(Excerpt from my Having Healthy Kids eBook)
Yes, it can happen in your home just as it did in mine. Although some of it was magic, I can testify to that, most of the steps you can take as a parent to keep yourself healthy are the same steps you should be taking to keep your kids healthy. Childhood obesity is some subject the news media keeps blaring at us, with lots of statistics and footage of fat kids walking by. They blame video games, television, food preservatives, and school lunches. But really who is to blame? Our own parents are the cause, of course. We learned how to parent from them didn´t´ we? And then we doubled their efforts so our kids would turn out twice as good. It´s the doubling that may be the problem.
Let´s first figure out why you are not exercising yourself, your kids, your dog or your mind.
So you say you can´t find 30 minutes to exercise?
Planning is everything, but sticking to your plan is even more important. So you can´t find 30 minutes to work out in your evening full of kids, homework, dinner, cleaning, taxi-cab service to sports practice and 1000 other tasks? Here´s my plan that works most of the time.
Get a large piece of paper or poster and plan a week or two ahead. Write in all of the drop offs, pick ups, dinners, projects, etc, that will happen in that week. It takes some thought, but gets easier every time you do it. Write in the time needed for each task next to it so you can spot free time. Now, have your kids help you so you don´t forget something crucial like a haircut or a play date. Sorry, my sarcasm sneaks in sometimes.
So you want 4 – 30 minute workouts this week? Is there a 1 hour gap from you getting home until dinner? Or a 2 hour span between soccer and the car-wash fundraiser? Jot in your appointment for yourself wherever you can. I allow myself an hour for a 40 minute workout, to prep and clean up afterwards. I make sure I have my clothes and shoes already waiting, my workout tape or portable radio handy, etc.. So I won´t use up my appointment time getting things together. Then when appointment time comes, stick to it. Just do it. You can. You just have to allow yourself that privilege sometimes. I am giving you permission.
No gaps you say? Well, let´s make some then. This weekend or during the week, while you are already cooking anyhow, make some make ahead dinners to free up some cooking time and exchange it for a little workout time. Here are some that I use nearly every week.
Basic Chicken and Rice Dish
(I make 3 on Sundays, then serve them on busy homework or sport nights, or even as a side dish.)
4-5 chicken breasts or thighs
2 ¼ cups boiling water
1 can tomatoes (I like Rotel Spicy Mexican Best)
1 cup uncooked rice
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
2 envelopes Lipton Onion Mushroom Soup Mix (or your favorite)
Place the chicken pieces in a 9x13 cake pan and bake skin side up for 30 minutes at 450. You can pre-season them, marinade them, or just bake them plain. It´s your choice. Lower the oven to 350. In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients well. Pour over the chicken and bake 30 minutes longer at 350.
Serve or let cool and freeze/refrigerate for later use. Serve with flair. If you made a more Mexican type dish, serve with tortillas and a corn dish. If you made it with lemon pepper, serve with a salad. Variety is key. I like to make different ones and give them names. Like Curry Chicken with Rice ala Michael. Or Sean´s Italian Chicken Dish. They seem to like it too.
Beans are a staple in my home. We make them very often. One week it´s red beans and rice, the next might be pintos and ham, or black eyed peas and tomatoes. Whatever the bean or mix of beans, I usually buy them dried (cheaper) and soak them all night right in the crock pot, then season and cook ½ day on Sunday, then store in plastic containers for the week ahead. Mix with turkey ham and brown rice for a really easy meal.
Here´s a favorite recipe of mine for beans.
Best Pinto Bean Soup
3 cups dry Pinto Beans
2 thick slices Ham (reduced fat, healthy choice), cut up into chunks
1/2 cup diced Onions
1/2 cup diced Celery
1 can Tomato Sauce
1 can Tomato Soup, reduced everything
Salt, Pepper, and Vegetable Salt to taste
Cook beans with ham . When almost done, add remaining items. Add water as needed to make a medium thick soup. Best if started in a crock pot the night before, set to low - with just beans and ham. Add all else in the morning.
You can serve this with just about anything. I like corn bread with mine.
Here´s a healthy one.
Corn Bread Muffins
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 scoop unsweetened protein shake powder, soy based, see your local health food store (optional)
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt 4 Tbsp sugar or 6 packets of sweetener
1 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 cups soymilk
2 T. vegetable oil
Preheat your oven to 400°F and use fat free cooking spray on an 8"x8" square pan.
Combine flour, protein powder, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar, and chili powder
in a bowl, and set aside. Combine soymilk and oil in another bowl. Add the flour mixture
into soymilk mixture, stirring until just moistened and lumpy.
Don´t stir until smooth. Pour into baking pan and bake for 25 minutes. You can also
bake these in cup cake baking cups, or in mini muffin pans to serve with chili.
