The Good ‘Ole Fitness Times: By Vicky Dal Molin

I’m late this week with my post. I’m never late on deadlines. It’s Thursday and I’ve literally had to stop everything I’m doing to write my post. If you know me I rarely ever missed meeting a commitment I’ve made. As I’m driving to work this morning I listed out all my excuses. I’ve been ill, I’ve been injured, I’ve had too much going on at work/home/with kids/sports/cooking/cleaning.

So what! Don’t most mothers go through the same thing every day. And they get it done.

So what went off the rails this week? Excuses aside. Time…. There just wasn’t enough of it and instead of staying up that little bit longer, sucking it up a little more the days leading up to my deadline, I gave in to sleep and other activities vying for my attention. Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves and then beat ourselves up if we meet a deadline or a commitment or have to cancel something last minute? And of course despite being completely inundated right now with increasing workload, increasing home demands we just take on more.

This week it’s starting a Get Fit competition at work that I added to the already overloaded schedule. I don’t usually mess around once I start a project and this was no exception. Competition Rules all created, scale set up in the office, activities planned and scheduled, aggressive recruitment of employees to join in. Done! I was actually impressed with the number of individuals that agreed to sign up and will be participating in the program. It’s made me think a lot though about health and fitness and how to combat the ever growing weight issues in the US – and I know Aus is closely following (or have they taken the lead in weight health issues these days). I grew up in what I remember to be an extremely active lifestyle.

When I think back on my time in Australia is was all about sports, and walking to activities, and being active outside (TV time was rare). Talking to people today that have visited Australia often the first thing they mention was how they enjoyed it was such an active “outdoors” place to visit. We just don’t get the same feel here in NY. I think the lifestyle and environment doesn’t lend itself to it. I was talking to my partner on the weekend about when we were both kids and would ride our bikes around, to different places. There was no fear of being wiped out. There’s no where here to ride anymore and I certainly have no intentions of letting my son ride in NY. Those bike lanes are dangerous and I can see disaster happening.

So how then do you make sure your kids are raised here being active, and doing the kind of kids activities I loved as a child? But in a way that’s safe and doesn’t involve me moving out even further into the ‘burbs – is there some way to reconcile the 2. I’m not convinced there is – but I had better start coming up with some good ideas.

Tags: 35+ mom, fitness, Health and Fitness, motherhood, New York City, nyc, parenting, raising a family, raising a son, toddlers