You're Not Lazy, You're a Parent

There's a guy who lives across the street from me who is someone I like to call Fit Dad. As you might expect, Fit Dad is fit and a dad. He's got a great family, great wife, great kids, great house, and he looks great. You can tell he enjoys eating right, exercising, and caring for his health.

A lot of what Fit Dad does out side he does without a shirt. He mows his lawn, he cleans out his garage, he plays with his kids, he exercises- all without a shirt. One day I saw him drag out a kiddy pool for his kids into the front yard and then pull out all of his workout equipment, a bench free weights, jump rope everything, and proceed to workout intensely.

Ladies were jogging by and stumbling over their feet as this man worked on his physique. Now, I can't blame him. If you look like that and you work that hard, you should show it off if you want. My problem is I don't think Fit Dad should exist. Before I learned about Fit Dad,

I thought it was only possible to either have a great body or a great family, not both.

If you focus on one, you are going to start neglecting the other just by default. There's no way you can do both, but Fit Dad has proven me wrong. Since first observing Fit Dad, our families have spent some time together and it turns out that everything I imagined about him is true. In addition to the physique, he is kind, successful, a CEO of a cool company, and thriving. He’s the kind of guy that is super likable, and somehow that makes it all so much worse. I wish he was a jerk, but this not the case. When taking his girls for a walk he often stops by to invite our kids to play for a few minutes. He is considerate, attentive to his children, and neighborly. I wish I could hate him, but I can’t.

There probably is a Fit Dad or Mom in your neighborhood as well that makes you feel awful without them even trying. Their goal isn’t to make you feel bad, but they make you feel like garbage simply by existing. When you're at the park with your kids, once they start playing by themselves, you might check out on your phone just to kind of cope with the chaos of the day. Well, Fit Dad or Mom this is the parent across the way who is doing burpees or jogging around or maybe actually playing with their kids and using them as a bench press or whatever. These are the parents who make you feel bad.

Or maybe it's in the morning when you shove your kids out of the car with all their stuff at the school drop off line. You take a big long sip of that drink that is equal parts coffee and cinnamon bun flavored creamer. And then you look out and you see Fit Dad or Mom walk their kids to school, give them a kiss on the cheek, say goodbye, and then set their Apple Watch to go on a jog. These are the people who are just unreal to me. I can't believe they're actually exist, but they do.

You might be a frustrated with this as I was, because we spent our entire lives trying to let go of the idea that we could look perfect. Growing up, we didn't know what Photoshop was and airbrushing and all these things that made celebrities look perfect. And then later in life, we learned about those things and realized that the perfect body does not exist. Sure, in our younger years, we observed many people our age who were blessed with a great physique, but we knew that as we got older, things would even out. Aging and parenting would start to take its toll, and everyone would start to look like us.

And for a while we lived that way, believing in our hearts that unless you were a reality tv star, no parent can really look that great. And then we ran into Fit Mom or Fit Dad and saw that it is possible to look great and also have a great family. This is hard for a lot of us because I think many of us may have a similar story growing up. Maybe we had a great childhood, but we were the overweight child. We were uncomfortable in our bodies and then we grew up and had a nice little like time where we finally figured out how to eat right. Our body stretched out a little bit after puberty and we lived well. We reached a point where we felt like we could almost keep up with our peers, or at least look like we could if we wore the right clothes to cover up the parts that we didn’t like. And then kids came along and changed everything. We were finally a little confident in our bodies, and kids ruined it all.

Growing up, I was always a little bit overweight. My mom was always trying to subtly get me to eat less, or encourage me to go outside and play, or trick me into physical activities. And then she bought me a Nintendo 64, so she shot herself in the foot on her campaign to get me healthy. However, after puberty, I learned I could make a few small changes to my eating habits which, looking back, were borderline eating disorders. I ended high school at a normal weight for my age, and I was finally not thinking about my body.

And then I went to college and there was a Wendy's in the bottom of my dorm. Which led to eating Reese’s Puff’s for breakfast because I was a grown up and could do what I wanted. And then I always had gallons of homemade sweet tea in the fridge because water was gross. And I ballooned up 75 pounds in two years. And then I went to Weight Watchers and it was incredible. Finally in my early twenties, I figured it out. I knew how to eat well, take care of my body, and exercise as much as I needed to without hating it. I found the sweet spot. And then I got married and I had kids and that fell apart. After kids come along, we all decline naturally.