Also on the weekends I prepare salads for lunches and side dishes. Cutting up veggies for an hour is an arm workout anyhow right? Put everything in zipper bags and your salads all week will be a breeze.
Another time saver is burgers. I break out my George Foreman grill and cook up lots of burgers. Turkey ones for me, lean ground beef ones for the kids. I make enough for 2 dinners or more, and then put them all in zipper bags for later. Along with my salad fixins, all I need for burger night now is some buns and mayo.
There are many ways to find time to exercise, and cutting minutes in the kitchen is a simple one if you plan ahead. Frozen meals, either purchased, or created and frozen by you, are a great way to have dinner ready in minutes and control your fat and calorie intake, and still enjoy a sit down dinner with your family.
Other good ways are carpooling and kid sharing plans. If you have a friend or neighbor that can do a drop off, or share in a carpool, take advantage of that. You´ll be helping each other find some "Me Time" and get in a workout. Ask coaches, teachers, day care givers for help finding someone to share responsibilities with. It´s worth it.
What´s filling up your free time?
Phone calls? Turn on the machine and turn off the ringer for an hour.
Dishes? Get some paper plates and assign each child a dishes night for the rest.
Laundry? Do one batch each morning before work, and one right before going to bed every night. Fold and hang right from the dryer to avoid ironing and sorting later.
You might not be able to find all of the time you´d like at first but with a little schedule finagling you will find it.
Exercising With Your Kids
(Excerpt from my Having Healthy Kids eBook – only $6.99 – email me.) Cynthia.wilkinson@us.army.mil
"But Mom, I can´t walk that fast!" This is my most often heard complaint from my younger boys. I´m walking too fast for them to have any fun walking with me. I walk at least 2 miles nearly every day. I have to, I want to, they don´t. So to exercise with kids, I have to make it fun. I want them to come along; it motivates me to walk longer because I´m not worried about what trouble they are creating at home in my absence. I´ve assembled a few pointers that make it easier and more enjoyable for them to join me.
Let them race with you, but riding on their scooters or bicycles, so keeping up is easier, and it´s much more fun to "win" against Mom, than tag along behind her.
Walk to an interesting place, like the park or the library, even an arcade, or close friends´ home. Stopping half way to play a little is great for their interest levels. Make your destination a place that takes at least 20 minutes of walking to get there.
Visit a nature trail together, and learn something while you walk. Call your local chamber of commerce to find nature hikes and trails in your area.
Sing "traveling" songs while you hike together. Row, row, row your boat, keeps your mind off of the sweating you are doing. Marching songs are great too. Take turns picking songs to sing.
Everyone put on their roller skates or roller blades and take your walk on wheels. Now that´s a workout. Don´t forget your helmets and knee pads.
Bring the baby and the stroller, and take turns pushing it. Carry your insulated diaper bag filled with juice boxes and bottled water in the stroller. They will stay much cooler in there.
Walking with kids is a great way to interact with them more and still get quite a workout.
I like trying other activities with my boys as well. The normal baseball tossing and bike riding can be fun, but creativity will strike up more interest with them. Kids bore pretty easily with routine, so I tried an experiment that turned out to be totally "rad" with my boys. First I brought them along to help me purchase a dance type exercise video. Then I found my video camera and taped all the kids and myself doing an exercise video together for the first time. We did it 2 or 3 times a week for a month. At the end of four weeks, I taped us all doing it again, in step this time, and we could see each other´s improvements in coordination and stamina. It was great to show them a before and after view, it demonstrated to them how practice does make perfect, and how much fun it is together. We weren´t the Back Street Boys, but the video had newer music and cool steps that they claim they will never use on a dance floor when I´m not around. It´s also helped one of them beat that getting out of bed on time problem he had developed. Now he had a good reason to get up early. Next I plan to try a kick boxing type video with them. I´d better get a facemask and some shin guards for this experiment.
You know your kids and you know what might spark their interests. So I urge you to try many different things with them. You can get a great workout teaching them basic tennis skills, or simply playing basketball in your driveway. Keeping them involved will help to keep you hiking down your own diet path.
Other things that might help to spark their aerobic natures:
New shoes for exercising! I hit a great sale and got 6 pairs of tennis shoes for less than $70. They will last a decent amount of time if they are set aside only for exercising.
Create a chart and have a pushup competition every Sunday night before dinner. Chart their progress and award the one that shows the most improvement with a new muscle shirt. Even if it´s you.
Buy them a pedometer and / or an odometer. Two of my boys wear them all day long, to see who can go the furthest each day, and who can run the fastest. Competition is a healthy motivator.
Get a portable cassette player and a new tape of their choice of music. Take turns wearing it and turn it loud enough for their fellow walkers to listen to too. Or, get everybody their own set.
(Excerpt from my Having Healthy Kids eBook – only $6.99 – email me.)
