Episode 3: Fitting in movement to real-life mom-life

In this episode of The Jamerrill Show, Jamerrill shares honest, real-life strategies for getting movement in as a busy mom without perfect conditions, childcare, or uninterrupted time. Speaking from her experience as a single mom running a household of ten, she reframes movement as something that must fit inside real life, not compete with it. She clarifies that the season where she walked three to four hours a day was a short-term survival response to deep trauma, not a standard or expectation, and explains how movement later evolved into something flexible, creative, and sustainable around kids, work, and household demands. Through stories like completing a driveway half-marathon while supervising three young boys, stacking small pockets of movement throughout the day, and letting kids play (and even be bored) while she moves, she reminds moms that walking counts, rest matters, and consistency is what actually protects health over time. The heart of the episode is permission: to start where you are, to do what you can, and to care for yourself without guilt.

Listen on your favorite platform

You can watch the full video episodes on my second YouTube channel, and the audio is available on Spotify, Amazon, and other podcast platforms. Apple Podcasts is pending and will be added as soon as it’s approved.

Key Takeaways

That “3–4 hours of walking” season was survival, not a requirement.
Jamerrill is clear that this was a crisis-season tool to regulate her nervous system and stay alive, not a fitness model for moms to copy.

Movement has to work around your life, not replace it.
Whether it’s walking while kids play, circling the trampoline, pacing during phone calls, or stacking short walks throughout the day, movement fits into real mom life in pockets.

Walking is enough and it builds everything else.
Walking supports mental health, physical strength, healing, and long-term consistency. You never have to “graduate” to running for movement to matter.

Small tools + small habits add up over time.
Weighted vests, thrifted kettlebells, short bathroom routines, playground pacing, museum laps -none of it is fancy, but all of it works when done consistently.

Taking care of yourself is taking care of your children.
Caring for your body models self-respect, resilience, and healthy habits for your kids. And it protects the one person they always need: their mom.

Transcript

Welcome back to today’s episode of the Jamerrill Show where I’m going to share with you movement for moms. Real life and real strategies for moms who want to figure out how to get their movement in while raising a house full of kids. I don’t know if my microphone picked it up in my kitchen, but yeah, I got people going in and out the back door, but you know what? I just show up and I keep doing it. And I’m a single mom of a household of 10. There’s a lot going on here. But one of the questions I get every week in multiple ways, are moms commenting on my different post or messaging me or asking me in the comments on my YouTube channels, “Jamerrill, how do you get all this movement in with all these kids?” And some form of “how can I get all this movement in with kids?” One of the comments that has stuck with me and I did write this mom back several paragraphs, but she’s a mom with five to seven kids and has a small yard and she just wanted to know how in the world do I also get movement in? 

So this episode is for the moms and the busy women who need some real life practical strategies on how to get their movement in and begin the journey of also taking care of their body through their movement and also leading to taking care of their health overall. And so before I share with you my story of how as a busy mom with three little kids ages, let me think how old they were at the time: 4, 7, and 9. No. Yes. I think I’m pretty good there with those dates with 4, 7, and 9. How I completed my first driveway half marathon home alone with them while also watching them. This story can encourage every mom. But I want to pause here for a moment to clarify part of my story because I know how stories can hit differently depending on where you’re hearing them from and your life experiences. 

And I’ve shared before that there was definitely a season in my life, September 2023, October 2023, and into November 2023 where I was walking 3 to 4 hours a day. And I want to be very clear about what that was and what it wasn’t. That was a very short survival season during the absolute worst trauma of my whole entire life. I was not doing the 3 to 4 hours a day for weight loss or to reach some kind of fitness goal. And I wasn’t doing that much walking because that’s what I thought other people would think or say that I should do. I was doing that intense walking during that 10 to 12 week season because it was the only way I could regulate my body to get through the day and actually sleep at night. And that was about me saving my life and keeping my feet on this planet. Again, not for fitness goals, not for weight loss goals. I don’t believe that most moms have a 3 to 4 focused hour window every day where they can focus solely on walking. And I don’t believe that you have to have that kind of time in your day to make your movement journey possible or meaningful. 

