In March my 10 year old daughter had her annual checkup and the doctor asked me how much physical activity she does in a week. She started describing all of the exercise she gets, gym class twice a week for an hour, team sports two days a week with her school, playing tag or manhunt at recess for 30 minutes every day and once a week she plays harry potter themed games through H.P. League after school for about 2 hours. I was impressed (and secretly relieved, because I was expecting to be embarrassed about it being none). Then I realized that all of the exercise she gets is during the week and at school. This also means that she does not get any regular exercise at home or on the weekends. We go biking, hiking and skiing every once in a while, but is that really enough? And is this meaningful in the long term? She enjoys sports now and is very active but once she gets a little older there won’t be tag at recess and she won’t keep automatically making it onto every team she tries out for (lack of competition). What she really needs is to form lifelong habits and a deep love and appreciation for exercise. I know many people who were active in school teams and as soon as those team sports ended they didn’t find a new activity to replace them with, leading to a lot of disappointment in adulthood. One day they’re that person that says “You should have seen me in high school! I was so fit! I don’t know what happened?” We all know what happened, you continued to eat like athletes but not exercise like athletes. We all have reasons and excuses for why this happens or how it happens or whose fault it was that this happened. But in reality it is just what happens unless you make an effort to prevent it. Teenagers have more energy and lack full time jobs that take up all of their time so it’s pretty damned easy for them to stay in shape, adults, not so much.

So I decided that it is up to me to demonstrate to her a commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

I have never really exercised but I’m not exactly sedentary either. I walk up the stairs at home every time I need to go to the bathroom. I do yard work when my boyfriend refuses and I walk whenever I have to (there are two cars in our household so I don’t “need” to walk often). I do sit on a resistance ball both in the office and at home. Also I will go hiking, biking, swimming, skiing and whatever else comes up. But that’s really more because there is a social aspect and let’s be honest usually a drink with friends afterwards or in some cases during. But I do not exercise for exercise. I’ve been to the gym and I found it dreadful. There are machines and repetitive exercises. I didn’t know what to do or have a routine to follow so I walked around aimlessly trying to decide which machine looked appealing for my next exercise, which by the way was always none. This was how I used my 6 free years of gym membership during university, 3 really confused visits getting the majority of my exercise by walking between the machines. I did however purchase enough exercise outfits for a lifetime (thanks Costco for the “Tuff” brand of less expensive Lululemon lookalike gear). I have never joined a boot camp because let’s be honest who wants to get yelled at first thing in the morning (or ever?) and also I really do enjoy sleeping past 5am… I have never joined an exercise class because I feel like that’s really awkward and embarrassing. I have tried home exercises on the resistance ball but I am often compelled to drink wine while exercising and doing balancing activities can (likely will) result in injuries after a drink or two. My poor coccyx (a real body part and not a dirty one)! There was a mass purchase of hula hoops and skipping rope so that I could exercise and have fun with friends at parties. The novelty of this wears off. You whip it out once and everyone is having a blast and laughing their asses off. The second time you try this your friends will look at you as if instead of saying “let’s jump rope and hula hoop” you have actually offered to tweeze their armpit hair or something else really awful.

So here is my dilemma. How do I show my 10 year old daughter that exercise is fun and integral in your life when I myself would rather be lounging on the couch and watching Breaking Bad for the second time around? I cut her a deal. The amount of exercise you get in a day is the amount of screen time you get in that day as well. Non-transferrable between days and the exercise must come first. Oddly she agrees, I chicken out and say this rule only applies to her because I need to be at a screen for work ;-). Pulled a fast one! We move on.