Cynthia.wilkinson@us.army.mil
Yes, it can happen in your home just as it did in mine. Although some of it was magic, I can testify to that, most of the steps you can take as a parent to keep yourself healthy are the same steps you should be taking to keep your kids healthy. Childhood obesity is some subject the news media keeps blaring at us, with lots of statistics and footage of fat kids walking by. They blame video games, television, food preservatives, and school lunches. But really who is to blame? Our own parents are the cause, of course. We learned how to parent from them didn´t´ we? And then we doubled their efforts so our kids would turn out twice as good. It´s the doubling that may be the problem.
Let´s first figure out why you are not exercising yourself, your kids, your dog or your mind.
So you say you can´t find 30 minutes to exercise?
Planning is everything, but sticking to your plan is even more important. So you can´t find 30 minutes to work out in your evening full of kids, homework, dinner, cleaning, taxi-cab service to sports practice and 1000 other tasks? Here´s my plan that works most of the time.
Get a large piece of paper or poster and plan a week or two ahead. Write in all of the drop offs, pick ups, dinners, projects, etc, that will happen in that week. It takes some thought, but gets easier every time you do it. Write in the time needed for each task next to it so you can spot free time. Now, have your kids help you so you don´t forget something crucial like a haircut or a play date. Sorry, my sarcasm sneaks in sometimes.
So you want 4 – 30 minute workouts this week? Is there a 1 hour gap from you getting home until dinner? Or a 2 hour span between soccer and the car-wash fundraiser? Jot in your appointment for yourself wherever you can. I allow myself an hour for a 40 minute workout, to prep and clean up afterwards. I make sure I have my clothes and shoes already waiting, my workout tape or portable radio handy, etc.. So I won´t use up my appointment time getting things together. Then when appointment time comes, stick to it. Just do it. You can. You just have to allow yourself that privilege sometimes. I am giving you permission.
No gaps you say? Well, let´s make some then. This weekend or during the week, while you are already cooking anyhow, make some make ahead dinners to free up some cooking time and exchange it for a little workout time. Here are some that I use nearly every week.
Basic Chicken and Rice Dish
(I make 3 on Sundays, then serve them on busy homework or sport nights, or even as a side dish.)
4-5 chicken breasts or thighs
2 ¼ cups boiling water
1 can tomatoes (I like Rotel Spicy Mexican Best)
1 cup uncooked rice
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
2 envelopes Lipton Onion Mushroom Soup Mix (or your favorite)
Place the chicken pieces in a 9x13 cake pan and bake skin side up for 30 minutes at 450. You can pre-season them, marinade them, or just bake them plain. It´s your choice. Lower the oven to 350. In a bowl, mix the remaining ingredients well. Pour over the chicken and bake 30 minutes longer at 350.
Serve or let cool and freeze/refrigerate for later use. Serve with flair. If you made a more Mexican type dish, serve with tortillas and a corn dish. If you made it with lemon pepper, serve with a salad. Variety is key. I like to make different ones and give them names. Like Curry Chicken with Rice ala Michael. Or Sean´s Italian Chicken Dish. They seem to like it too.
Beans are a staple in my home. We make them very often. One week it´s red beans and rice, the next might be pintos and ham, or black eyed peas and tomatoes. Whatever the bean or mix of beans, I usually buy them dried (cheaper) and soak them all night right in the crock pot, then season and cook ½ day on Sunday, then store in plastic containers for the week ahead. Mix with turkey ham and brown rice for a really easy meal.
Here´s a favorite recipe of mine for beans.
Best Pinto Bean Soup
3 cups dry Pinto Beans
2 thick slices Ham (reduced fat, healthy choice), cut up into chunks
1/2 cup diced Onions
1/2 cup diced Celery
1 can Tomato Sauce
1 can Tomato Soup, reduced everything
Salt, Pepper, and Vegetable Salt to taste
Cook beans with ham . When almost done, add remaining items. Add water as needed to make a medium thick soup. Best if started in a crock pot the night before, set to low - with just beans and ham. Add all else in the morning.
You can serve this with just about anything. I like corn bread with mine.
Here´s a healthy one.
Corn Bread Muffins
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 scoop unsweetened protein shake powder, soy based, see your local health food store (optional)
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt 4 Tbsp sugar or 6 packets of sweetener
1 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 cups soymilk
2 T. vegetable oil
Preheat your oven to 400°F and use fat free cooking spray on an 8"x8" square pan.
Combine flour, protein powder, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar, and chili powder
in a bowl, and set aside. Combine soymilk and oil in another bowl. Add the flour mixture
into soymilk mixture, stirring until just moistened and lumpy.
Don´t stir until smooth. Pour into baking pan and bake for 25 minutes. You can also
bake these in cup cake baking cups, or in mini muffin pans to serve with chili.