In fact it was my walking during that season that inspired me and connected me with the goal to run. My walking, especially for the that 3 to 4 hour window, was a short-term solution for my body and my brain during an intense crisis. And as that journey continued and my life kept changing, I needed to adapt my new found love of movement that gave me so much hope. I need to, I needed to get that movement into my growing fuller life full of kids and a busy household and business. And I needed to also figure out how to eventually work again because there were months I couldn’t even work at all. Like work to run my business to provide the income that I needed to care for my household because my capacity was so diminished. And even when I was able to start working again, it has taken almost 2 years to get to where I feel like I have my creative capacity again to actually work and enjoy my work and everything not feel like so much survival mode. 

So everything has been a slow and steady journey of rebuilding. Rebuilding my body, rebuilding my capacity, rebuilding my business, rebuilding my mothering, rebuilding my household, all of it. Dayby-day small actions. And also, it’s not like I’ve had a content plan since fall 2023 when I started sharing little bits like little screenshots of my steps and such. I was doing that because it encouraged me. It was encouraging other women. But I was not thinking of a plan then that I’m going to share that I’m walking 3 or 4 hours a day and other moms are going to think this is attainable. I was sharing, hey I smiled today. I got in 15,000 steps and I had a hot bath and I wasn’t saying these words publicly, but behind the scenes I was dealing with like I need to just chew this sweet potato and not bawl through it the whole time, you know, not cry so hysterically that I can’t swallow. I made it through the day. And so I would share like little pictures of my Apple Watch and screenshots of my steps and eventually when I connected into running like I ran my first 5K in 48 minutes today. I was sharing the journey in real time, but never with the intention that it has to be this exact window in order to get your steps and movement in. 

Again, that particular season with me as I transitioned into running and as I continued on my journey has very much moved and accommodated and been flexible around also running my busy household, continuing to work on my various levels of healing, and also continuing to run my business as a woman entrepreneur. And so sometimes as a creator, I just think I wonder if they think I still do this in this one block I shared about a couple years ago. So anyway, if you’re thinking that I’m filling in the rest of the story that from middle of November 2023 all the way to where we are now in January 2026 over 2 years, the movement, the steps the runs, all of it is around my family life, my household, my work schedule and all the other things on my list that I manage every day. 

But if you find yourself in a crisis season and you need some way to cope and make it through in my crisis season in my hit by a freight train, initial crisis season – going down to the bare minimum, making it through the day by getting that movement in, eating getting a hot bath, and being able to sleep that helped me make it through that time. And of course, in other episodes and many different ways over these last few years, I’ve shared how I’ve coped through that initial season of emotional shock. And I shared in the last episode about how I continued with my running journey around my household and around my family life for 2024. And I signed up for about a dozen big group 5K events that I did in my area. 

Now some of those events I had different family members come to me with. Many of them when I share about big events I may then get some messages or comments like, “well where’s your family when you do this how are you getting this done.” I don’t do a big event every week and even for the dozen 5ks in 2024 most of those were on a Saturday at like 8:00 a.m. for a Saturday afternoon at 2:00. A few of them might have been a Sunday afternoon and they weren’t every week. So 12 for a year, the equivalent of one big group event a month and I’m gone for a few hours and I’m back home. That is manageable. And for several of those, I would have different family members with me. 

So the story of my first half marathon attempt was in my own driveway in spring 2025. My youngest had just turned 4 and then the one above him was about 7.5 and then my oldest of that trio was a brand new 10. Everyone else was gone for the day and we had a pretty decent weather day. And as it goes and as I work a lot of my movement around my household, I stack a lot of my movement on times when a lot of my kids are outside playing anyway. And so I thought, hm, beautiful day, me and three elementary boys, and they need to play outside for several hours anyway. What movement goal could I do on this day? And I knew I had my first marathon coming up that summer. And I knew I had big group half marathons. And one of my goals for 2025 was to do longer running events. I didn’t have to be fast. I just wanted to complete the events. That was my idea of a good time. 

So, I made sure our Power Wheels batteries were charged. I ordered from Walmart grocery delivery, I mean my best friend, a fresh Spider-Man splash pad, got some fresh sidewalk chalk, had fruit washed, and I just knew I went into it with expectations. If I’m going to do 13.10 miles in my driveway today while being with and running around these three elementary boys that are playing. It’s not going to be start to finish on my watch. This is going to happen in a window of time. There’s going to be breaks. There’s going to be snacks. There’s going to be mom intervention and redirection and all of those mom-life skills. But I was still going to get a half marathon done that day in my driveway. 

