Recruiting your family to fight the bulge !!!

  You need to recruit your family to fight the battle against the bulge. All of us lead very busy lives and its impossible to cook separate meals for each and every one in the family. If we do not integrate healthy diet and regular exercise as a part of our lifestyle trust me our weight loss would only be temporary. I often hear young mothers saying, "I don't have time my kids are very young".  I have a young child and I understand the challenges. For a moment step back and observe how little toddlers play. They keep running around and doing the same repetitive movements to strengthen their muscles. Kids do all the exercises that we do in gym and much more !!! Monkey bars are the equivalent of pull ups, playing tag is the same as interval training, climbing up and down the steps is intense cardio..the list can go on !!! Nature has given us the intelligence to build and maintain healthy bodies. But we have wrecked it by our mindless habits. You need to reverse this by making conscious choices to integrate healthy diet and routine exercise in your daily lifestyle.

   In my experience you cannot be successful at this unless you recruit your family in this process. Fortunately my son is very active and my husband is quite athletic. But our interests always did not match and we had to work around it to make it a part of our routine. My husband loved sports but abhorred the gym. I was not good at sports so I was not very found of playing sports. Both me and my husband love hiking, but my son did not enjoy it as much. So finding the right combination was a challenge. Over the years I have figured out how to maneuver this situation. Playing with young kids can be a great workout. As a family we always try to play with my son and his friends. Trust me you can get a mix a good mix of cardio and strength training by playing with young kids. When you play kids you will have loads of opportunities to do interval training, steady state cardio and strength training. I posted some tips on how to workout with kids. I don't mind repeating the same information just to drill the point across.

1. Play tag with your kids. It is interval training right there.
2. Try to do leap frog races with your kids. Excellent for the thighs !! 
3. Carry your kid piggy back and try to do squats. It is strength training. I do it with my son. He is a good 50 lbs. It is a nice way to bond with your child too. If you have two kids even better !! Use the older one for squats and the younger one for bicep curls. The kids will love it !! The best part I love about doing strength training with kids is that after sometime the kids will run away. No strength training class will offer you this benefit..
4. I love to go hiking with my son. He rides on my back and goes on rambling on. On longer hikes I try to get one of his friend for company. 
5. Try super man with your kids. Very good for your core workout.
6. Kids love working out with a pilate ball. You can do a lot of effective exercises with a pilate ball.
7. Girls love to dance !! Why not try a Zumba video with your little princess. 

      In the end it was easy to recruit the little boy in my workout routines. I just had to be like him. It was a little more challenging to recruit the big boy aka my dear husband. Our interests did not match. He loved sports and I was not good at it. So we had to make compromises. My husband loved playing badminton, volley ball and soccer. He did not like gyms much and loved competitive sports. I changed my strategy. Sometimes I joined my husband and son in their soccer sessions. Couple of our friends formed a volley ball team and regularly played matches. It was a nice way to socialize and burn some calories. We joined a badminton club and played badminton regularly. In the process we also taught our son to play badminton. We tried find families and friends who loved hiking. We tried to hike regularly with a few other families. My son loved the company of kids on long hikes and I tried to make it like a nature walk for the kids. Constantly changing the routine made sure my body did not because accustomed to just one kind of activity. Our son inspired us to learn swimming. Both  me and my husband decided to take swimming classes and we are really happy about our decision. This is a life long skill. Swimming is an excellent full body, non-impact cardio.  My son feels encouraged to swim because he knows he is a better swimmer than his mom and dad. We try to go to the community pool when possible. 

    

 By and far by biggest victory is in making my husband toe along with me to all my Less Mills classes. One day on Mothers Day as I was leaving to go to the gym, my husband groaned that I spend more time in the gym then with the family. I shot back at him and told him "Why don't you come and spend some time with me in the gym". I got my husband a free 3 day pass and on Mother's day I made my husband try out his first Less Mills Body pump class. He grunted and groaned through the class. He felt intimidated that the woman were lifting much heavier than him in the class :-) The man's ego was triggered :-) After silently enduring body pain for 2-3 days, he told me he was impressed with the body pump class. He decided to join me for the next few sessions. And then I introduced him to Less Mills Body Combat, taught him a few other routines my personal trainer had taught me, went swimming with him in the gym and finally he became a gym rat like me :-) We still do a mix of indoor and outdoor sports but doing this as a family has made it much easier for us. During our family gym time, my son spend his time playing in the kids club. Luckily my gym, 24 hour fitness, has a nice kids club. It is economically priced and my son loves going to the kids club. So problem solved !!

   Enrolling your family in a good fitness routine is only part of the battle. Nutrition is an important aspect too. Now how do you go about getting them to eat healthy !! My family has picky eaters. My son can't handle spicy Indian food, I love spicy non vegetarian and my husband is a pure vegetarian. So in the limited time I have how do I ensure that everyone eats healthy !! I keep my home cooked meals simple, healthy and nutritious. Nothing fancy and elaborate. I plan ahead. Since my husband is a vegetarian he loves salads. I try to make salad everyday. So both of us have salads for lunch. Eating salad before my meal helps me keep my carb intake low. My son loves more of bland Americanized food, so I make both of us sandwiches for lunch. I have always encouraged to make my family eat whole grain carbohydrates. So whole wheat bread, quinoa and brown rice have become our staple diet. I make sure nobody skips breakfast. Starting the day with a good breakfast will jumpstart your metabolism. I usually cook steel cut oats for breakfast and add blueberries, almonds and honey to my oats. Of late I have also started feeding my family eggs for breakfast. Eggs are very rich in nutrients and if your cholesterol numbers are in check one egg yolk per day is permissible. I use ripe avocados as a spread on bread instead of jam, butter or cheese. I introduced avocados to my son when he was a toddler and today avocado sandwich is his comfort food. I usually bake fish fillets and chicken kabobs, so I don't have to spend time baby sitting it in the kitchen. Weekends are reserved for elaborate Indian curries and biryani. I am still fine tuning my cooking process. But in the end it boils down to some simple meal planning. You need to try and see what works and does not work for your family. So if you want to fight the bulge for good, recruit your family and make healthy life style choices. Crash diets will only lead to temporary weight loss. Make healthy eating and regular exercise a life style and you would not have to battle the bulge for long.