Inspiration and Wonder from My Time as a Personal Trainer

No, no one's hired me as a personal trainer. I decided I would help my son succeed in his first attempt at competing in an individual sport: cross country running in the Public School system. He's eight years old.

My son has always struggled physically. He's not physically handicapped but he has other emotional struggles that have limited him in the past. He has always lagged behind with his fine motor skills and is even surpassed by some things that his four-year old sister can do. As his father who loves him, I have fiercely tried to help him overcome these limitations.

He's active but not a "jock." He's not a sports-oriented kid by any means. He's played soccer and it was a struggle. Mostly he doesn't participate in the games and is overwhelmed by the whole thing, but he happened to be on three teams that won A or B-side trophies so he felt proud and happy about the experience. 

Cycling is something that got into him at an early age, long before his dad could even get on a bike, so it wasn't me who influenced him. He runs around a lot, but not for sustained periods. In fact, he used to skip or hop involuntarily after taking only a few strides while running. This slowed him down in his soccer games. His coordination has been very slow to develop but it's coming along.

Even as a fat kid I had a whole lot of fun playing unorganized sports when I was a kid. I was no jock either but I had fun. In a world where obesity seems like an unstoppable epidemic, I want to encourage my kids to embrace an active lifestyle for the rest of their lives.

I started my son training about a month or so before his first race. I put him on the treadmill at home which he's used before, but mostly because he's seen me using it. He'd walk fast and hop every few steps involuntarily. It was unnatural and a little bit concerning. He loved looking at the numbers and seeing how far and how fast he was going. That continued into our training.

I got him to jog at a speed that prevented him from hopping every few steps. The treadmill forced him to keep going in a continuous, fluid motion. His heart and lungs could more than keep up at that speed. Soon he was asking me if it was time to do his training each day. He made charts to put on the wall to track his progress and even set goals for himself. I'm so proud of him.

Quickly, the hopping disappeared and he was getting faster and faster, covering the 1.2 KM distance of the race. He started running 1.2 KM at 10 minutes and 40 seconds. As he progressed, he pushed himself further to beat his "record" times. And he did, shaving 30 seconds or more off when he tried hard. I told him that you try to shave one or two seconds off when you're doing this sort of thing but he proved me wrong time and time again.

His last training session on the treadmill came in at 6:12. When we started, I had hoped he'd get down to 7:30. In the qualifying race he came in 14th and got to go onto the final race of fifty kids. We never dreamed he'd do that well. In his final race he came in 23rd. We call him the 23 fastest eight year old in the city. Had he shaved another 20 seconds off, he'd be the fastest. It's been surreal, especially since the kid couldn't even run properly when we started.

Even now he doesn't hold his arms up in a punching like motion when he runs. Instead, he flails them around randomly. We worked on this a bit at the end and made some progress. But it illustrates how physical things don't come naturally to him.

So what have I learned?

It was an astonishingly wonderful gift to watch my son's body and technique improve the way it did in a few weeks. And it was hardly work for him. The kid barely broke a sweat. 

Even in the last week, I could see his heart and lungs getting undeniably stronger from the training he did the week before. He could do far more at the same breathing level than he did a few days earlier. An eight year old's body can repair itself and strengthen really fast. A night's sleep does the trick.

I've seen this progress in myself, measured by constant heart-rate monitoring. But to see it happen before your eyes in a person you love is beyond description.

It reinforces the notion that you are the master of your body. You can change your body and it is ready to change for you. 

Running, I hope, will be a part of my son's life until the day he dies. He needs it, not only to stay healthy physically, but for all the psychological benefits it will bring him as well.

I Might As Well Blame My Mother -- It's Her Fault

I might as well blame my mother for my poor health. My closer friends often encourage me to blame her for things because they know the stories, they know my history with her. It's not functional and it certainly isn't brief so I won't jump into it here. But in addition to all the unhealthy things that I endured growing up, both emotionally and psychologically, there was also a lot of negative things going on when I was learning how to eat.

My mother was a nurse from the World War II era who was and is always concerned what people think of her. Dr. Phil could write a book on her. I wish he would.

I was born a few weeks premature and underweight. The nurses let my mother take me home just shy of five pounds because she was a nurse who should know how to take care of me. Well, that was an error in their judgement. She fed me Pablum the night she got me home so she could fatten me up.

