Editor
Hudson White is just one half of YouTube’s bodybuilding team called the Buff Dudes, he is also a father. And when his kids were born, he quickly discovered that his previous lifestyle and approach to staying fit was no longer possible.
“I got that dad bod real fast, I really do not know what happened,” he says. “So I had to take a step back, starting from square one.”
White recalls the culture shock he had after getting married and starting a family after being a bachelor, and the adjustment time that it took for him to get used to sharing his life where he was responsible for other people. And while his time is certainly busier now because of it, one promise he made was that he would not use his kids like an excuse not to work out—he just had to redo his schedule.
“It is not an excuse, it was a challenge,” he says. “I very quickly saw that most of the time I was working inside my children’s time… They are like an alarm clock you cannot turn off… I had to learn how to wake up early, there was a time I was getting up around 4:30 to swim and workout. It seems very early, and it truly is… I like getting up before the sun has come up, because it feels like you are beating the day… You are not only getting exercise, you are game-planning too.”
He also quickly learned how to optimize his time like he used to have when working out, either using supersets, HIIT, or doing some sessions that engage his entire body instead of specific parts. “You can get it all that you must get in a very limited time frame,” he says. “With the small time you have, maximize it to its complete potential.”
Something that helped him do this was using a new philosophy: “If it is not fun, don’t do it.” White says that 45 minutes of slow cardio started to get boring and time-consuming, but there are lots of other ways to get his cardio in, like VR workouts.
