Family

Sometimes talking to your friends and family about health and fitness can be difficult, especially if you are discussing weight loss. Your loved ones can be even more sensitive to the subject when coming from you because it can be taken personally instead of as positive criticism.

Luke 4:24 from the Bible says "...Truly I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country." This explains to us how it can be even more difficult for you to make an influence on those closest to you. This doesn't mean we give up on them... it just means we have to be a little more creative and "sneaky" in our approach.

Some ideas to inspire and influence those you love to fitness:

• Make sure you talk to them about other things besides weight loss and fitness.
• Leave fitness magazines laying around for them to read or healthy recipes they might want to try.
• Plan an active activity after dinner eating dinner together like a walk around the neighborhood or bowling.
• Plan a cooking date and share with them your favorite healthy dishes.
• Maintain an upbeat attitude.
  

Hey, MFT parents – how do you make the time to work out while juggling life, work, and your kids? A new study from the University of Pittsburgh found that having kids made both men and women less likely to exercise. Though it’s intuitive that new mothers have less time to work out due to demanding infant feeding and sleeping schedules, new dads also must fight the battle of the bulge because of dwindling workout time. Although new fathers got about two hours more exercise, on average, than new mothers, the fathers’ workout time was cut in half after their children were born. New moms, on the other hand, lost approximately one-third of workout time.