I talked about Mom Fitness yesterday and as it’s Friday and we’re going into the weekend, I wanted to throw in a discussion about your parental fitness. With Mother’s Day on Sunday, there’s never been a better time to evaluate your personal parental fitness. When you are passionately engaged in your life and you are healthy and performing a regular regimen of physical fitness – your children are more likely to be engaged as well.
For example, every day when I work out, my daughter comes to exercise with me. We have conversations every day about what’s healthy and what’s not. One of the best conversations we had recently is when she asked me why I wasn’t drinking mochas anymore. I told her – I wasn’t sure – I just didn’t seem to want them anymore (thank you Abs Diet!) and she said, maybe the reason I didn’t was because it was healthier for me.
Your Health, Your Family’s Health
When you are a parent, you know that your children’s health is the most important thing in the world. You are up late at night nursing them when they are ill. You take days off from work when you need to. You skip going out for fun when your children need you. But looking after your own health is as vital to your children as looking after theirs.
You see, when you look after your health – it improves your opportunities for being around when they are older. We can’t help our kids if we aren’t here. We can’t help them if we’re sick all the time. We really can’t help them if they are having to take care of us because we aren’t healthy enough to do it. So take better care of yourself, get early disease detection through health screenings, eat well, exercise regularly and live well. Your whole family will benefit.
Keep Your Chin Up
As Moms, even when we’re sad or we’re feeling bad – we perk up for our kids. We smile, even when we’re not sure what we’re smiling about – we make jokes, even when the last thing we feel like doing is joking – we get up and we get active when all we want to do is take a nap. When we do this, our kids know we’re there for them and they don’t know about our problems. This is important to their emotional health, but it is also important to your own.
When you are down and you can’t shake it – even for your kids – you will feel guilty. Guilt doesn’t help you and it can actually make you more depressed. If you feel like you can’t shake depression, seek out health from your spouse, your friends or a medical professional. Emotional fitness is as important to your children as your physical fitness.
Parental fitness is about you and your family. You say you’ll do anything for your kids – living better and incorporating fitness into your life is good for your family. So if you’ll do anything for them – what are you waiting for?