Ep. #411: The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide to Movement

Welcome to the Not Your Average Runner podcast. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running coach, and your running BFF here to help you start running. Feel confident and love the journey no matter your size. Now, if you’ve ever felt like you just weren’t meant to be a runner, think again. I believe that running is for all bodies, even yours.

This podcast is your warmup buddy, giving you tips, motivation, and the support you need to lace up and get moving. I’ve helped thousands of women become runners, and now I wanna help you. Let’s go.

Hi friends and welcome back to the show. Today I wanna talk about something that so many midlife women are living through right now, and that is being part of the sandwich generation, and that’s the term for when you’re caught between raising kids and supporting aging parents while still trying to manage a career, a household.

Maybe even keep a little time for yourself. It’s a lot, right? And actually most days it’s just too much. And the thing that usually gets dropped first. Movement, it’s movement, fitness, anything that looks like me time, you’re already feeling pulled in 10 different directions and the idea of carving out an hour to exercise feels like a fantasy, but the truth is.

Movement is actually not a luxury in the season of your life. It’s a lifeline. It is the thing that helps you keep showing up for everyone else without running yourself completely into the ground. So today I am gonna give you ace. Survival guide, and this is not some perfect Pinterest worthy fitness plan.

Rather, it is a set of realistic, doable strategies to help you use movement as a tool to release stress, restore your energy, and build resilience while you navigate this very complex stage of your life. So the reality, oh my gosh, the reality of the sandwich generation, it’s relentless, right? You might be helping with homework, uh, with your teenagers and managing sports schedules, and meanwhile, you’re also scheduling physical therapy and doctor’s visits for your parents.

You are balancing work deadlines, you’re running a household, you’re carrying the emotional weight of making sure everyone is okay. Maybe we even have grandkids now, so there’s like even more. Complexity to the mix, and you wanna spend time with those little kiddos. So your sleep is probably very fragmented, your stress is constant.

And of course, on top of all of that, your own body is changing. Your hormones are shifting. Recovery takes longer. Energy is not predictable. So it’s no wonder that exercise feels like one more impossible demand. Here’s the thing. You don’t have to do Instagram fitness to benefit from movement. You don’t need 60 minutes.

You don’t need a gym membership. You don’t need a fancy routine. You need micro moments of care that work in the life you’re living right now. So we gotta re redefine fitness for this season of your life. Listen, if you are waiting for your life to calm down so you can get back on track, I got some tough love for you.

This is the track right here. Right now. Waiting for the perfect time means you’re just gonna keep waiting endlessly. So fitness during the sandwich generation is not about prs marathons six packs. It’s about survival and finding ways to lower your stress, support your energy. Keep your body strong enough to do what life requires of you, and that means giving yourself permission to let go of the old rules and create something that actually fits this chapter.

So there’s three pillars of what I like to call survival movement. Um, the first pillar is release. Alright? Use movement as a pressure valve. Dance around your kitchen to a song march in place while the microwave runs or the coffee machine runs. Do some shoulder rolls at your desk. Those short bursts of movement release stress in the moment they help you.

UNC Unclench. Okay, so if you are like feeling like you are about to blow, use movement as a pressure valve, use it as a release pillar number two is a restore, okay? Not every workout needs to be go hard or go home. In fact, none of them do. What most sandwich generation women need is the opposite. We need restorative practices that give back energy.

Instead of taking it, we need gentle yoga, stretching, mobility work or you know, just a slow walk outside in the sun and that can help refill your tank and restore you. And the third pillar is resilience. So this is where strength comes in, and I want you to think of like functional fitness. And functional fitness just means being fit in the ways that you need to function on a daily basis.

So squats to keep your legs strong, pushups for your upper body, planks for your core. You don’t need long workouts. 10 minutes, a couple times a week helps. And building that resilience means you can carry the groceries and lift your grandkids or help your parents in and out of a chair without hurting yourself.

