Need help with my daughter and her exercising!

E

exercise forever

Cathlete
My daughter is almost 14 yrs. old and is becoming a little chunky! she is not fat by no means,but has fat on her stomach she doesn't want. I have in the past ask her to workout with me to get her going on working out. She will do a weight workout with me and I will give her light wts. to use and I look back and she is just lazily going through the movements! Like she has no energy.

Now she likes kpc and I told her she could do it when she wants, but has yet to ask. I see she likes to eat alot and if she sits all the time that will result in her gaining more wt. I don't want to restrict her from eating what she wants because then she will feel that I think she's fat! Although one thing good she is taking jazz dancing this year! And she liked cheerleading in the past and had plenty of energy. She wants to exercise but won't.

Does anyone have any advice or been through this that can help me keep my daughter from becoming overweight?


Thanks for your help in advance!

kim
 
I have the same problem with my 12 year old. She's not fat by any means, but she has a few extra pounds she could stand to be without. Like you I don't want her to cut down on food. I simply want her to get her butt moving a bit.

I find I have to be creative with her. For a while, she was doing one of the Tae Bo DVD's I have and enjoyed that. But that got old. She does enjoy her Dance Dance Revolution, but I have to coax her to use it sometimes - like you I am careful not to make her think that I think she's fat. I also base part of her allowance on her walking the dogs daily. I'll take her out and play tennis with her, or ride bikes with - something she wants to do. I also talk to her a lot and tell her frequently that I truly believe that exercise is the single most important thing you can do for your body.

Don't know if that helps...
 
Hey christine,

That does help me. Right now I physically can't do things with her like that. Her dad has involved her in going running with him and she comes back 10 mins. later. He says she is not into it. So maybe her taking dance this year will help out.


kim
 
One of the primary keys to sticking with exercise is finding what you like to do!!! It looks like the answer for your daughter is dancing and cheerleading. Do they have cheerleading/gymnastics in your town, which is totally independent of public schools? There she can be involved in cheerleading all year long. It's not free, but if she likes to do it, it may be worth it. Maybe the jazz dancing will lead to tap, etc. Is the jazz dancing offered by her school?

To me, if it's set to music, and it even resembles dancing, it's fun. That's why step aerobics is fun to me - it's like dancing.

You may want to get the book "Dr. Shapiro's Picture Perfect Weight Loss" which has substitute food suggestions that cut calories without leaving you feeling deprived (spelling?).

Don't know if that's helpful, but it's a thought.
Just Do It! :)
 
Well the first thing, we all got to admit we want to change, and then decide to change. Everyone here on the board has had to do that, before they started exercising. Her not asking shows she doesn't want to give it much effort yet. And that’s okay, it takes a while to really want to put in a lot of effort for a nice body.

Let your daughter know what you do and how great you look now compared to another time, and try to be an extra good roll model for her. So she can see that hard word does really pay off. And sometimes this is because the child doesn’t' want to grow up. To exercise for a lot means your not a little kid anymore, you have to worry about your hair, body, and your face. It's scary at that age, do you want to be the little girl that sat around and watch cartoons or do you want to be the budding female women, learning all about herself, and all the other chores that comes along with wanting a nice figure?

Just be her support and try to get her to eat as healthy as possible as this is good for any age, and will help them threw life. Usually once they go back to school the desire to be skinner kind of takes over, as they look at the other girls. Sorry don't have much advice as you’re in a hard spot, if you push her, she'll think you think she's fat. And offering her something she likes but doesn't want to do it. Tells me, there’s something else there. That she needs to deal with first.

You may want to try fitness games with her instead, as they’ll be more like childhood and it might make it more comfortable. You’re just going to have to play that by ear, as her emotions will flip flop back and forth and everything else. Which maybe way she says, she wants to lose her tummy one hour and the next hour isn’t all that interested. Keep her active, you may want to compete with her, like being able run a certain distance, or only healthy for a week, etc. Make it a game, if that appeals more to her. But the first step is the one she really has to take and be determined to want to lose the tummy or whatever it is she wants to lose.

HTH,

Kit
 
My oldest Caleb who just turned 12 walks the track w/ me every morning. He doesn't do the bleachers, but will walk 2-3 laps.He wants to be in cross country just like my husband was and also wants to play basketball for the school. We put him in the basketball camps whenever they come up. He is getting a little weight in his stomach (which I will NEVER say that to him), but when he starts school I am sure that P.E. will help him a lot. :)
 
I say do what you can to change her diet. Diet is most of the battle, anyway. Is she drinking soda pop? Not only does pop (EVEN DIET VERSIONS) cause water retention from the obsurd amounts of sodium, it also initiates over eating. Change the foods in the kitchen. If chips and crap are not there, she can't eat them. They shouldn't be in there anyway. If the question comes up to "where's my pop or chips" say, we need to stop eating junk, it's not good for any of us and it is expensive (all true).

