Phil Parham (11 page)

In one of our early hikes, our youngest son, Rhett, who was not used to exercising, started sweating profusely and complaining how strenuous it was. His voice still rings in my ears, “Dad! Mom! I'm tired! I hurt! My calories hurt!”

Rhett had been hearing us talk about calories so much, he didn't know how to express the extent of his pain other than to say that everything hurt, even his calories. We all had a great laugh that afternoon, and as tired as Rhett was at the start of the hike, he felt like a million bucks toward the end. And he told us how much fun it was!

If I look back at our fondest family memories, I don't remember the times we cleaned our house, took out the trash, played video games, or watched TV. I remember the moments we were together doing something active and fun, from going hiking at the state park to inline skating down the street to playing in the pool at the local YMCA.

Exercise with your kids. Be active with them and build playful memories they'll never forget.

Get Moving

Here are some ideas to activate your family:

• Go for a walk after dinner. If you have young children, put them in a stroller.

• Walk the dog together (if you have one, of course). If not, you can always borrow a friend's or family member's dog that your child loves being around.

• Engage in seasonal activities. Go hiking, in-line skating, canoeing, swimming, or bicycling in the spring, summer, and fall. Try ice-skating or skiing in the winter.

• Do family chores together. Rake the leaves in the backyard with your child. Clean the car. Mow the lawn. Make it fun by charting with gold stars or another kind of treat how many chores your children did.

• Enroll your child in sports classes or fitness groups. See what your school or community offers that your child may be interested in. You may even join a gym that offers fitness programs for the young ones.

• Organize a “dance party” at your house one night. Rally your children to dress up in fancy clothes, put some dance music on the stereo, and spend an hour dancing and being silly with your kids. Younger children particularly love this.

• Go bowling.

• Learn martial arts.

• Have a weekly sports night. Try a new sport each week, such as tennis, golf, skating, and soccer. You've got a lot of options to try out.

• Run or walk for charity. Do some good and get your blood pumping.

• Promote movement in everyday activities. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park farther from shopping center entrances. And even if you are watching TV, dance or do jumping jacks during the commercials. Have a contest to see who can do the most.

Kids are very different. My boys have different characteristics, personality traits, wants, and needs from each other. And they are motivated in different ways. When it comes to instilling fit habits in your home, you might have to motivate your child more or less than we have to motivate our boys. Some kids will have no problem with you telling them to drop the video-game controller and go outside to play. Others will groan, protest, and voice their annoyance every step of the way.

Also, children have different fitness levels. If your child is inactive, simply taking a walk with him or having her help around the house will help break this pattern. Slowly ease your children into physical activity. If they are moderately active, challenge them. Have their friends come over to play football or basketball. Explore new types of exercise with them. Find a list of activities at school or in the community and review them with your child. See what interests him or her.

However you decide to get your family up and moving, set a positive example and make sure you are having fun as well. If you're not happy being active, I guarantee that your children will likewise be unhappy.

If your child is overweight or refuses to be active, don't fall into the trap of enablement. You enable your child when you allow him (even if you have good intentions) to do things that are harmful or irresponsible. This happens when you rescue him from a situation instead of letting him deal with the consequences or let him get away with things instead of holding him accountable for his actions.

I know many parents who refuse to encourage their overweight child to be more physically active simply because their child expresses no interest. Some parents can even relate to their kid's problem because they, too, were overweight as children and understand the hurt that comes from the ridicule of classmates. But if their style of managing the situation is to simply soothe the child and say, “Everything's okay,” they are walking the thin line of enablement.

Empower your kids instead. Be the household motivator to change unhealthy behaviors or patterns instead of enabling your children to walk a permanent path of poor health. As a parent, you want the best for your children, so you need to be firm and be aware of the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition habits.

Sure, it's going to be hard for many kids in the beginning. They will whine. They will cry. They will complain. They may even be resentful. It's okay! Change for any human being is uncomfortable.

But this is a great teaching moment. This is how your children learn that creating a future worth having requires doing the work. It requires making some changes. But it also can be fun and engaging.

Remember, if you want your children to

• feel better about themselves

• maintain a healthy weight

• build strong bones, muscles, and joints

• do better in school

• hit the path of adulthood with healthy habits

• sleep better

then adjust your current lifestyle to be more active. Keep it fun. Keep it positive. And keep it for the rest of your life!

• Set a good example. Your children will follow your lead.