Just getting older causes our bodies to change, but throwing kids in the mix accelerates the decline.

Moms who give birth to children by growing them inside their bodies are unparalleled in the trauma that they face and how their body changes, so I can't even begin to imagine or empathize with that. But even for those of us who don’t give birth, when kids come into the picture, it becomes harder to take care of our bodies. It becomes more difficult to eat healthy and work out as much as we want to because kids demand so much of our energy that we don't have it to spend on ourselves.

I was feeling pretty bad about all this but, one day I started to take comfort in Beyonce and her experience. The deal about Beyonce is that she is awesome and everybody loves her and she's incredible and she has kids and she has a career and she's great. And I noticed over the years that people were realizing a lot of her pictures were Photoshopped. She would tuck things and smooth things and flatten things and they could find the traces of that. When I saw this, I began to think that, first of all, she shouldn't feel like she should have to do that. It’s wild to me that she feels that way about her body, that she owes the public some sort of falsified perfection. I hate that about our culture. Someone as incredible and successful as Beyonce still feels the pressure to pretend to be something she isn’t. But I also began to understand that if she has all the resources and all the help she needs to have that ideal body and perfect family, and even she can’t, what hope is there for us normal people? We've got to let go of this idea that our bodies can be as great as we imagine them to be one day. It isn’t going to happen, and I know this now because if even Beyonce herself can't meet her own goals with all of her resources. I know that you and I can’t. The bottom line for this is I really want you to understand that this is okay.

It is okay to not have the body you dreamed of having.

For years we spent time letting go of the idea that we can be perfect, but then we met Fit Dad or Mom across the street, and we’re back to feeling like a pile of lard. We think that they loo great, so surely I could look better. I must not be doing enough. I must not have enough discipline. I must not be a good enough parent because I lack the energy to care for my kids well and take care of my body.

I want every parent reading this to understand that it's okay for your body to not be what you want to it to be right now. If you just gave birth, or if you're a new dad at home dealing with a new schedule, or you’re wrestling kids into bed every night, or you have 3 kids under 5 and they are draining every ounce of your energy. Give yourself a break and let go of the idea that you should have a better body during this season. Of course of yourself, eat healthy when you can, and move around a little. I wouldn't encourage you to eat a whole package of Oreos by yourself. But give yourself a break. Parenting is so difficult and yes, there are Fit Moms and Dads out there. That's just the way they're geared. They enjoy channelling energy into taking care of their bodies that well. We can't compare ourselves to them because they are able to do something that we currently are not able to do.

To reach this point of being happy with your body as it is, I want you to imagine everyone in the world is blind except you. If that were the case, if truly no one could see your body and really the only one who could know the size of your body were intimately close partners and friends who you hugged, what would you want your body to look like? What would you want your body to be? That's what you should hone in on. It's not this goal of trying to look a certain way for other people. How do you want to feel? If you want to look great for yourself, that's awesome. And I encourage that. Just live your life in such a way that you're happy with yourself in a healthy way. I believe if no one could see our bodies, many of us would be much happier with where we are now, and could more patiently wait for the day when the kids weren’t as demanding so we could do more to care for ourselves.

During this parenting season, it’s ok to let your exercise routine take a back seat. Imagine everyone was blind, and if that were the case, shoot for that body. That can be a more realistic way of looking at what physical health is going to be during the next few years as you take care of kids. Because there will come a day when you can work out as much as you want. You can eat right, you can make healthy choices without having to think about how it impacts your time with your kids or what they're eating or what you have to do. There's going to come a day when you can focus on those things to your heart's content. But wait, you don't have to try and do that now and also be the best mom and dad you can be.

Yes, be healthy. Your kids need you around. Your kids need you to be able to run and jump and play. Absolutely care for your body. But give yourself a break when you feel bad about yourself and you feel like you're falling short. Because we're in the craziest season of our lives with little kids and you can relax a little about physical health. You can back off on dreaming about that perfect body. You can take a break on that workout routine and focus on your kids during this season. But if you do want to do somethings to get your body going back in the right direction, until the day comes that the kids are no longer demanding every ounce of your attention and energy, here are a couple of things you can do.