Also on the weekends I prepare salads for lunches and side dishes. Cutting up veggies for an hour is an arm workout anyhow right? Put everything in zipper bags and your salads all week will be a breeze.
Another time saver is burgers. I break out my George Foreman grill and cook up lots of burgers. Turkey ones for me, lean ground beef ones for the kids. I make enough for 2 dinners or more, and then put them all in zipper bags for later. Along with my salad fixins, all I need for burger night now is some buns and mayo.
There are many ways to find time to exercise, and cutting minutes in the kitchen is a simple one if you plan ahead. Frozen meals, either purchased, or created and frozen by you, are a great way to have dinner ready in minutes and control your fat and calorie intake, and still enjoy a sit down dinner with your family.
Other good ways are carpooling and kid sharing plans. If you have a friend or neighbor that can do a drop off, or share in a carpool, take advantage of that. You´ll be helping each other find some "Me Time" and get in a workout. Ask coaches, teachers, day care givers for help finding someone to share responsibilities with. It´s worth it.
What´s filling up your free time?
Phone calls? Turn on the machine and turn off the ringer for an hour.
Dishes? Get some paper plates and assign each child a dishes night for the rest.
Laundry? Do one batch each morning before work, and one right before going to bed every night. Fold and hang right from the dryer to avoid ironing and sorting later.
You might not be able to find all of the time you´d like at first but with a little schedule finagling you will find it.
Exercising With Your Kids
(Excerpt from my Having Healthy Kids eBook – only $6.99 – email me.) Cynthia.wilkinson@us.army.mil
"But Mom, I can´t walk that fast!" This is my most often heard complaint from my younger boys. I´m walking too fast for them to have any fun walking with me. I walk at least 2 miles nearly every day. I have to, I want to, they don´t. So to exercise with kids, I have to make it fun. I want them to come along; it motivates me to walk longer because I´m not worried about what trouble they are creating at home in my absence. I´ve assembled a few pointers that make it easier and more enjoyable for them to join me.
Let them race with you, but riding on their scooters or bicycles, so keeping up is easier, and it´s much more fun to "win" against Mom, than tag along behind her.
Walk to an interesting place, like the park or the library, even an arcade, or close friends´ home. Stopping half way to play a little is great for their interest levels. Make your destination a place that takes at least 20 minutes of walking to get there.
Visit a nature trail together, and learn something while you walk. Call your local chamber of commerce to find nature hikes and trails in your area.
Sing "traveling" songs while you hike together. Row, row, row your boat, keeps your mind off of the sweating you are doing. Marching songs are great too. Take turns picking songs to sing.
Everyone put on their roller skates or roller blades and take your walk on wheels. Now that´s a workout. Don´t forget your helmets and knee pads.
Bring the baby and the stroller, and take turns pushing it. Carry your insulated diaper bag filled with juice boxes and bottled water in the stroller. They will stay much cooler in there.
Walking with kids is a great way to interact with them more and still get quite a workout.
I like trying other activities with my boys as well. The normal baseball tossing and bike riding can be fun, but creativity will strike up more interest with them. Kids bore pretty easily with routine, so I tried an experiment that turned out to be totally "rad" with my boys. First I brought them along to help me purchase a dance type exercise video. Then I found my video camera and taped all the kids and myself doing an exercise video together for the first time. We did it 2 or 3 times a week for a month. At the end of four weeks, I taped us all doing it again, in step this time, and we could see each other´s improvements in coordination and stamina. It was great to show them a before and after view, it demonstrated to them how practice does make perfect, and how much fun it is together. We weren´t the Back Street Boys, but the video had newer music and cool steps that they claim they will never use on a dance floor when I´m not around. It´s also helped one of them beat that getting out of bed on time problem he had developed. Now he had a good reason to get up early. Next I plan to try a kick boxing type video with them. I´d better get a facemask and some shin guards for this experiment.
You know your kids and you know what might spark their interests. So I urge you to try many different things with them. You can get a great workout teaching them basic tennis skills, or simply playing basketball in your driveway. Keeping them involved will help to keep you hiking down your own diet path.
Other things that might help to spark their aerobic natures:
New shoes for exercising! I hit a great sale and got 6 pairs of tennis shoes for less than $70. They will last a decent amount of time if they are set aside only for exercising.
Create a chart and have a pushup competition every Sunday night before dinner. Chart their progress and award the one that shows the most improvement with a new muscle shirt. Even if it´s you.
Buy them a pedometer and / or an odometer. Two of my boys wear them all day long, to see who can go the furthest each day, and who can run the fastest. Competition is a healthy motivator.
Get a portable cassette player and a new tape of their choice of music. Take turns wearing it and turn it loud enough for their fellow walkers to listen to too. Or, get everybody their own set.
(Excerpt from my Having Healthy Kids eBook – only $6.99 – email me.)
Cynthia.wilkinson@us.army.mil