So the three pillars again, are release using movement as a pressure valve restore. Right refilling your tank with gentle movement and resilience, building functional strength. Now, there’s some mindset shifts that I think are important to help you embrace those pillars. So here’s what I need you to remember.

Number one, your workouts don’t need to look like anyone else’s. All we do not compare and despair here, make it work for you. Uh, number two, five minutes is not a failure, it’s a win. Okay? It’s a win. And number three, you’re not falling behind. Please drop that belief system. You are adapting to a very demanding season of your life and you’re doing your damn best.

So movement, especially now, isn’t about earning your worth or proving that you’re dedicated and disciplined. It’s about reminding your body and your brain that you matter to. So let’s talk about some. Very practical survival strategies. To help you kind of implement this. Number one, anchor to daily routines so you can stretch while you are on hold with the insurance company.

Uh, you can walk while you’re at your kids or your grandkids sports practice. You can do squats while you’re brushing your teeth. Pair movement with something you already do and something you like, like watching tv. If you have time for that, listening to a podcast like Pair Movement with something that you already do so that it’s easier to implement.

You’re not taking time away from anything else. You are just sort of multitasking. And I don’t love multitasking in a lot of ways, but m moving while you’re doing something else is awesome, multitasking. Um, you can also tag team, so. If you have siblings or a partner or a friend that is also in a similar stage of life, trade caregiving time, be like, okay, listen, I will watch your kiddos.

I will take your kids to sports or whatever it is on Mondays so that you can get in a workout, and if you do it for me on Thursdays, then I can get in a workout. So like think about ways that you can trade caregiving time so that everybody gets me time and time alone. Another strategy is to just fucking lower the bar, right?

If all you can do is one song’s worth of movement that counts. That’s fine, right? Like the important thing is that you do it not how long you’re doing it for. And then finally, please drop the kilt because taking care of yourself is not taking time away from other people. It’s actually making you more capable of being there for them in the future.

It’s not selfish, it’s strategic. I hate that we have to frame, you know, me time as we have to justify it as well. If you take me time, that means you can give more to others. But let’s be honest, right? That’s kind of the stage of life that you’re in now, and when you need to make choices, I want you to look at your me time.

As important for everyone, not just for you and, oh, let’s be real Gen X ladies. We know survival, right? We were latchkey kids. We figured out dinner from whatever was in the pantry. We didn’t burn the house down. We entertained ourselves without cell phones or streaming, right? We did not have any of that stuff.

When we were kids, we were scrappy. We figured out how to take care of ourselves and probably other siblings without a lot of oversight. So I, you know, that scrappiness is still in you. You’ve still got it. You can apply that same mindset here. You don’t need perfect circumstances. You just need a little creativity and give yourself a lot of grace.

I believe in you, you’ve got this. Being in the sandwich generation is hard. You’re holding so much and movement. I don’t want it to be about adding another burden. So let’s figure out a way to build it into your life in a way that it enhances things, gives you some joy, and of course, makes you stronger for everything else you have to do.

All right? So if you’re in this season, I want you to know that you’re not alone. Okay. And if you want support building a plan that flexes with your life, instead of fighting against it, check out the Midlife Movement Makeover program. It is here for you. It’s 30 days long, but it is not 30 days of hard workouts or anything.

It’s 30 days of like teeny, tiny little actions to help you see how easy it is. To implement exercise, figure out some routines that work for you and be successful at it. Okay? And it’s only $29, my friend. So you can learn more about the midlife movement makeover at not your average runner.com/midlife.

That’s not your average runner.com/midlife. Or you can just go to the link in the show notes ’cause I like to make things easy for you ’cause I know you’re busy. All right, that is it for this time, my friend. I will see you next week on Thursday as always.

Real quick before you go, I’ve got a fun challenge for you. Take my exerciser personality quiz to find out exactly what kind of exerciser you are and how to make running feel easier and more enjoyable.

Just head over to not your average runner.com/quiz to take it and get your results. That’s not your average runner.com/quiz.