Fitness Trainer and Mother of Three Demonstrates How to Work out With Your Kids
Andrea Allen may be a fitness trainer, but she is also a mother of three young girls. Allen [...]
Andrea Allen may be a fitness trainer, but she is also a mother of three young girls. Allen struggled with depression as a college student and turned to exercise as an outlet.
When Allen learned she was pregnant with twins, she didn't know how she would balance her new life. "I was lucky to learn young that exercise keeps me sane. It is an outlet for me," Allen, 32, tells PEOPLE. "I feared what life would be like after I had the twins."
After giving birth to her girls, Allen would workout any chance she got even if that meant doing lunges while she fed her daughters lunch.
"They think exercise is part of life, that it's just what moms do in the morning," she says of her 3-year-old twins, Olivia and Ella. "They'll come copy me for a few reps and then walk away to play. We even made up an exercise song where I call out moves and we all do them together!"
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She recently welcomed another daughter, Camry, five months ago and has started sharing at-home workout videos on Instagram to her 124,000 followers.
Her advice for mothers training with kids around: "Set a time and sacrifice." She suggests mothers try and squeeze in a workout whenever they can and encourages them to not care what other people think.
Allen's workouts are not long, sometimes just 20 minutes, but that little bit of time helps keep her sane.
"Being a mom is hard — really hard," she says. "We spend all our time keeping little people happy, caring for our families, juggling work, spouses, school for some, getting back in shape and trying to keep up with what society has deemed as the ideal women. It's easy to get down and discouraged and beat yourself up. But in every situation, look for the small victories."
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