Refine her diet, that's my vote!
 
Experienced at this! We had success! :)
We had a talk. Here's basically what I said.

You admit that you have low energy and you often don't feel good enough to do what you want to do. You also know that you often enjoy foods that do not make you feel good and energetic afterwards. Before we have to deal with additional problems that come from these two things, I want you to agree to do a 3 week challenge. Eat healthy food at every meal, allow yourself maximum of one cheat per day, and exercise 30 minutes 4 times per week. Each day that you log 30 minutes of exercise, I will put $2 into a jar and you may spend it at the end of the challenge on either a new clothing item or something exercise related. This is not optional because I am paying your health insurance and you are not taking good care of your body. You need to give it your best effort for 3 weeks and we will re-evaluate at that point whether it is helpful. When you are paying for all of your own Dr. bills, you will be free to care for yourself in whatever manner you choose.

Well, we are now 8 months later and she exercises 30 minutes a day SIX days per week at her own motivation. She is no longer carrying extra weight and she is choosing healthy foods. :D
 
I love that story, Amy B!

The only thing I thought of, that I didn't see mentioned yet, is that she may not see (yet) how exercise outside of dance class really can help her to be a better dancer. All the Imax 2 threads about people being able to run since they started Imax 2 regularly, etc.

I don't know. 14 is tough any way you look at it! I did ice skating when I was 14 for exercise. Dancing before that. It's true, you'll only keep doing something you enjoy. But how can you enjoy dance if you're struggling to keep up?

Hopefully that helps a bit. I'm not a mom so I don't know.
 
Hi Kim,
I totally agree with Kit in response to your question about keeping your daughter from becoming overweight. When my daughter was about 9-16 years old (she is now 22 years old) she went through the same type of chunky phase that you describe. She even reach a point where she was up to 40 to 45 lbs overweight. I decided then that it was best not to be the food or exercise police (I would make her hate both). I thought it best to lead by example. I always exercised and tried to eat fairly right. It paid off...She lost the weight and looks absolutely wonderful. She now exercises on a regular basis and eats very healthy (better then me!). She has been at a normal weight for about 3 and 1/2 years.

Robin
 
I *really* wanted to stay out of it, too, and let it be my daughter's own business as well. However, we were about to venture into some very expensive medical testing and psychiatric counseling for extreme low energy, depression and chronic "I don't feel good." I decided that it would be foolish not to insist on these basic self-care things. We are still working w/ the dr's, but each one has individually prescribed exercise and careful diet selection. The best part is that she was so pleased with the results at 3 weeks that she wanted to continue them herself.
I think you can encourage exercise and food choices without policing or being strict about it. 30 minutes of exercise might be dancing to your favorite music, doing ANY video for 30 minutes, 2 mile dog walk, or 30 minutes of Bootcamp.}( For food choices, I told her she needed to choose some kind of fruit and vegetable at every meal and she could help plan the entrees as long we made it from ingredients we had at home (which are all healthy!) There is a lot of freedom in health and exercise.
 
That is something worth trying AmyB! Maybe that is a way to get her going.Even though she she will be taking dance, it is only one day a week. So this may be a way to get her motivated!

She asked if I had the same problem and I told her that I was a skinny beam pole and wished I would of had some meat on me! The only thing that gave me any shape was that I took dancing for 12 yrs. but when I met my husband at 21, the weight piled on.


I will try this AmyB!


kim
 
I second Sarah! I read that and started thinking about my own daughter... What a fabulous idea! I'm going to use that as well. I am fortunate in that her school does have a fabulous fitness program for all kids, and it's mandatory, so she stays a decent weight during the school year (plus the 1/2 mile walk to and from school doesn't hurt) but during the summer... *rolls eyes*
 
It's a wonderful positive result and please don't think I for one moment I thought Amy's approach was wrong in any way. There are so many right choices we make as parents... as well as wrong ones. When I let my daughter finally make her own decisions regarding food, the hiding of it stopped and her weight dropped. I am only sharing what worked for my child (well, she is an adult now). Every child is different and because they don't come with operation manuals we have to struggle with our own solutions until we find the right one. Hopefully, we don't make too many mistakes along the way.

Robin
 
Hi, Robin,
I didn't take offense at your remarks. :+ We are all trying our best!! :) Thanks for your clarity and good ideas. My hat is off to anyone who has successfully raised a child! :7
Amy
 
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