Regarding movement, just move when you can.

I am not someone who has a workout routine. You cannot look at my body and say, “wow, that's someone I want to model my life after.” I'm just giving you some advice about movement when you're feeling that you just don’t get up off the couch enough. Simply move more. I made fun of Fit Dad and Mom earlier doing burpees in the park, but maybe they’re on to something. You may not feel like having a full blown workout routine in the park, but while your kids are playing on the swings, but go for a walk. If your kids are able to play independently for a little bit, just walk the perimeter of the playground. Grab your phone and scroll whatever you want, but move while you’re doing it. Adding movement is something as simple as parking farther away at the grocery store. Or maybe every 30 minutes in your house, get up and walk around inside the house or up and down the stairs. Your kids will think you're crazy the first day, but then they’ll get used to it. Just start moving when you can.

This won’t do anything to prepare us to run a marathon, but strolling around the backyard instead of sitting on the couch could do a lot if it becomes part of your routine. Don’t feel guilty about relaxing on the couch when you need it, but if you are concerned about your lack of movement, you can easily add that to your life in a low stakes way just by getting up and moving when it's possible.

Another area that we struggle with is probably eating.

Before kids came along, we could have whatever we wanted in our house to eat. We were in charge of that, and could limit snacks, treats, juices, etc. easily. When I was single, I bought only the food I needed to survive, and when it was shopping day, the fridge and the pantry were bare. I did not buy more than what I needed. But then kids came along and we started keeping crackers and candy and cookies and all these different things. And every holiday we get a new giant bowl of candy that we ration out to our kids, but help ourselves to as much as we want. I don't know how, but the candy bowl never empties. As we get close to the bottom of the Halloween candy, Christmas comes in. Then Valentine’s Day fills up the bowl. Then Easter and so on. But, there’s going to come a day when that's not around. But until then, here are some things you can do to help yourself if eating things you don’t need has become a problem.

We need to battle the temptation to eat the leftovers from our kid's plates. My wife and I work to pay for the food our children leave untouched on their plates. Watching a chicken nugget go in the trash can is heartbreaking. It’s watching money go in the garbage, so you think, “I'll put it in the fridge and they’ll eat it later.” I’m not sure why, but parents are idiots in this way, thinking if their kids did not like a meal one day, they will suddenly like it the next day reheated in a microwave. The second it touches the cold air of that fridge, it becomes an untouchable food for my children, so saving leftovers isn’t an option. We have to throw it away, or eat it ourselves if we don’t want it to go to waste. If you struggle in this area, there are a couple of things you can do.

Make a rule: don't eat anything off of your kids plate. Now that takes a little bit of discipline, but it's a very small amount of discipline. It's like, “Hey, I am only going to eat the things that I put on my plate. I do not care what ends up on my child's plate at the end of the night. I'm not going to touch it. That's not for me.” And you may think, “Well, at least it doesn't go to waste if I eat it.” But that's just that's not the case. Eating our children’s leftovers is still being wasteful. Your body reaches a point where it doesn't need that food anymore and you're just wasting it by turning it into fat. Just throw it in the trash.

The next thing you can do is simply put less food on your kid's plate. Before becoming a parent, I did not know that 75% of parenting was begging children to eat food. And not even like healthy food. I'm talking chicken nuggets, pizza, hamburgers- just begging them to eat. And after all that begging, you still have some leftovers. As parents, we are dumb in this area. We have these high hopes and we make these delicious meals and think “Oh, they're going to want a lot of this meal because it is so good.” And we just fill that plate up and then they eat like gerbils; almost nothing is touched and we throw it away.

So just put less food on their plate. I guarantee you if they're still hungry, they'll ask for more. They will tell you. Have have lower expectations for that mealtime, put a little bit of food on the plate, and then make them ask for more if they are still hungry. Suddenly, you're not feeling the temptation to eat what's leftover because there is less leftover.

Parenting does a number on our ability to care for our own bodies, but just moving a little bit more and maybe eating a little bit less are going to be some things you can do to feel better about your body while you're focusing all your time and energy on keeping little humans alive, because you're not lazy, you're a parent.