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#DadFit Week 3

Project #DadFit – Week 3: You Win Some, You Lose Some

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Here is a list of all the things I did wrong this week.

1. I had chips and cake at work and then immediately listened to the Model Health Show podcast and felt extremely guilty.
2. I ate pizza, waited an hour and a half and then went for a run. Because of the pizza, I had to stop for half way due to abdominal pain. And, because I had already run 2.5K, I had to walk 2.5K home with abdominal pain.
3. Donuts, Pizza, Hot Dogs, Cinnamon Buns, Beer, Wings & Fries…

Now, looking back on all of these things, I feel terrible about what I have done to my body this week. For what it’s worth, I used to be a lot worse and actually showed restraint in a few different cases. That said, here is the list of things I did that I wasn’t doing three weeks ago.

1. Ran/Walked a total of 11.5K.
2. Started the P90X3 program from Beachbody and have completed 3 days so far. In fact, I almost bailed on tonight’s workout, yoga, but guilt took over and I powered through it. For someone who used to give up when things would get tough, this was a big step for me. Also, yoga is hard.
3. I went to the gym to do weight training three times this week.
4. I made my first ever trip to Farm Boy and stuffed my body with healthy foods all week (think of it as a counter balance to all the crap I mentioned eating above).

As disappointed as I am in myself for eating all the crappy food, I am more proud of myself for sticking to my workout plan and slowly starting to fit in some healthier food options. I was also sick towards the end of the week, which caused me to get a little down on myself, which led to the cinnamon buns…

Point is, if I can stick to this stuff, anybody can do this. Seriously, I used to occupy a bullet point under “lazy” in the dictionary. Take small steps, make your mistakes and soldier on. It has only gotten slightly easier physically but now that I have my brain telling me that it won’t let me quit, I feel more confident than ever. I’ll be keeping you all posted on how the P90X3 stuff is going and hope to have some videos to share soon.

Rock on!

The Important Lesson I Taught My Son

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Recently I wrote about how picky my son is when it comes to eating food. I also mentioned that he didn’t extend the picky behaviour only to dinner items but to desserts too.

While reading through all your excellent comments and recommendations, I noticed that Jennifer from Mom vs The Boys made a good point about my boy not liking Ice Cream and I set out to rectify the situation.

I’m a Dad. My job is to teach my kids stuff. Learning how to enjoy a delicacy like ice cream, I believe, is one of my jobs and an important one at that.

I actually hadn’t realized just how important it was until we got to the ice cream shop. I managed to get my son to taste my chocolate ice cream, so he could see that it tasted like chocolate milk, his favorite.

He immediately asked for his own cone and we were off and running!

He treated the ice cream as if it was a trick I was playing on him. As if any moment, a dragon was going to pop out of it and eat him. Holding it in his fingertips and taking licks so small, that it almost looked like he wasn’t eating it at all.

But the ice cream was disappearing and soon he was stuck staring at a half empty cone.

I know what you’re thinking…”What is this guy talking about? You don’t teach a kid to eat ice cream, you just eat it!”

Wrong! What happened next is proof of my heroic act of Daddyism!

Staring down at the vast emptiness the cone had to offer, my son then asked me “What now Daddy? Am I done?”

In that moment, I realized that I had more to offer than simply teaching him that ice cream is delicious. “Why no my boy, you can eat the cone too!”, I responded with joy.

I’m not lying when I tell you that we then spent a good 15 minutes going over cone eating techniques. My son then went to work, in what I can only describe as the slowest cone eating adventure there has even been.

It didn’t bother this Dad one bit. He ate the whole ice cream cone (without spilling in the car) and I couldn’t have been more proud of him!

I’m finding that, with parenting, even the small victories are still victories. Up until a week ago, my son had scoffed at ice cream, especially if it came in a weird crunchy cup.

And I know it was only an ice cream cone and I shouldn’t be proud about my kids eating junk, but I am and I’m not sorry about it. Every step they take in discovering something new is an exciting experience for a parent and I was happy to be a part of this one!

Have you ever been excited or proud of your kids about something others might see as a small or non existent feat? Share it in the comments below!