Doctors and scientists know that eating solid food early in life can lead to obesity but even back then it was not something you did the first night home from the hospital. Nor was I breast fed, more common back then but now we know bottle feeding is another factor in your chances of becoming obese. I'm no expert but I read the occasional newspaper.

Needless to say, my mother wanted me fat, anything else was a sign of her personal failure. Even now she criticizes me for having skinny children. I'm thankful my children are of a normal weight. I consider it a minor miracle considering the bad habits that endure with me. And my kids are in no way skin and bones, they're perfectly healthy.

My mother, the nurse, even poo-pooed my wife's breast feeding of our kids every now and again. Our kids were breast fed beyond the two years they now recommend (it's not exclusive, obviously, after they start eating solid foods.)  I hope my kids get a good start in life.

My mother is now 86 and she isn't involved much with my kids, partly because I'm the black sheep of the family and partly because she's getting too old. But she revels--I mean really revels--in feeding them. She takes delight with every spoonful she can get into them. She erroneously thinks I never feed them junk food or meat and as a result she's convinced they're starving.

I was reminded of all this yesterday when I brought my three-year old daughter to my mother's home at lunch time. My mother made scrambled eggs and toast for both me and my daughter. I buttered my own toast and I was criticized for the 'small' amount I put on it. I'm a man who likes far more margarine on his toast than any reasonable individual yet it wasn't good enough for her. "That's all you're putting on? This is good margarine, one of the best there is..."

Don't worry, she'll be dead any day now. She eats a lot of bacon.

You learn early how to eat and you acquire your lifelong tastes for food before the age of five, some say before the age of three. My toast habits have lived with me for 45 years and it's a hard habit to change but if I can piss off  my mother, I must have made some progress.

I Felt Like I Was a 1000 Pounds in Grade School

Stop thinking that purple shirt and red tie wasn't stylish. I cruised right into the disco era when it peaked in grade six.

I was at an assembly at my son's school today and could see all the kids spread out before me. My first impression was, "Boy, there sure are lots of fat kids." My second impression was, "The fat kids are really overweight."

When I was in grade school I was considered the fat kid. There might have been one or sometimes two other kids in the class that classmates referred to as overweight, but I felt really, really fat. As I got older and looked back at old photos, the images don't match my memories. Some years I could barely be considered "big boned" for crying out loud. I was certainly not obese, no one in my school was that I can remember. But there's all kinds of kids who are obese now.

Some of these kids must be approaching twice the body weight of their peers. If they're like this now, at age nine, ten and eleven, what are they going to be like when they hit adulthood and sit behind a desk all day? They need intervention at as early an age as possible. I can't help but think that it's already too late for these kids. I see misery and hardship before them.

If I had to speculate on what I saw today, I'd say the poorer kids are more likely to be the ones with weight problems. I think statistics back that up. So why is that? I know they always say fatty food is cheaper but I have to think it has more to do with the parents' education and dedication to their children's upbringing.

But what do I know? All I know is that there are a lot more kids with weight problems than there were when I was a kid and being a kid with a weight problem isn't that much fun. I can say that with great authority.

Why Seeing Obese Children Bothers Me

I get bothered when I see overweight children, particularly bothered, I presume, because I know what it was like to be them. Instinctively, I want to blame the parents even though I have no way of knowing if they voluntarily contributed to the problem.

Research has long been talked about in newspapers and on television programs that show maternal obesity and smoking are risk factors for childhood obesity. But what I always imagine in my mind is parents being stupid and feeding their children excess calories and abandoning them in front of TV sets and video games.

When I became a parent eight years ago, I wanted to know things about parenting. Most people nowadays pick up a book or two to prepare themselves to be better parents to their children than their parents were to them. It wasn't hard to come across information that doctors and researchers believe calorie-laden beverages, including fruit juices, are not a good idea for children to consume on a regular basis. I occasionally see toddlers sucking on a Coke and it's as disconcerting a sight to me as seeing a pregnant woman smoking.

I desperately want my kids not to be overweight. For starters, it's a health issue but it's also the psychological aspect. And for me it's not the school yard taunting that most people assume happens to fat kids because that didn't happen very much to me and when it did, I wasn't traumatized by it. I guess it's more the feeling left behind and the prejudices that come with being overweight.