And so, start to finish, it took me a little over 5 hours. There were definitely breaks where I would come in and set out three little plates and cut three apples and a pile of pretzels and a spoonful of peanut butter, walk out the plates. That day, nachos, nachos were a big hit. You know, it was nacho season. And so I took several several breaks to put the nachos and the cheese and some toppings and run them through the microwave and also serve them out. You know, life is continually playing restaurant, right? And they played and we had a great day and I did a half marathon right here while they played. No, I did not run 13 miles in a straight line and leave the property. It is just literally if they’re on the trampoline I am running circles around the trampoline. If they are doing power wheels in the driveway in front of my house, I’m running that portion of my driveway. If they want to go down and play in another part of the yard, I’m running circles around that part of the yard. I had my watch set to run. I paused it as needed. I serve the snacks. And again, Spider-Man mom pro mom tip: Spider-Man splash pad. As we were coming into some nice weather again, really helped save the day. And hopefully that encourages you. Movement does not require perfect conditions. I do not have perfect conditions. I work the movement around our life and around our day. 

Personally, many times what I do is not every morning, but several mornings a week in the morning while the household is getting going, I will put on my 10 lb weighted vest. I will set my watch to walk and I will do my laps while I drink my adrenal drink or my mud water or my chicken broth or whatever I’m having that morning. I will get some kind of movement going. And most seasons I end up with some combination of my three youngest outside with me, walking with a cat, running beside me, maybe they’re on the swing, they’re boopping all around. And during that morning time, some mornings I might get 15 minutes, sometimes it’s 30. Definitely some mornings I might get a whole hour but for me that helps me get some movement going to get my day going. And I know that a lot of my other movement is going to happen in other pockets throughout the day. So sometimes when I share pictures on Instagram, I might share 12 miles for one day, but I break down how and when I got those miles. 

So first part of the image might say early morning walk. Maybe that was 37 minutes. Then the next part might be got my run in after lunch. Then I might have a later afternoon walk. And then many times when my household is settling for the day, everybody’s doing other activities, I will end up back outside doing some more walking at that time. So movement does not have to include a perfect child care system because again many times I’m in and amongst my household as I’m getting my movement in. You don’t have to have a gym. Although in my area there is a local gym. I’m not a member of it now, but over the past 30 years I’ve been a member of it a couple different times depending on how far I am from it and such. But that particular gym with a family membership includes up to two hours of child care. And so for some moms, if you live near a gym that offers that, that might be an option. But you don’t have to base all of your movement on that on whether you have that opportunity or not. It’s just a tool. It’s another tool that you might have available that you might want to access.

You don’t have to have perfect weather. Moms will ask me, “How do I get my walking in in the winter?” I dress in a lot of layers. The other day, I think it was like 28 degrees. I had on my running pants. I just pulled a pair of flannel pajama pants on top. I had a base layer like long sleeve running shirt, a t-shirt, another sweatshirt thing that has the hood and the mouthpiece. And then I had a flannel jacket. I have some nice winter running layers. And then I also just pile random layers on top. I have a decent pair of gloves. You know, I wear socks. I’m not in Michigan. I know one of my mom friends who is in Michigan, she got herself a cheap walking pad off of Amazon. And inside during the winter months, she has a walking pad. 

I have not had a treadmill on this journey until about four weeks ago. And I will say I do not love it. It is not required and I want to be on it as little as possible because I want to be outside. However, with some of my trail running goals and my mountain hiking goals and I need to have so many miles on a particular incline and if I don’t have the opportunity to leave my property to work on those inclines and I’m home with a house full of people, I can get on my base model Nordic Track and I can set it to the incline I need for 30 minutes and I can put on an audio book and I can grin and bear it. And I will share share with you more of those goals coming up in 2026, but that is not a requirement. And I will say if you can do something, if you want a treadmill don’t forget Facebook Marketplace. I went with buying a new base model because this is my number one hobby and can I just tell you how much I love it on so many levels, right? And I don’t have the ability to find something on Facebook marketplace and easily without lining up a whole lot of universes going to pick up the item and get it back to my house and in my house. 

