A quick google search shows you endless articles on this topic. I’m not saying their advice is wrong or right – I’m only sharing how to stay fit as a new dad based on my personal experience over the past few years. As I’ve welcomed two new children into the world, I’ve managed to maintain and even improve my fitness and body composition into my late 30s because of a few key principles.
A lot of articles focus on optimizing this and that, or trying to come up with the perfect routine. In reality, your life will be (is) chaos. Embrace imperfection and making constant adjustments. Understand that showing up is half that battle, and even an imperfect workout is better than no workout.
Let’s dive into the key principles I have found to help me the most during these busy years.
Start off fit
This is the biggest hack. The easiest way to stay fit is to start off in good shape. Going from bad shape to good shape is difficult enough as it is. You’ll find it much harder to do so as a new dad.
I managed to get in decent shape before becoming a dad. This definitely worked out to my advantage. As you can see in the picture in the previous section, I wasn’t in terrible shape before, but I was skinny-fat and on a trajectory towards becoming overweight and out of shape.
If you are not in good shape, you put yourself at a disadvantage for many reasons. One of which is dealing with the physical demands of parenthood. A good fitness level will help you with carrying around your kids and with the overall demands of parenthood.
If you are contemplating having a child or if you have one on the way, do yourself a favor and get into the best shape you possibly can, while you still have expendable time to do so. After the baby comes along, it gets much harder to find this time.
For some of you, it might be too late to start off your dad life in good shape. Don’t worry, you can still make it. You’ll just have to follow the rest of this advice more strictly to reach your goals.
Maintain an active hobby
The most underrated advice for a new dad. One of my keys is to find time to play soccer once or twice a week. This gives me motivation to stay in shape (I hate losing) and gives me a little break from the day to day routine (so I come back refreshed).
Obviously any hobbies will take a backseat in the very beginning, but you should maintain something active in your life as motivation to stay healthy. The mental health benefits of hobbies are well-documented, giving you an extra benefit.
If your wife/partner is reluctant to give you this time, you have my permission to cite the many physical and mental health benefits of keeping an active hobby. Make sure you give her time for something similar as well – you’ll both be better off.
You can choose from a variety of activities with one rule – make sure you look forward to it! If you don’t know where to start, some ideas are: running, mountain biking, basketball, boxing/Jiu-Jitsu or other martial arts, volleyball, swimming, etc…
One huge caveat – if you haven’t been active in a while, don’t just jump into a new sport or activity. The last thing you need as a new father is a major injury. If in doubt, consult your doctor, establish a good baseline of fitness (ask someone who plays the sport/activity regularly what this should be), and start slowly. You have a long time to make this your go-to hobby.
Diet is king
Switching gears a bit, we move on to your diet. As a new dad, maintaining a good diet is definitely the most difficult part of staying fit. Many fitness experts cite that your diet accounts for 80-90% of your success in achieving your body composition goals. I have also found this true.
What these experts don’t tell you is how hard it is to get any kind of consistent eating schedule as a new parent. Especially in the early days. Like everything else, you may find it difficult to make healthy food amidst the chaos of life. And making good choices when eating out or ordering takeout, when you are chronically sleep-deprived, is nearly impossible.
This is where most new dads fall off the rails. You prepare less food at home, you make poor choices when ordering food, you take a handful of your kid’s snacks here and there, and next thing you know, you’ve put on 15-20 pounds.
Practical ways to maintain a good diet at this stage
- Prioritize protein – Protein fills you up and helps you maintain your muscle mass. Aim for 0.75g per pound of bodyweight (so a 180 lb man should shoot for 135g) with a preference for leaner sources. This will keep you from overeating other foods.
- Focus on breakfast – Either stick to a good protein source (eggs, yogurt, protein shake) or skip altogether (intermittent fasting can work well for new dads, but tread carefully). Try to avoid anything sugar-y, as this can set you up for more cravings throughout the day. I know it can be difficult to just finish your kids’ waffles, down a cup of coffee, and move on with your day.
- Prep food ahead of time – Many parents-to-be will take some days to prep and freeze meals for when they have a newborn. This is a great way to make sure you’re not relying on takeout or processed convenience food. If you can find time to cook, try to make enough for 2-3 nights. Any sort of planning and cooking ahead will pay massive dividends for your health and waistline.