• Limit TV, computer, and video-game time.

• Promote activity, not exercise. Just get your kids off the couch and moving. And remember, all activity counts.

• Involve your entire family in physical activity to build a strong bond.

• Get your kids into the great outdoors as much as possible. Fresh air can do wonders for your child.

• Be the parent. Set rules and limits and do not enable your kids by letting them do what they want. Empower them for a healthy and fit future.

We know that in today's fast-paced culture, families are busier than ever. Incorporating good health into your life means reexamining your priorities and figuring out how you can manage your time more wisely. We are living proof that it's possible to be and stay healthy, even when life is full of demands and responsibilities.

6

A Word from Amy

O
ne thing about life never changes—it is always changing! You finally get settled in your new home, and your husband gets a new job in another state. You finally have some peace and quiet home from work one day, and your child gets sick at school and needs you to come get her. You are thrilled about your dream job, and a floundering economy forces you to shut down your business.

Change is also a constant in our health lifestyle. Does this sound familiar? You get excited about eating right and getting more exercise, but a stomach virus infects your house, and your family is stuck at home for days. Or after a solid number of weeks prioritizing your nutrition needs, your company sends you on a business trip, and you have to leave the kids with the hubby who thinks pizza is one of the four food groups, and you find yourself having to get by on airport food for a few days.

If we aren't careful, these things can trip us up in our journey to good health. The key to having balance in the midst of life's changes, bumps, twists, and detours is maintaining the right perspective. We can't be so rigid that we don't allow for flexibility sometimes. Life happens! If we let setbacks stop us from moving forward, then we'll never accomplish our goals.

Most of you parents—especially you mothers—have the best intentions when it comes to planning and organizing. We would love nothing more than for our days, weeks, months, and years to go as smoothly as we have planned them. But that's not going to happen. We need to expect the unexpected. When life puts a wrench in our plans, we need to regroup, reevaluate priorities and goals, and forge on ahead. Finding the balance between structure and flexibility is the goal we should strive toward.

One thing that has helped Phillip and me win (most of the time) the battle of providing a health structure in our household is learning how to plan. Before our health transformation, we were “fly by the seat of our pants” kind of people. Our personalities are such that we tended to do everything at the last minute. If someone asked me on Wednesday what my plans for the weekend were, I wouldn't have thought that far ahead. More oft than not, I would have my weekend plans figured out sometime on Friday.

Living this way caused us to waste time and money, not to mention the cost of bad eating habits. I used to think about the family's dinner plans on my way home from work, and my solution usually involved ordering takeout or getting dinner at the drive-thru. Definitely not a healthy choice for a healthy family.

Now we think and plan ahead so we know what our family will be eating for the week as well as when we will squeeze in exercise. When you plan ahead, it helps you overcome some of the bad last-minute choices you might be tempted to make.

I also notice that when I plan ahead, I manage my time more efficiently. We are all on a time budget. We all have 24 hours in our day. What we do with that 24 hours makes the difference between success and failure.

Here are some planning tips we use to save our family time and money and balance a healthy lifestyle with life's demands.

Plan Your Meals

We plan our meals for two weeks because Phillip and I get paid biweekly. We found planning according to our financial budget makes the most sense for us. Planning this much time in advance may seem like a lot of work, and initially it will be, but it really does save so much time down the road. You'll never have to think about what you'll be eating on any given day or plan unnecessary trips to the grocery store.

Phillip and I write down breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner for 14 days and estimate the amount of food we need to buy for those two weeks. For example, if we know we're going to have eggs every morning, we buy enough for 14 days. If our kids will be eating cereal for two weeks, we buy enough to last for that time. Of course certain items, such as milk, you have to shop for every week or cannot buy in bulk.

We divide our shopping list into what we can buy at the wholesale store and what we can buy at the grocery store. We use the wholesale store for such things as eggs, oatmeal, cereal, frozen boneless chicken breasts, frozen tilapia and salmon, quinoa pasta, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta (see appendix A for our complete shopping list). The items for the grocery store might be specialty spices or herbs (such as cilantro), and rotisserie chicken, bread, and fresh fruit and vegetables.

Cook Ahead

After we do our shopping, we decide what meals or snacks we can make ahead of time so that we have them available when we need them. Chicken, beef, turkey, brown rice, quinoa, sweet potatoes, and steamed vegetables are good to prepare up to a week ahead of when you'll use them.