So, it was easier for me to order my base level Nordic Track on Amazon and invest in that for myself for my upcoming mountain hiking goals. But this is some extreme miles, extreme hiking and endurance things. And so that’s where I trust from what I gathered that that’s a tool I should have. And again, over time, it’s okay for me to have some tools. Another thing that I do to get my movement in, I have a 15lb kettle bell. So I’m not saying you have to have a 15lb kettle bell. You can have a 4 lb weight, a 6 lb weight, a random weight. Got my kettle bell at the thrift store within these last couple years. I saw it and I was like, that’s $6 and I bet that’s a good price. And I was even looking at kettle bells at Walmart the other day and some of them in those higher weights were like $89. Amazon has them for less than $89, but I’m just saying I got mine at the thrift store. So, don’t forget to look in the fitness section of the thrift store. You might find some weights there. I keep that 15 lb kettle bell. The reason I chose 15 lbs, say it with me, because it’s the weight I found at the thrift store, I keep that in my bathroom. And twice a day, I have this little exercise routine that I do. And my goal for 2026 is every month I just want to bump it up by a few more movements. 

And I have a whole little plan written out for myself. I can share it with you if you’d like. And it’s just my twice a day little bathroom, little by myself in my bathroom with the door lock routine. It takes me about 6 minutes. And I’ll tell you to start. So, it’s 15 push-ups. Push-ups is something I have gradually increased over time. I could barely do one when I started two years ago. Now I can do 15 pretty decently at one time. I start to, you know, I start to fatigue by the time I get to 17 and 18. And that’s something I’m going to increase them. I’m going to be able to do more push-ups at one time. Just 15 push-ups. And I do a one minute plank. And what else is it I do? I do um a figure eight and some other movements with my kettle bell. Like I’ll put it down. and I’ll pick it back up again. Not a kettle bell expert, but I have Googled images of basic kettle bell workouts. And so once I do my 15 push-ups, once I do my one minute plank, then I set my watch timer maybe for the three minutes that are left and I work with my kettle bell for that remaining time. And I do that at some point in the morning and I do that at some point later in the afternoon or the evening. And that is another way I get in some basic movement. 

Also, I would like to be able to do pull-ups sometime in life. Maybe by the end of 2026, I’ll be doing pull-ups. Okay. So, what I do now is I ordered on Amazon the pull-up bar. I had one of my 6’2, 6′ 3″ teen sons put it in the doorway where he can still get through. And right now I just do gentle hanging on it. Your movement and your walking can be around your kids riding their bikes, around your kids on the trampoline, your kids playing at the playground. When I take my crew to the children’s museum, we’re always working our children’s museum passes. I set my watch to walk. We’re I know we’re going to be there two or three hours and kids are playing and doing activities and I’m walking around supervising. So, it keeps me walking on purpose and I try to see how many miles can I do in that two to three hours. I might only get two to three miles done, which gee that sounds so slow, only walking one mile per hour. But if I don’t have that goal, I may find myself sitting, which if you need to sit, mama, please sit, right? But when I look to building movement into my day, by the time we’re done in the children’s museum, I still did three more miles than I would have done if I didn’t have that movement as a busy mom framework and that built out that okay yes, we’re here for two or three hours. I can get a couple miles in while being with my kids while we’re here doing this activity. 

And then as I’m building out my day, maybe I walk 30 minutes in the morning and I could have got in a mile and a half or so in that time. Then I got three miles at the children’s museum. And then that evening I might be able to get another hour in. And there putting that together, that’s 4 and 1/2 hours of gentle extra movement. And those days stack. Also, we love all of our local playgrounds. And whenever we go to the playgrounds, I’m clicking my watch and I’m steadily moving around my kids while they play. I got some on the slides. I got some on the swing. I’m just on purpose moving. Doesn’t have to be fast. It can be super gentle. And that’s again how I get my steps in and how I get my miles in. And I’m not even running. I’m gently walking. 

Another thing that I do as an entrepreneur mom is when I have emails to respond to, when I have business calls, when I have video edits I need to watch through, when I’m watching a video that I need to do voice over for, I walk while I do that. So it might be 15 minute increment here, 30 minutes here, but I try to put that working time instead of me sitting, I’m moving, doing as much as possible. And so it’s about building consistency over time. Definitely not perfection. As I have shared with you, I have had weeks where I don’t have the capacity on a lot of different levels to run that week. And I love running. It’s one of my favorite things. But I will get out in my time blocks and I will walk and move my body. And for 2025, I had over 750 miles in walking. And a lot of that was built by getting in the time that I can with my family. 

