Shoot The Moose

My 11 year old stepson is starting to get on the flabby side despite playing baseball damn near year round. He is fairly sedentary with his Ninetendo DS, as well as his PSP, taking up his spare time. His weight is starting to become a problem, as far as self-image and avoiding being teased by his skinny brother.

I've put on thirty pounds over the last three years and have gotten sedentary myself now that I'm forty. Stupid blog.

So, this week, we have started a workout program together. We are going to get our metabolisms in a fat burning mode. Pushups, situps, light weight training for tone and some cardio (brisk walks and jogs)to start with. We do this in a room that we now call our "training room". The weights can be purchased fairly cheaply at Play it Again Sports or WalMart. That's the only real expense.

The secret phase two that he doesn't know about yet, will be the elimination of junk foods and sugar from his daily intake. That will be the big challenge.

As we started this yesterday, I have no success story to share.
 

This kind of broke my heart. It was a gutsy thing to write about, to be sure. My children are not overweight, but my girl inherited her Mother's stature, so she will be prone to weight problems if she does not continue to eat like she is being taught at home. The most important thing you can decrease is sugar. More to the point, anything with high fructose corn syrup, which means practically everything. Eliminate sodas, and fruit drinks that contain it. It will be rough for a week or so, but I promise you, you will also notice a real turn-around in their energy levels, and sleep habits, not mention behavior. Huge difference. Active is difficult without active friends, or parents to help goad. I don't know if any of this helps, but I couldn't ignore the post. Good luck, and good health.
 

I wish I could help.

The only suggestion I could make is basically going to echo Mr. Mack - cutting out sodas and fried foods did wonders for me. I stopped injesting those for a couple of weeks while the rest of my diet stayed the same and dropped about 10 pounds seemingly instantaneously. You don't realize how much of that stuff you eat until you stop.

Hopefully you'll have a success story for us soon!
 

Mr Mack, do you think it would be better to switch to diet sodas, or cut them out altogether? I've had some people tell me that diet sodas are counter-productive. I just don't know.

Sarcasto - I LIKE the idea of a "training room"! It's got to be fun - and my son is always picking up the weights at WalMart to show me how strong he is (BTW he's strong as a horse; too bad I can't get him into football). I AM seriously thinking about telling him he can only play his DS while on the treadmill :)
 

Our pediatrician said not to even give the kids 2% milk!! Too high in fat he said. Yikes...I left worried, but bought the 1% and what do you know! Not one of them batted an eye...just kept using it over cereal and even by itself. Wouldn't it be cool, if when you took your child to a party...there wasn't a hotdog or pizza in sight? That is a problem you face when you are doing it right at home.
 

First step, cut out the sodas all together. And please make sure that any juices you have are not sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup. If Zaphod really loves soda, offer him ONE a week as a dessert option ONLY.

Second step, allow one dessert option per day. Either a fun-size candy bar (70-90 calories) or a scoop of ice cream (75-95 calories, but with calcium) or 8oz of soda (80 calories, but only once a week.) The desert option caps off the day, is a treat to look forward to and keeps everyone from feeling deprived.

Third step, limit video game time to 30 minutes a night, 1 hour a night on weekends. Make another 30 minutes a day of videogame time a "reward" for good behaviour. This still caps vid time at an hour per day, tops.

As for fun foods, try any "build your own" foods, but make the components lower fat. (most) Kids LOVE the experience of assembling their food. It gives them a sense of control. This way you can continue to allow food to be "fun" but not as fattening. And you can promote family togetherness time. And oddly enough, most children consume MORE vegetables when preparing foods this way.

Some suggestions:
Tacos with ground turkey and "dry-fried" (no oil) shells. Reduced fat cheese also works here.

Pizza with reduced fat cheese, reduced fat pepperoni and lots of veggie options.

Omelets with 1/2 egg and 1/2 egg white base, reduced fat cheeses and meats.

Baked chicken strips with pick-your-own-toppings (reduced fat cheese, veggies, ketchup --kids have awful taste--mustard, honey.)

