My wife and I have four kids, ages 8, 6, 4, and 3. I know people who used to have sculpted muscles and beautiful, young bodies–until they got married, had kids, and soon found themselves hiding under a fluffy layer of sedentary buildup that some people accurately call fat. I am kind of like those people. I didn’t have a sculpted body before I got married, but I certainly became a bit fluffy.
Before I got married, I was an active marathon runner who had just set the goal of running a marathon each year. A few years into this goal, I found a beautiful partner, got married, became too busy in my education for regular exercise, and therefore fattened up over the next few years. I would still run a marathon each year, but these marathons were not pretty. Each rocky, untrained marathon did nothing for my overall health. It only reminded me that I no longer had my pre-marriage, active, much healthier body and lifestyle. The peak of this glorious era was a six-hour marathon. Although I finished, it was nothing to brag about. At one point, as I walked in pain, I was the very last marathon runner. Anyone behind me had already dropped out or passed out–and taken by the paramedics and taken in for medical attention or revival.
I found my first job in a cold, small town in Idaho called Rexburg, with 2 kids and 3 years of law school freshly under my belt (or my growing gut). Maybe I told myself I was too busy with kids to truly care about my body. I was unknowingly and slowly preparing for my Santa Claus audition–or my meeting with heart disease. Then one month, I was blessed with a new challenge. My oldest kid formed a habit of waking up incredibly early, well before the sun came up. Often, being the great husband I am, I let my wife sleep on while I vegetated on the couch with my boy. Soon both boys were awake, and I would try to screen out some mindless television show my sons were watching–probably Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney Channel–as I tried to fall asleep on the couch, the sun soon peeking into our basement windows. I’m not sure how many mornings I endured this routine before deciding that I’d had enough. I was going to put our jogger to use. (You know that contraption that most young, healthy parents buy and store behind all the boxes in the garage? Never really used? Yeah, one of those things.)
I slowly formed an awesome habit that not only made me feel great but helped create awesome memories with my boys. Instead of watching Mickey dance and sing each morning, I was excited when my boys woke up. It was time to run. In fact, I began returning the favor to my boys. If not both were up when it was time to run, I’d sometimes wake one and get the routine going: letting my boys watch–instead of the Disney channel–a couple miles of houses and farmland pass by on the way to what we called “Duck Pond” where we would rest, throw rocks into the pond (what kid doesn’t like this?), and return home in time for me to get ready for work. I preformed this routine in crisp summer mornings, in rain, and in the snow of Rexburg’s famously bitter winters.
Neighbors probably thought I was inhumane to do this to my kids, but I learned to keep them warm and entertained, and if for some reason I didn’t put them in a stroller in the morning, they’d ask me to. They loved the runs to Duck Pond.
Fast forward a couple years later, I had built myself into one of the best marathon training routines of my life, done almost entirely while pushing two young boys through hundreds of miles of Idaho neighborhoods and farmlands.. It wasn’t always pretty. My boys often screamed, got cold, and fought, and they almost always whined at some point. I sometimes had to use incentives and creative games to make the runs enjoyable for all of us, but overall, we all loved our regular jogger runs, including my wife who got a good chunk of kid-free personal time each day.
I now consciously look for ways to stay active and healthy despite having kids. In fact, my perspective has changed. I sometimes believe that it is because of my kids that I am healthier. Indeed, it was trying to find a better use of my time with my kids that motivated me to get out of the house and into a real-world adventure that Micky Mouse, bless his heart, just could not provide. And as my kids grow older, they are becoming more of participants than observers to these activity (and my wife’s activity). It’s a wonderful and sometimes terrible experience taking kids out into the world to do something active and physically healthy, defying the urge to stay sedentary at home. It requires a certain level of insanity, I sometimes believe. But it is awesome, and both parents and kids can learn to love it.
So here I am, sharing what I’ve learned and experienced, striving to be active in the process of raising young children. What I share is almost entirely anecdotal. It’s about my kids and family and our experience. It isn’t a scientific study to be relied upon by all parents striving for healthy kids and families. It tracks my ups and downs, my failures and successes, and my gut, which grows and slims as I continually battle the urge to be lazy while raising my kids. Take what you want from it, hopefully a few laughs. My main message to whoever reads (and to myself) is that having kids should not be an excuse to become fat and inactive. Rather, bringing kids into the world should give us even more motivation to stay healthy–to get us and our families out into the world as active human beings.
For me, the initial catalyst for being active with my kids was running (i.e. pushing two toddler boys in a jogger). I haven’t limited myself, however, to just running.
Love it!