Parenting and Health Inspiration: Raising unhealthy children

Confessions from a soccer mom.

I’m a soccer mom with a health confession to make.  Sometimes I choose to work out when I could be rushing between key

cheering locations at a cross country race or jumping up in triumph at a beautifully executed goal.  While fellow fans/ parents sit on the sidelines or huddle at the straightaway, we talk about how to handle our sassy girls and where the time went as my boys enter their senior year.  So consuming, these children, that there is NO time to take care of ourselves.  Who has time to use the bathroom in peace, much less find time to get to the gym?  The array of excuses are well-worn:

• I’m so busy driving my kids around, I don’t have time to work out.
• I feel guilty when I’m not on the sidelines or in the audience.
• It’s their turn to shine.
• I have so little time with them, I hate to steal more minutes to go work out.

What are the health lessons you are teaching your children?

Meanwhile, I am holding on to my little secret. I think a balanced focus on my spiritual, mental and physical health might be the most important investment I can make in my children.  Consistently placing your health and wellness behind the endless stream of activities, soccer practice, shopping trips, sleepovers, sends

a damaging long term message to your children:

• Categorically, workouts are considered extras, an activity that can be cut when there are more “important” things to accomplish.
• Your health is not as important as your child’s health.
• Your activities are not as important as your children’s activities.
• Fitness is for children.  Adults can get away with not working out.

Last year I lost 15 hard-to-lose pounds with a regular regimen of cardio, weight training with a fitness coach and an adjusted diet.  I didn’t fit it into the last few minutes of free time each day.  It took a priority in my schedule and as a result, sometimes I started dinner late, I had someone else take my daughter to soccer or I left a meeting right on time or (gasp) early.

Health-selfishness is an investment in those you love.

I’m not a vain, self-centered mom.  The 60-90 minutes a week in the gym is a hard won sacrifice.  I rarely feel like working out.  My cultural genetics leaves me with guilty aftertaste.   Yet I believe I do more good for my children by upholding my commitment to health than I do cheering for them at all costs.  I love being their mom.  It will be one of the most beautiful accomplishments I will ever have.  But I don’t want them to think fitness and health is an

extra item on a labored list of to-do’s.  I don’t want my child to think fitness is something she will have to give up when she is a mother.  I don’t want the athletic vision of his future to be on the sidelines.  I want her to have the language and the vision to support her family and friends and support herself.

So, I will leave to go work out at 3:15pm this afternoon and I won’t be returning for a few hours.  I could be reading to my 9 year old or going over the plan for college applications with one of my senior boys. I promise, I will. But first, I will sneak away for 30 sweaty minutes on the stair climber and a workout with my training. And then, I’ll be back in the game, embracing my life as a mom with a clear mind and some strong and fabulous legs.

HEALTH INSPIRATION FOR BUSY MOMS:

• Get inspired with other mom stories.  Huffington Post profiled Katey Dyck who somehow balanced a 100 pound weight loss and raising 2 small children.
• Find time to exercise with simple adjustments in  your schedule.
• Throw away the scale and your attachment to that stupid number and get educated on your health.
• Use social media apps to track the numbers that really matter.

I want you to try stealing time from your family!  Tell me how you found a way to get healthy today.