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Fun Family Fitness
Get Healthy Together -- By Joe Downie, Certified Fitness Instructor
Have you thought about how great it would be to include your family in your pursuit to exercise more regularly? Family exercise will improve the health of your loved ones, make exercise more fun, and at the same time develop stronger connections between all of you. With a little creativity, you can find a way to make it work for everyone.
How to Start
First, decide what level of participation your family is ready for. If your entire family is committed 100%, you could go as far as setting up a Family Olympics. If it's a struggle to get your family to do anything together, starting out small might be the better option.
You may simply focus on educating each them about the benefits of exercise—in a smart way.
Bombarding them with stats each morning as they come down to breakfast might not be the best option. Put up a healthy living bulletin board in your kitchen (or use the fridge door) with articles and other resources that will help get your point across without having to say much of anything. For example, if one child is an athlete, an article about a successful athlete who commits to fitness could go a long way. Or, post a story about a young person who had trouble focusing at school but started exercising and saw an amazing difference.
"GREAT ARTICLE!!! I go to Stroller Strides too and my kids and I I LOVE IT! It is the only fitness program that helped me lose all my baby weight. If you have a Stroller Strides near you, you must check it out. It is amazing, it has saved my sanity. the website is www.strollerstrides.com. Have fun working out with your fam." -- CHUCKSMOM
"My husband bought us annual Disneyland passes with parking, and we go walk around Disney 3 times per week, as a family. We usually end up walking around 4-5 miles, get some end of the day sunshine, enjoy some rides, bring our own snack of trail mix, and drink lots of water. This turned out to be cheaper than a gym membership, and we save on child care as well, for our almost 4 year old daughter. We have so much fun each time, and it's great exercise while I'm pregnant." -- MYANGELBABY888
"I really enjoyed this article about "fun family fitness". I am a licensee of Stroller Strides and found out recently that I am new pregnant for the 2nd time. In our classes, that I teach, we have family day on Saturday's with Moms, dads and kids. It is great for the kids to see us working out and making it a family event. I think it teaches children the importance of excercise through hands on activities or actually seeing thier parents working out. " -- AMBERO
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