Aspire, Perspire, Nourish Yourself

Living your active life with kids in tow…

“Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states.”

Carol Welch

Spring is here with longer days, warmer weather and restless kids ready for the school year to be over. The carefree days of summer are closer than you think, when kids will be home all day with tons of energy! The first few days feel great as you enjoy the break from the routine and then as that becomes routine you start to feel restless. You haven’t been to the gym or had time for a good workout. You’re thinking of slipping out for a short run while your kids watch their favorite television show. We all need time to ourselves occasionally so enjoy it if you can manage that. If however you can’t or if you want to get your kids active, there are plenty of ways to involve them in your workout. In fact, they can teach you a few things to add to your routine.

My son loves to jump, tumble and parkour. He’s constantly asking me to follow his moves when we’re out walking or in the yard. On a recent school break we ventured out a couple of mornings to try some of his moves. We found picnic tables to use for dips, monkey bars for chin ups, stone walls for jumping over, and just plain grass for push ups. We added skipping and short, full blast runs in between sets. He was so excited to be the leader and to teach me something for a change that he forgot that I had gotten him out of bed at 7:30 am. His moves were great and I worked up a sweat! My body enjoyed the change and my son and I had some quality bonding time.

If you enjoy more traditional sports, bring a football or soccer ball with you to the nearest patch of grass. For a cardio workout, challenge your kids and yourself to run around the trees to catch the ball or do wind sprints every time you miss catching the football. Running to kick the soccer ball around is another great cardio workout! Besides the obvious physical benefits, introducing these sports early on to your kids will give them confidence to try out for a team or just instill the love of sports.

The best way to encourage your children to be physically active is to be a role model. Several studies have found that children of active parents tend to be more active (see Moore et al, 1991) and that participating with your children in physical activity strongly predicted their level of activity (DiLorenzo, 1998; Hovell et al, 1995).

Beyond being physically active, it’s your attitude that counts! Your positive attitude towards your own fitness influences how your children see physical activity. Find your fitness passion to help them find their motivation. In addition, be supportive in autonomous ways, i.e. allow your children to choose their activities, take their perspectives into account and encourage participation for pure enjoyment (Gaumond, 2000). After all, physical activity for both adults and children should feel like fun and play rather than a chore. This feeling will keep you and them coming back for more.

Recipe for the week: Apricot Date Snack Bars

These have received the seal of approval by a number of testers. Hope you enjoy them.

Goals: time to rethink yours?

Goals have been on my mind lately. Over the last year, I’ve had a few injuries that have prevented me from committing to run another marathon. Every time I’d plan to start my training, my injury would re-occur. I had to face the fact that my body was not ready for another intense 16 weeks of training. What to do? Logically, time to rethink my goals. Emotionally, it took a while for this thought to sink in, as I had to first accept that I needed to do something different in my fitness routine. Eighteen years ago when my last injury sidelined me from running, I had no plan for alternatives and was at a loss for what to do. Today, with fitness as a regular part of my life, the choices for alternatives are endless. During this latest injury, I was determined to stay fit even without running as a major component of my life! What this meant was getting competent at doing other stuff. For me the challenge was improving my swimming.

I’m sure many of you have faced a similar situation in your past or maybe you’re dealing with it right now. An injury or a lack of motivation can put a damper on your fitness and on your emotional wellbeing. Don’t let them! In fact, a change in routine can help you break through a plateau or help you regain energy or excitement for fitness. You need to be careful with injuries but as long as you get approval from your doctor, there are a number of things you can do. If you are “older” like we are, then reflect on this quote from World Health Gym’s latest advertising, “Everything that gets worse with age gets better with exercise.”

Goal setting can be powerful to energize you into action. I’m not talking about the goal setting you’ve done at the office, i.e. setting a goal because you’ll get something from somebody if you do it! Research in the sports psychology field shows that progress towards achieving goals is more successful when the goals are intrinsic; that is, when you do something because of the fun and enjoyment that the goal provides you or when the primary reason is simply your interest in the experience itself. For those of you who say you don’t enjoy fitness but you believe that fitness is important to your health, know that goals that you believe are important or that you endorse freely and value whole heartedly are also more effective in helping you achieve them. Bottom line, with fitness you need to do it for yourself! The research also found that these types of goals are even more effective when combined with implementation plans that are ‘approach oriented’ versus ‘avoidance oriented.’ What this means is that each goal is supported by actions you will take to help achieve the goals instead of supported by actions you will avoid. For example, rather than saying, “I won’t skip my workouts,” you state, “I will workout 3 times per week.” (If you are interested in reading one of the articles on this research, see Autonomous Motivation, Controlled Motivation and Goal Progress, 2008)

As you can tell, I’m a strong believer in goals and plans. My latest attempt at goal setting required a step back to examine the reason that running another marathon was important to me and what else could satisfy this desire. Through this process, I discovered what truly mattered to me and found activities other than running that could help me stay fit and strong and that could give me the sense of accomplishment that I need. Making these changes to my fitness and nutrition have been challenging and have improved my abilities in other sports. In addition, they have helped me shed an extra seven pounds. A great side benefit as I see it!

So, what’s your story? Do you need to revisit your goals? This is a good time to do it. If you need additional motivation, see the video link below from the February 6, 2013, Marilyn Denis Show. In an interview with Marilyn, a fitness professional talks about ways to start and commit to a healthy lifestyle.

http://ctvmms.vo.llnwd.net/kip0/_pxn=1+_pxI0=Ripod-h264+_pxL0=undefined+_pxM0=+_pxK=19321+_pxE=mp4/o41/mobile/CTV/2013/02/06/TheMarilynDenisShow-MDS-S3-102-clip04.mp4

Recipe of the Week: Chicken Fingers

Your kids fussy about their foods? Try these tasty and nutritious chicken fingers on our Nourishing Tips & Recipes page. They will love them.

If you have a favorite dish you want to re-invent to be healthier, please let us know. Send us the current recipe for suggestions on how to improve its nutrition content. Please email Mary at foryourhealth@rogers.com.