Changing Eating Habits – A Teenage Perspective

Well, I’m two weeks post-marathon, and my life is starting to return to normal.  Ish. I ate better last week, but Mother’s Day got me a little.

What can I say, my family knows me well. 😉  It did not bode well for my weigh-in. I’m still above 125.

Yes, that’s a .4 loss from the prior week, which is certainly better than a .4 gain, but I need to rein it in better.  I’m running regularly again and started on week 2 of Hal Higdon’s post-marathon recovery training program, so I can only hope that will help me regulate this post-marathon bloating or whatever it is.  I’m definitely feeling overweight these days, unfortunately. 🙁

As far as running goes, I’m mostly doing the Intermediate version of Hal Higdon’s marathon recovery program, since I ran his Intermediate training program for my marathon, but I’ve had some issues with not reading the instructions closely, and then oversleeping one day, so the two five-mile runs have been less than that.  But, I’ve done the long runs, including a run last Saturday with Jamie. I ran 2 by myself, and then I made him get up early (for him) and run four with me. And of course, he sprinted ahead at the end to make me feel like a loser.

We got rained on for part of it, but we survived.

He was proud of his efforts, as was I.  He’s training for his third Kona 10k, which is a run he really enjoys. He really likes all the Kona Company runs, actually, and I’ll admit they’re usually well-run and have nice swag.  The race is June 13, and we’ve been doing the Higdon “easy” program for his training.  It seems odd to do the “easy” program, when he’s already done six 10ks, numerous 5ks, and even the anchor leg of a marathon relay, but unfortunately, he’s not in the best shape right now.  He’s actually gained quite a bit of weight since the end of last year, and my husband and I finally decided last week that we had to have a talk with him.

It was a hard conversation to have, especially for me, because I have been “that” kid, and I know how unpleasant it is to hear from an adult that you need to “watch what you eat.”  Kids aren’t like adults…willpower is not something they strive to maintain, and who can really blame them?  They’re kids, for heaven’s sakes—they shouldn’t have to worry about self-control and willpower.  They’re just supposed to have fun, right? There will be plenty of time in your life for responsibility.

Unfortunately, such is not the case with Jamie.  He is officially in the 98^th percentile for weight for his age and height, and I know that anyone reading this blog knows what that means.  🙁  So, we told him last week that we’re going to help him in his journey to form better eating habits.  We know it’s hard for him as a kid, so we’ve made the choices easier and are helping him track.

A part of me kind of hates this.  It’s hard enough for me to constantly be thinking about my own food intake. Having to monitor his eating, too, makes me feel like I’m dieting for two people—and we all know that dieting sucks for one, much less for two!!  But, I’m trying hard to think about it not in terms of “dieting,” for either of us, but in terms of forming new (better) habits.

I read a lot of research online a few weeks ago about the right types of food choices for teenagers who are looking to either maintain or lose weight, and I’ve been putting some of those ideas into practice at home. (Incidentally, I was rather astounded to discover in my research that about 90% of the time I was reading about “overweight teenagers,” the references were all toward girls…ie, “help her make good decisions” and “when she is struggling with her weight.”  Do teenage boys really not have weight problems?!)

So, we’re working on forming new habits, such as:

• Mandatory breakfast, and cereal is no longer on the menu.  My kids aren’t always good about eating breakfast, but everything I’ve read says that breakfast is a must, and specifically, they need protein with their breakfast. So, we’ve been adding in a cheese stick or an egg, along with oatmeal or Greek yogurt.
• Whole grains.  Jamie has been eating sandwiches made with whole wheat pitas, adding bran cereal to his yogurt (he likes it, I swear!) and has discovered he likes plain oatmeal mixed with natural applesauce.  Good choices, right?
• Vegetables and fruit are the new go-to snack! I insisted that he have more fruit and especially more vegetables, but I allowed him to pick what I bought. I discovered that he likes broccoli and cherry tomatoes with a little low-fat hummus.  Hey, whatever it takes to get him to eat it! He’s always liked bananas and applesauce, so those were no-brainers.  He gets a vegetable in his lunch as a snack every day instead of crackers, and then he has a piece of fruit or more veggies as a snack.  So far, he’s not complaining and has really taken to the veggies.
• Portion control. This is something my husband and I are directing…we fix his plate for him at dinner, and we make him wait 10 minutes before we’ll talk about having seconds.  We’re trying to help him figure out when he’s actually full, versus just mindlessly taking more because he thinks he wants it.
• Exercise. This one has been pretty easy; he’s really focused on training for that 10k, and he’s initiating his runs every day (instead of me having to remind him, “Did you run today? You’re supposed to do X miles…” like I used to do earlier this year).  He’s been running three days a week, unless hockey interferes. So far, he’s been doing great!  He even told me last week that he prefers to run with me instead of alone. Which is great and makes me feel all loved and stuff, but since I prefer to run in the wee hours of the morning…that’s a lot of exercise for me. 😉 (Not that I don’t need it, ha ha!)  If I’ve already run that day, I’ll bike ride next to him, and it works out well. Usually he likes to sprint ahead

These are all good things for anyone to do, right?  It sounds so logical, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to get a kid to make them a habit.  The willpower thing is also hard for him.  We’ve been talking about his food choices every day, and I’ve been specifically asking him what he’s been eating when I’m not around.  I thought he was being honest, but he’s a kid, and they think that they can get away with things like eating peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla and putting the peanut-butter-covered knife in the sink.  <sigh>  When I asked him to tell me the truth about what he had for a snack that day (he’d said he’d just had a yogurt), he first confessed to having had a tortilla with melted cheese before dinner—in addition to having PB&J tortilla wrap right after school!

I won’t lie, when that happened, after he had just blithely told me half an hour earlier that all he had for a snack that afternoon was a yogurt, I was not happy, and I did not handle it very well.  Suffice it to say we were both upset by the time I was done. 🙁  I apologized later, but you know what they say…you can never take words back, nor make them “unsaid.”  This parenting thing is really hard. Don’t get me wrong, I know that my son having an eating problem is not the worst thing I could be dealing with, not by far.  I’m grateful that he isn’t addicting to drugs or drinking in junior high, or even failing out of school.  But this eating issue is really hard, because, the truth is, it’s a problem I haven’t even fully solved for myself yet!

Despite the slight trip-ups (he loves his carbs, just like his mama), Jamie is definitely putting forth the effort.  He actually lost 2 pounds after just one week!  He has a long way to go, but on the other hand, we can only hope that he’ll soon hit the growth spurt that all the other kids his age have already experienced.  Even if it doesn’t happen for a while, I’m hopeful that when it does happen, he’ll be a lot healthier and have hopefully solidified good eating habits so he can stay that way.  But I suspect the journey won’t be easy.  If anyone has any experience with parenting a kid who loves to eat, please feel free to share tips and ideas—I could use all I can get!

Thanks for reading!