My recently retired ex-in-laws invited us to join them for a Zumba class. Despite being morbidly petrified of dancing in public I agree because I am proving a point to my daughter and teaching a life lesson (do things despite shame and fear of the unknown). Also I assume it will be easy and I won’t be embarrassed because the class will be full of old(er) people. I arrive and I am wrong. It is people of all ages and our instructor is either a very early greying 20 year old or a fit as hell 40 year old. She is so fit that I am instantly intimidated! After 8 months in her class I must say she moves like a maniac and she is working on her Masters (so 20’s?) but has also worked as a teacher (40’s?) – the age thing is still really unclear! It is so unbelievably inspiring and liberating because I am a terrible dancer but at Zumba I don’t feel lost to the music (bad), I get lost in the music (good)! My daughter comes with me to a class every week for about 3 months and attends a 2-hour Zumba-Thon before finally throwing in the towel and saying she doesn’t want to join next time because it’s not her thing. Which is ok. As long as she is open to exercising and continues to do it who cares in what form it comes. I am now doing Zumba classes 3 times a week and it’s often the highlight of my day!

 

We also decide to try jogging. It’s free (more on this later), no one’s watching you (more on this later), you can do this at your own pace (this is actually accurate), and finally it should be pretty easy (more on this now). So one day my daughter and I went out and jogged for 7 minutes. I was so impressed! I could not believe it! I used to smoke, this is unreal! I have lungs of steel and I rock! So the next day we ran again. Same thing, 7 minutes. I was just in shock at how well I was holding up. This is so easy, why have I never considered this before? So I run a few more times and I am eventually running 15 minutes a day! One spring night I am with Girl Guides at Fort York for a sleepover and decide to go for a run. We are however locked up in a Fort so I can’t just go out running so I end up doing circles around the museum on grass, 23 minutes! As I am clearly invincible I recruit a few friends to commit to a race with me so that I have a foreseeable deadline and a purpose for training. We came up with a date, Terry Fox run, 10km, September 14th. Over half a year to go, local, no minimum donation. Perfect. I secretly pushed for this because my ex-mother-in-law always participates in the Terry Fox walk with her work and my daughter always goes with her so why not go with family and friends? We sign up. Then I find out this isn’t the same race so now I have to commit to an additional separate race day with the family – the day before. Damn!

As I have now convinced myself that I am a professional runner – I need to get an app. Turns out there’s many apps for that. I download “Map My Run” (free version). I use it… It turns out I SUCK! Apparently I am running 3-3.5 kilometers in these 15-23 minute runs and most people don’t flinch until 5km. I am coming home drenched in sweat and thinking I might die but what I am doing is actually most people’s warm up. Depressing, but at least now I have a goal and a deadline. I get my hubby on board with ulterior motives (more on this later). The first time we run 5 kilometers, I call everyone I know and send them screenshots of our accomplishment (apparently this annoys non-runners, but too bad for them). This takes me 30 minutes and I am thrilled. But then it dawns on me that if 5km takes 30 minutes this means I have committed myself to at least one hour of running for a 10km. I google this and it turns out I am right. I can’t fathom a whole hour of running. It makes me nauseous just thinking about it (even now). But I persist and it helps that one of my running buddies runs fast and appears to think we are in a competition so ever since that first screen shot I am now being bombarded with “motivational” screen shots urging me to run longer/further the next day.

 

 

People ARE watching you run. And if they’re not it SUCKS because they are likely to either get in your way or run you over. You have to be really aware of what pedestrians, bikes and vehicles are doing. Which is hard when you’re in the zone with music blasting in your ears and adrenaline pumping through your blood. However other runners often smile and acknowledge each other and people often give you a giant smile when you pass by. It’s actually pretty motivational. Also when you start running you will start noticing just how many other runners there are! It’s a huge community that you have now infiltrated! Yippee!