Encourage exercise by allowing a type of exercise that can be done at home in front of the TV. Kids can feel like they're "cheating" on the limited TV rule, while still getting movement in. Exercise bikes, weight benches and treadmills are good examples.

And of course, don't foget the secret weapon of every parent who wants their kid to get moving. Yes. That's right.

Dance Dance Revolution.

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These suggestions may not all work for your children, but they work for many children, including this particular 36 year old child who has lost 22 lbs in the last 13 weeks.
 

Kat - Thank you thank you thank you! Great ideas.

The video game limit won't be too much of a problem, what with 2-4 hours of homework a night (I think that actually contributes to our sedentary problem)

The omlette idea - I never would have thought of a 1/2 egg white base - brilliant! My kids love omlettes.

Dance Dance Revolution - is that the PS2 game that comes with a mat?
I might try that one myself!

Thanks, again.
 

When I "inherited" my stepdaughters, they were accustomed to having junk food all the time. Slowly, I've replaced it with healthy foods they like- Yoplait Yogurt Whips, sliced green apples, granola bars, mandarin oranges, etc. Now, we rarely have junk food in the house.

I think if you do it gradually and make sure the healthy foods are ones he likes, it won't seem so restrictive and he won't balk. There really are a lot of healthy options now at the grocery, packaged so that kids will eat them.
 

Slart,

The funny thing about the "traing room" gym is that it is just their plain old room with a weight bench and some dumbells. Giving it the special nomenclature adds the right amount of motivation.

In fact, I got the "Can we work out when we get home?" in the car this afternoon.
 

At 10, I started teaching my stepdaughter to cook. At her mother's house she gets a lot of prepackaged foods so staying with us all summer can be kind of shocking to her system. In order to encourage healthy food choices I involve her in the meal process. Not only with menu planning, but with the actual preparation, if it's a simple meal I try to let her take over as much as possible. I have found the more invested she is in a meal the less she complains.

My mother didn't teach us to cook and I think we missed out on some very important life skills. (I learned in the restaurant industry and have since carried it over and become a nutrition nerd.)
 

I come from a house divided -- one sedentary blob (me), one half-marathoner (my husband), and a young daughter who is the classic profile (smart, perfectionist, competitive, dancer) for eating disorders. So we've got some of the same issues. I have chosen to focus on health rather than weight or appearance because that seems the route least likely to convince my daughter that she "needs" to starve herself out of existence so that she doesn't wind up like her pudgy nerd mom.

DanceDance Rev is highly recommended. You can go head-to-head (always fun to outdo the parent) and kids don't seem to recognize dance as a form of exercise. We play it at the Y -- our Y has a very good "tween" program that is more than the drop-in day care, so I think programming changes once the kids get over the age of 8. The boys who are your son's age are very into kickboxing and Taekwando, sports that allow them to wale on one another without adults getting mad.

We walk everywhere we can, making family hikes the weekend entertainment. This only works IF you don't drive by McDonalds on the way home. Pack a car snack of vegetables or something to tide you over or you will sabotage yourself. If you tend to eat in the car -- like on the way home from school or in transit -- pack some high-fiber Kashi bars to hand back so that there's no whinage about "why can't we go to Burger King?" There's divided thoughts on diet soda. The nutritionist I work with is pretty much down on them or "replacement" foods in general. I use flavored sparkling water instead.

For the first six weeks, concentrate on the easy switches. 1 tbsp of peanut butter rather than two -- same flavor, but a lot less calories. Mustard instead of mayo -- or even tomato and lettuce instead of mayo. Replace some of the ground beef in the chili with ground turkey or with soy crumbles or with beans. Reducing portion size (don't serve a ten-year-old what you serve an adult) will help. Serve a hot soup course (call it a warm-up snack) or a cup of hot tea while the dinner is fixing -- prolongs the pleasure of social interaction while fixing hydration and fullness early in the meal. Change the grazing snacks -- vegetables, a banana -- and get the unwanted stuff out of the house. The hard bottom line here (which you've already acknowledged) is that kids don't have ultimate jurisdiction over what's available, so you'll have to do some food editing for the collective health of the family.

Good luck.