a rather overwhelming life at the moment.

If I was the type of person who just wanted excuses to not exercise, I could not have maintained successful exercises for years in the past. I would not be confident that I will re-establish one in the future. Yet you do not see this as being a possible situation, so you categorize me as just, "...looking for an excuse." And therefore confirm your world view that people like me are an impossibility.

If I hated you a little more I would hope that you could experience as many personal challenges in your life as I do in mine at the moment. But I don't hate you enough for that. Yet.

Respond if you want to. I'm done dealing with you and won't reply back. At the moment my kids are being taken care of by a babysitter, and I have contracting work that I need to get back to. Because, you see, doctors in residency make under minimum wage, so I have significant financial responsibilities on top of my parenting ones...