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Establishing Healthy Habits With Your Kids
As adults, we have the choice to make health conscious decisions regarding what we put in our bodies. Even though most people know what they should eat majority of the time, they still choose unhealthy options instead. Maybe you feel you don’t have time to make healthy meals so getting takeout or fast food is a more appealing option for you. Maybe you travel all the time and find it difficult to eat healthy on the road. Rather than feeling energized and healthy, you feel tired, sluggish and bloated after meals. Instead of maintaining a healthy weight, you constantly struggle to lose weight, consider one diet after another, looking for a quick fix or a pill that will make all the unhealthy eating that has been happening throughout the year just disappear. Do you know how good your body is designed to feel? To truly live a healthy lifestyle, you need to change the way you think and do things differently. No more excuses, it is time to hold yourself accountable and by doing this, we are setting an example to our children.
As parents, it is our responsibility to establish healthy habits with our kids. And, it is never too early to start. From the time a child is born, we are setting the foundation for them to live a healthy lifestyle. Set your kids up for success by introducing them early on to healthy foods and drinks. Try to avoid processed foods and high sugary drinks. Get your child started early drinking water, it is the best hydrator! Whenever possible, choose organic fruits, vegetables and snacks for your little ones. For us, we feel that by simply living a healthy routine with Sophia, she has already picked up on so many healthy habits. From the time she was a newborn sitting in a baby swing watching us workout at home to now seeing her excitement to pop into a downward dog pose or mimic her daddy doing bicycle kicks, being active is just what she knows. It is our lifestyle and we make it fun! Whenever possible, we get her involved in what we are doing.
So what about healthy eating? Again, from the time Sophia was done breastfeeding (12 months), we started introducing healthy food into her diet. With her getting teeth starting at 4 months and having a whole mouthful at 12 months, she was ready to eat whole foods. In the past 18 months, we haven’t found any food she won’t eat. If she sees us eating it, she is all in. Plus, we haven’t asked her what she wants for breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a snack. She is just getting the hang of using a fork and still can’t use the potty on her own so giving her a choice about what she wants to eat is not recommended. From the start, we have just given her what we are eating. If we are having egg whites, turkey sausage and sweet potato hash for breakfast, so is she. If we are having oatmeal and fruit, watch out because she will eat her food and want ours too. For dinner, whether we are making turkey tacos or sloppy joes, spaghetti squash or chicken and veggies, that is what she eats too. And we hardly ever go a meal without her busting out a “MMMMMMmmmmm” after taking a bite. With breakfast and dinner she gets a whole cup of Ripple, a non-dairy milk alternative with 50% less sugar than milk and even more calcium. Other than that, she drinks water. Again, she sees us drink water all day every day and so that is what she wants. I’m sure if we drank sugary drinks, that is what she would see and want. Instead, she loves water and lots of it. For snacks, she loves apples, pears, watermelon, frozen mango, almond butter, pretzels, bunny crackers (organic), hard-boiled eggs, carrots/hummus, goat cheese and uncured turkey pepperoni...and pretty much everything else in sight.
Another healthy habit we introduced to Sophia is “green drink.” For over 4 years, we have been drinking 1-3 green drinks a day, typically 30-45 minutes after each meal to help alkaline the body and give us an added boost of nutrients. When we say green drink, we are talking about a product called Amazing Grass, Green Superfood. It is a one scoop powder of daily greens loaded with nutritious fruits, veggies, pre-biotics, probiotics and digestive enzymes. We simply use a shaker bottle, add one scoop to cold water, shake it up and Mmmm delicious. Sophia was probably able to recognize the sound of us shaking up our green drink from the time she was in the womb! Ever since she was 6 months old, she has been drinking it too. How did we get her started? Well, again, lead by example. Your kids are going to want to do what you are doing. She would see us with our green drinks and hear us shaking them up throughout the day. We would tell her what we are making and even make the Mmmm sound when we would first drink it. I would also say "this is mama’s juice," so of course she wanted it too. Before we knew it, she would use sign language to say “more, more” whenever we had a green drink. She would even clap, smile and squeal when she knew we were shaking one up. And today at 18 months, she will say “green drink, hold.” When she says "hold," it basically means she just stole your green drink and good luck getting it back. She is getting so many good nutrients with this drink on top of those she is already getting from the food she eats.
For us, living a healthy lifestyle is just what we do. Of course, we do indulge here and there with pizza and gelato but that is the exception. We do not deprive our daughter of any food, we simply provide her with healthy, nutrient rich meals and snacks. Better alternatives to the highly processed, sugary foods we are all surrounded by on a daily basis. When she does have snacks like bunny crackers or fruit snacks, we choose a brand that is organic, non-gmo and does not contain artificial colors or flavors. The food we eat and that we give our children can have a big impact not only on their health but their behavior as well. At 18 months, she is in the 96th percentile for height and 75th for weight. We lead by example not only to establish healthy habits with our little girl but also to improve the quality and longevity of our life for Sophia and our baby girl on the way. We want to stay healthy so we can have a long, happy, active life with our children. GratieFIT, it’s a lifestyle!
Wishing you and your little ones the best of health today and always!