Kirk and Susan

Here here to Karen and her advice on portions....That is how I lost and
still am losing/maintaining my weight after the last baby (4 years
ago). That and exercise. Heidi, you said you were undermoving, maybe
you and your Daughter could find some form of exercise to do together.
My boys (8 and 4) try to do some "exercise" everyday to "keep our hearts
healthy". Right now my older son is really into Yoga which probably
isn't doing his heart any good, but it is beneficial in other ways...Is
there any chance your daughter is eating because of emotional reasons?
Bored, stressed, lonely, anxious? My 4 year old will eat carrots and
yogurt all day and leave the cookies to his brother. But even the 8
year old leaves those for fruits and peanut butter most of the time, so
while I say I have an open kitchen policy, our choices are also
mostly"healthy" choices....certainly the ones within reach...and so far
I haven't had to be concerned about what they are eating...just to let
you know from what point of view I am coming....

Susan in IL

the_clevengers

--- In [email protected], Kirk and Susan
<kirkandsusan@c...> wrote:
>
> That and exercise. Heidi, you said you were undermoving, maybe
> you and your Daughter could find some form of exercise to do
> together.

This is a great suggestion - for both kids and adults! As a family,
we are very active and personally I know that I feel better
emotionally and eat way better when I stay active. When I am really
in active training (I do triathlons in the summer), I almost *can't*
eat sweet foods. They no longer taste good to me. It's very odd
(since usually I love my ice cream and chocolate!)

Some things we do over the course of the week:

- Homeschool gymnastics day (we rent out a big gymnastics place and
the kids have the run of it)
- Bicycling - if we go somewhere, we often bicycle. Both of my kids
(8 & 5) have been bicycling with me for years (we have a kid's
tandem attachment) and even my daughter (5) can go 7 or 8 miles on
her little 1-speed bike
- Walking - we have a little corner market we can walk down to.
Often if the weather is nice, we sit out and eat a popsicle or I
read the comics to them from the paper
- Swimming - we made a commitment to do at least one family swim
night a week. We often take some of the kids' friends along and they
all have a blast. They can easily spend an hour or two in the pool.
- Mini-trampoline - we just have one of these in the house, for
whenever the kids want to use it
- Kids' track meets and fun runs. Well, we do live in "Track Town
USA" so we are lucky there. There are lots of kids runs and the
local track club sponsors a kids' track meet once a week in the
summer. They use the big real stadium at Hayward Field where greats
like Steve Prefontaine have competed and they can do any of the
track and field events they want.
- Just getting out and playing. Often we'll take gloves, mitts, and
bats out to the cul-de-sac, or a soccer ball, or chalk and mark out
a hopscotch game, or just go swing on the swings.

These are all things we love to do and do for fun, so the kids stay
pretty active most of the time. Of course, they also have plenty of
indoor time and activities too. I think when kids feel active and
strong and healthy, it's great for their emotional health and also
they tend to eat healthily to fuel their bodies.

Blue Skies,
-Robin-