- Make your takeout order ahead of time – If you must get takeout or eat out (unavoidable sometimes), decide what you will order ahead of time. You’ll be much more likely to pick something healthy if you plan ahead, rather than ordering in the moment. Making a choice at your hungriest will often lead you to what you think will taste the best, and doing this on a regular basis will take its tool.
- Avoid snacking – I have the most trouble with this one. With all of the convenient snacks for my children, it’s very easy to just grab some graham crackers whenever I walk by the pantry. Convenient snack food is rarely healthy. Maintain the discipline to eat only at meal times, and if possible, try to keep healthy snacks on hand (apples, cheese, nuts) if you must munch on something.
- Cut back on booze – As a parent, this can happen naturally. One day of hungover parenting will change any heavy drinking habits you have. On the other hand, it can be easy to have 1-2 drinks after a hard day (they all seem hard!). These add up over time. Try to keep it to a few drinks at a time once or twice a week. Otherwise you’re fighting an uphill battle against empty calories and buzzed food binges.
- It’s ok to splurge every now and then – If you’re sticking to good habits 80-90% of the time, you’re fine to let loose for the other 10-20%. Make sure to keep it to 10-20% and not let it spiral out of control, however.
Consistency
You must create a set of healthy living principles you can stick to indefinitely. Consistently sticking to an above average plan is better than intermittently following a great plan.
2-3 good workouts per week, walking 20-30 minutes a day, and sticking to a clean diet 80% of the time is achievable for most people, and most will find this to be enough to maintain and improve their overall health.
Maintenance mode
Maintaining fitness, strength, and weight takes much less relative effort than trying to get in shape in the first place. That’s why it’s important to start off as fit as you can.
It only takes 1-2 cardio workouts and 1-2 strength training workouts to maintain what you have. While these workouts must be intense (more on this in the next section), you can reasonably maintain your fitness with less than an hour a week of working out.
This is important to note in the early days of fatherhood, as your time and energy will be sapped by your multitude of new responsibilities. If you can maintain what you have through this period without falling off track, you’ll be in a good place once your schedule opens back up a bit.
Short, intense workouts
Even when your maintenance phase comes to an end, you should still focus on workouts that are shorter but more intense. You won’t have nearly the time to workout that you once had.
You can, however, make progress with 20-30 minute workouts. Check out this resource for more details on this approach. While these workouts are short, they are brutal. Going to failure on each exercise takes a lot out of you, but there’s a lot of science that shows this is the most time efficient way to make fitness and strength progress. When thinking of how to stay fit as a new dad, this is probably the best shift I made.
Even if you prefer longer workouts, you should have a couple shorter workouts in your back pocket for those days when time is crunched.
Here are some additional workout hacks for those on a busy schedule, including new dads.
Use the weekends
Before kids, I used to never work out on the weekends. That was my time to chill out. Now, these are the perfect days to find the time to get in a good workout.
Since you and your significant other are likely less saddled with work obligations, you should try to carve out time on either day of the weekend (ideally both). It may be a mindset shift for you, but the flexibility of these days will likely give you more time to stay active.
If you manage to workout on both weekend days, then you only need to find 1-2 days during the week to workout. This takes a lot of pressure off the work week.
Many dads I know also utilize morning workouts. It’s not really for me, but it can work for you if you are a morning person.
Whatever path you take, just know you will probably have to change your routines to prioritize fitness. But it’s really not that difficult once you get used to it.
Pick 2-3 key metrics
Notice how we haven’t mentioned goal setting, instead focusing on establishing habits and tactics for managing your time more effectively.
While goals do matter, your habits matter more. However, you still should have some kind of goals in mind for your fitness outcomes.
For me, I try to keep my weight within a certain range, make sure I’m getting stronger on key lifts, and improve my running times on key runs.
If my weight gets too high, I cut back on the food I know is not good for me. If my key lifts (pullups, overhead press, single leg squats) are staying the same or going down, I re-focus to make sure I can get 2-3 resistance workouts per week. When my running times are going up, I try to increase my running volume, etc…
Having 3 key metrics makes it simple and keeps me accountable. So far I’ve been able to stay on track with all three, making modest gains over the past couple of years.
If you’re over 40, check out these fitness tips. Your approach will have to change as your body ages.
Conclusion
You may not become a fitness monster as a new dad (although some do), but steady progress puts you in a great place for your long term health, your energy levels, and for the example you’ll eventually set for your children.
Follow these steps for how to stay fit as a new dad, and you’ll put yourself in a good position to get and stay healthy.