In April I booked us for a June weekend trip to a Zombie Survival Camp for our anniversary. I instantly realized this would require running and physical activity. He already thought we were going to a spa so he definitely didn’t expect to be running but I had to make sure that he was somehow prepared. What better than convincing him to run for exercise with me? The camp was just all around awesome. We’ve been once more since and plan on going again next year. But being able to run fast and long added an exhilarating touch to the experience that I am sure would not have been as satisfying if we were gassed after a few minutes of sprinting through  the forest. More to come on this in the future 🙂

By the time my 5km (preparation race) came around the actual purpose of this endeavour somehow got lost on me. My daughter was still doing her own thing but now I was exercising every day and trying to make it to my 10km challenge. I actually fell in love with the feeling I got when I exercised. I am high afterwards and it is well worth the inconvenience in my schedule, the waking up early and having to arrange weekends around it. I feel more emotionally stable, I don’t explode or feel volatile in stressful situations. I feel more alert and awake after a morning run even though I actually had to wake up an hour earlier than usual to fit it into my schedule. I am more energetic during the day and I sleep better at night. Overall I function on a completely different level. I am just a more grounded, happy and healthy person with exercise in my life. I even like myself more lately (and I already really liked myself before)! After making exercise a part of your life you feel guilty skipping it. Instead of finding excuses not to exercise I find myself looking for excuses and opportunities to exercise. I went on vacation and ran at least every second day. I injured my knee and had to take a bried break and missed it. At one point my daughter even told us that she likes us more when we exercise! She decided running was not her forte but she continued all of her team sports at school and was actually (mostly) sticking to the screen-time to exercise-time ratio we had agreed upon. During the summer she was in a sports camp so she had a ratio of twice as much exercise to screen time on most days!

 

And then the time came:

 

During the 5km walk/run she started out by walking with her grandparents but after a minute or so she decided to give running another shot. She ran the rest of the way and was first in her age category (33:52)! Who rocks? Apparently we do! I came in second in my category (27:36), YAY!

Our next challenge was a 10km race (the next day). While this is an extremely exhausting way to spend a weekend it was so worth it. The 10km race was a little less organized but it was free to join so that can be expected. My daughter asked if she could run this one too even though she wasn’t registered. I checked and it was fine. I was a little worried about myself being unprepared after 6 months of training and yet she had only run a few times the whole year, how was she going to do this? This is when my initial goal caught up to me. I wanted to show my daughter that exercise is fun and integral to your life. I wanted her to internalize a love for physical activity and here she was begging to run a 10km race unprepared! Mission has definitely been accomplished 😀

Side note: David Miller was there and he runs fast! Also the worst part of this race was the uphill component. No one wants to run uphill. It’s awful. Just don’t do it.

When I saw my daughter running towards that finish line a second day in a row I had an epiphany. The goal was to teach her that exercise is not some unobtainable concept, it is something that we can all and should all integrate into our lives. However my main realization was that I also realized  that exercising is an important part of having a good relationship with our bodies. I generally eat well, I quit smoking many years ago and I cut back on caffeine. Since I started exercising, I, an adult, look at myself differently in the mirror. I started relating to my body in a way that I never had never even considered before. My body’s purpose is not to look a certain way but to feel a certain way and enable me to act a certain way. I now see the muscles that make me move not the fat that gets in the way of tight pants. I feel the strength and power in my body not the jiggly parts and it gives me pride because I worked for it and I did it. I have a sense of accomplishment but also an overwhelming appreciation for the things my body is capable of. My body gets me through a run, it gets me through dancing, it gets me through long swims and it gets me past obstacles I never dreamed of. It’s primary function is to get me moving through the day and for that I am grateful! All I can hope is that my daughter can relate to her body in this way someday.

My daughter has stopped running with me and is now on a new sport at school every few months. She still comes home declaring how much physical activity she got. And she admits (albeit guiltily) when she didn’t do any. Sometimes she’ll even suggest we go for a walk because she sat around all day and other days she says I am really lazy today and I really don’t want to do anything. And that’s fine as well – as long as it never again becomes the standard.

I strongly believe that setting an example for your children is the most effective parenting approach. I thrive to be what I hope my daughter to be. I can’t say for sure that this will stick with her or me forever or even for a while but I am definitely embracing the (expensive, time consuming and exhilarating) change in all of our lives for now!

I am booked for a half marathon (21.09km) in May 2015 and hope to do a full marathon some day!