Now, we will do family walking things such as there’s a one-mile trail we like to do. There’s a three-mile place we like to go walk. There’s different lakes in the area that have hiking trails and such. So, I will purposely take us out for our field trip day. And it will also include an activity where we’re going to do this three-mile walk together. And that is paved. And so all ages and stages in my household can do that three-mile walk. And whenever my youngest was younger, we would take the stroller with us. Which gets back to also babies and toddlers. 

For many years, especially at my farmhouse, I would walk my back field with I had a whole posy of little kids. Even though I’m a mom of nine and most of my kids have had two to three years in between them, my closest without me going back and doing all my kid math and going through that vortex, I believe about 18 months or so. So, I had a season where four of my kids were ages five and under. So, that was a brand new baby, a very early toddler, a preschooler, and barely a kindergartener. And I needed to move my body as much as I could. I definitely was not getting in miles and miles, but I had decent movement. We had two acres and I had a lot of little kids. And so every afternoon we would get out in the sunshine and we would walk our back field and I would wear the baby.

And so I did a lot of baby wearing during that time. I did not have a way to track my steps. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I never thought about running races. But I did feel good when I walked and it was a nice activity for us. And I’m always a big believer in time in the sunshine. I love the thousand hours outside podcast and that whole premise and I feel like having been a homeschool mom for over 20 years, like that’s how I mother, is we get outside in the sunshine as much as possible four seasons a year. So whatever your season is, you can work on consistency over intensity. And that just means if you can move your body in some way. If all you can do today is a 15 minute walk and then tomorrow maybe you can do two 15 minute walks and then maybe the next day you don’t you’re not able to get an extra walk in at all. Don’t beat yourself up. Guess what? The next day maybe you can do a 20 minute walk and you continue to stack those minutes and those steps over time to build a good movement pattern for your body. 

And so if you can choose one small thing to focus on because of the time of year and because I’ve shared a lot of my 2025 miles and I’ve been sharing my walking and running and movement journey for these last few years, I have a lot of moms reaching out to me this time of year [January/Winter] with questions on how to get going on their movement journey. So I would say pick your one small thing you want to do. Maybe you’re putting a weight in your bathroom cabinet and you know it’s in there and you’re just going to go do some simple movements three minutes once a day. That’s your thing. And you’re just going to try to do that most days and keep showing up for that. Maybe your thing is going to be you’re going to start walking. Maybe you’re already walking and you have been getting in 5,000 steps a day. Next goal, you just want to see if you can do 7,500 steps a day. And it’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be every day from 3 to 4:15 p.m. the kids are going to leave you be and you’re going to get it done. 

You’re going to have to be creative and look for time pockets throughout your day to get it done. Very, very likely you’re going to be getting it done around your household. It’s going to be movement that they’re doing. You’re getting your movement in. You’re getting some movement in together. And depending on where you live, you might need an inexpensive walking pad from Amazon. I’ll link it below. You might need to look for a treadmill on Facebook Marketplace. You don’t need it to be another pressure. You just need tools that will serve you. My favorite thing is getting outside in the fresh air, in the light, and getting some movement in most days. 

I also allow myself two rest days a week. And those just mean days where my steps are going to be average. They’re just going to be around the house. I mean, it might be 1,800 to 3500 steps. If I don’t get steps in intentionally, even cooking and walking around and hustling around this kitchen I don’t get a ton of steps in naturally without being intentional. But I also know that rest for my body is very, very powerful. So, I just out of seven days I know there’s going to be two that are going to be lower movement days. And with my nervous system and with my healing, I can have those rest days now as well. 

One of the questions I’ve received is, what if walking is all I can do right now? And my answer to that is walking is enough. Walking makes you strong. Walking is excellent for your mental health and helps you build a strong foundation for your movement. And for the question of how do I get movement going again after I’ve been sick or after there’s been extra stress or many extra life things to deal with. And I just say as soon as you can get some kind of movement in again the power of a 15 or 20 minute walk you’re doing it. You’ve restarted. Don’t worry about what you missed. Just get outside and keep going. 

