Day 5 – Your Children are What You Eat

One of the main reasons I wanted to get into peak condition is my two boys. They’re young, beautiful, full of energy, and I worry everyday that I’m not doing everything I can for them. The boys and my wife are the main motivators in my life and I want to be healthy and happy for them as much as for myself.

A while ago I read an article on how children learn from their parents. The article was enlightening for me because it pointed out a few flaws in my own parenting methods that made me cringe. The gist of the article was that parents play a fundamental role in shaping young eating habits and attitudes about food(nothing earth shattering there), but children can learn more from what a parent eats while a parent may be sending mixed signals to their children.



Case in point. I have to a greater degree indulged in drinking Coca Cola. Its terrible, full of sugar and other chemicals as well as empty calories, but to me it can be very refreshing. I would drink it in front of my children, but when they asked for some, I would say that they couldn’t have it. What the hell was I doing? Apparently recent studies have shown that I can tell my kids what not to eat until the cows come home but if I eat that banned substance, they’ll probably grow to want/crave it anyhow and learn those poor eating habits.

And the same goes for exercise. Preach all day about the benefits of exercise but if you don’t do it yourself, your kids probably won’t either. As they say in the business world – the speed of the pack is determined by the pace of the leader(or some similar motivating statement), if you really want someone to do something, practice what you preach and be a good role model, eating or exercising the way you want your child to.

I’ve noticed that my boys often try to do a pushup or situp as I am doing it and it makes me laugh when my eldest rips around the house, pretending he’s me on one of my runs yelling “Look! I’m Dada!”. They’re learning the best way they can from one of their biggest influences – It’s quite humbling really.

So I can’t think of a better way to encourage my boys to be the best they can be, than by being the best I can be.

Recapping my day on the PCP diet and only eating ½ my normal diet I keep thinking of Zeno’s paradox - Suppose I wish to cross the room. First, of course, I must cover half the distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then, I must cover half the remaining distance. Then I must cover half the remaining distance . . . and so on forever. The consequence is that I can never get to the other side of the room. I keep asking myself If I’d eat this amount, then I’ll just cut it in half and eat it, but maybe I wouldn’t eat it since I wouldn’t be hungry because If I ate 100% and so on and so forth. Its not much of a philosophical treatise but I keep second guessing myself and even forgetting how much I used to eat. In any case, I know its working, I feel lighter, my pants are looser and my wife keeps wolf whistling at me or saying “looking gooooood!”. I can’t wait to get into the full diet and start cooking, changing what and how I eat fundamentally!

The exercises are going well. I have to say I’m enjoying them and even find them relaxing and cathartic. The ropejumps are great too and my skills are getting better, I’m not going to double dutch it any time soon but I’m trying a double jump and do a crisscross just for the fun of it.

See you tomorrow.