And another question I receive is, “How do I deal with mom guilt as far as taking time to move my body?” My movement came out of desperation and I saved my children’s mother. So that is the base of my experience. And from that experience, I can say that putting time into caring for yourself, you too are caring for your children’s mother. It allows you to be strong and to model self-care for your children as well. And many of them can join in with you. 

I’ve mentioned my little bathroom routine. And this next thing I’m going to share I don’t do consistently, but every time I’m do it, I’m like, “Oh, this is fun. I wish I could do this consistently, but I’m glad for when I can do it.” Depending on what we’re juggling evening activities, life and stuff and things. There have been times in 2025 where with my younger crew right in front of them, I’m doing my push-ups I’m doing my stretches, I’m doing a lot of what I would call my little secret bathroom routine with working with my kettle bells. I just do that in the living room before bedtime. And they end up doing push-ups, doing stretches. We have one of those big stretching balls um that they arch their back on. We have some balance boards and things and they will go into a whole exercise routine with me. Again, I am not consistent in that particular movement and anchoring it into our day. I cannot consistently make that happen. But when we do that I’m like, “This is nice. I would like to one day work that into the routine.” I do a decent amount of habit stacking but because of all the variables, I’m not consistent in that one. But it is nice when we do it. But I am consistent in moving outside when they’re moving. I am consistent to having my bathroom kettle bell time and my push-ups and my plank. 

And there’s times I’ll I’ll do my push-ups or my plank in the kitchen if the morning’s got away from me and I still need to get those done and I may not get the kettle bell done in the morning. You know how I could is if I had one out here by my chair as well but that’s okay. And my weighted vest. I may not do that every morning, but consistently over time, I do wear it several mornings a week. All of this is modeling self-care for our kids because we want them to take care of their bodies, too. And all of this helps protect our health and give us strong bodies as women over time. Because again, one thing I know as a woman and as a mom, if I don’t take care of me, nobody else is going to take care of me. So, I have to make taking care of myself number one priority so I can then take care of everybody else.

And one last thing, and I’ll let you be. I also think it’s totally okay for kids to be bored. Okay? If I’m outside walking and maybe some kids are like, “I’m bored. I don’t know what to do,” and we have all these things to do. I generally, I just I let them be bored. I don’t let it be my job to fill that time for them or to give them a bunch of ideas. I’m just like, “Okay, well, you’ll figure it out.” and we’re in the sunshine and before I know it they’re over making a little mud kingdom on a stump or the hose is in the old garden area or they’re making a fort under the trampoline or they figure it out. And so I also think boredom is a gift for kids. And so with my movement, I have had several times where I end up with multiple kids walking with me. And even in 2025, I had several running events that also had a kid event with it. And so different kids have gotten exposure to running events. And some of them are going to grow up like that’s just one of the things we do. Yeah. We we ran a kids mud race today and that’s just one of the things in life that’s normal for us. 

So if movement feels hard for you right now, but it’s still a desire that you have, I want you to know that you’re not failing. Your life is full and of course movement has to fit into an already full life. Walking counts and short pockets of time count too. And also your rest time counts. And you don’t have to do this perfectly for it to matter. If after listening to this episode you take one short walk this week that is a fantastic start. Some weeks movement will feel easy and some weeks movement won’t happen at all. 

One more story to encourage you and I’ll let you go, right. I had an important friend very close to me in 2025 end up in the hospital. It was a whole 15-day experience and I had nights sleeping in a hospital chair whole thing. There were many days at the hospital where I could not get in any extra movement. And then there were days where I could set my watch and I could go up and down the hallways and I had some days there where I got 15-20,000 steps and that was a gift to myself. You definitely don’t have to have it all figured out right now. 

Thank you for being with me. I know your time and energy are limited. I appreciate you. Please click the link in the description below for the show notes and all the links that I mentioned in today’s episode. You can find those at Jamerrill.com. Let me know in the comments other episodes you’d like to see, other questions you’d like answered, and how I can help you on your rebuilding journey too. Thanks so much for being with me today.

Resources Mentioned

• Apple Watch
• 10 lb Weighted Vest
• Mud Water
• Walking Pad
• 1,000 Hours Outside Podcast
• 15 lb Kettle Bell
• Nordic Track Treadmill