My father smoked until I was five and then had a heart attack that scared him straight. Most of the next fifteen  years I lived in fear of him dying until he did when I was twenty. Smoking likely contributed to his early death and during his last fifteen years he begged his kids not to smoke. None of us three boys ever did. For years I refused to even pretend to smoke as an actor. I refused to put a real cigarette to my mouth, in honour of my father.

So my parental issue is obesity and I am adamant about not contributing negatively to my children's health. So far so good, but it's been challenging. We have spent far too much time at fast food restaurants or eating prepared and processed foods. I do, however, allow my kids to be active and encourage outdoor activity without stressing about unreasonable fears for their safety.

I take it quite personally when I see an obese child. I think to myself, rightly or wrongly, "Well that kid is screwed." and I think that the parents let her or him down. I know it's a very negative reaction but it's how I react.

My mother did things that could have affected my obesity yet it's not really possible to know if she should be blamed completely. She was a nurse who was and is always worried about what other people think of her. I was born several weeks early and they let her bring me home from the hospital before I reached five pounds because she was a nurse. The first night at home, she fed me solid food so I'd gain weight and she wouldn't look incompetent to her co-workers. That's a no-no and they knew that back then but my mother began trying to fatten me up from day one.

She also didn't breast feed me, which was more common back then but now we know it reduces the risk of obesity and is helpful in so many other ways. In fact recent studies show that it is beneficial for mothers to breast feed as long as they can. Two years and beyond is a good target from what I keep reading.

My mother insisted on feeding and feeding me. A thin child was a sickly and embarrassing child. Even now she complains about how fat I am in one breath and then complains how my children aren't eating enough in the next. She's 85, sure, but she should know better.

I'm particularly bothered when I see very overweight toddlers. There are several overweight kids in my daughter's preschool that aren't even five years old yet. One girl has the appearance of having breasts because she's so overweight. I would guess that some kids weigh almost twice as much as others of the same height. If they have this problem now, it's only gong to get worse when they become adults and their activity level slows down.

There was a story in the news recently of a child being taken away from their parents due to the parents clearly being at fault for the child's poor diet. I hate to see any kid have to face this disease if it's not necessary. We need more education and more support for parents. Giving a tax break for putting your kid in hockey isn't going to solve the problem.

My Children are Watching

My exercise spider.

My chatty seven year old son talks to me frequently about my exercise, diet and weight loss. He's told me a few times that I look smaller and tries to encourage me. He's not the least bit overweight but I find him quoting the nutritional information on food packaging now before HE eats it. It's obvious that what I'm doing is being noticed by my kids.

I didn't think my other child, a three year old girl named Amelia was noticing, but I was wrong. She sees me going to the gym and going for walks/jogs. I'm usually heading out the door for my evening walk when she's getting tucked into bed. Sometimes she blows me a kiss after I've left that is to find me out on the side walk.

One day a few weeks ago she presented me with a paper cutout spider that she made all on her own. She asked then that I take it with me to the gym. She hasn't forgotten. Every time I go for a walk or head to the gym she says, "Don't forget to take my spider with you."

It'd be easy for me to read much more into this than is actually there but I sense that my lifestyle changes are being very much noticed by my kids, in a weighty way.

The 12-Year-Old Me Went Biking with My Son

Not actually us but it's strangely close.

I'm still reflecting on the bike ride I had with my son last night on one of the last warm evenings of summer. I asked him recently if he had any other goals or things he wanted to do before the summer ended. He thought about it and said, "I want to ride our bikes to Grandma's." He informed me it was only half the distance of our big 18 KM bike path bike ride a week or so ago. I checked it out on Google Maps and the kid was right (9 KM one way.) He knows his geography, that boy.

This was his first time in traffic. Mine too, in my latest cycling rebirth. It says a lot about how far I've come in two month. I was completely comfortable riding in public. And two months ago I was chasing my son, sucking wind. Nowadays the little bugger has to keep up with me (which is hard for the poor little guy.)

The bike ride was flawless and relaxed. No pushing hard to beat the sun or oncoming storms. It was leisurely, stress-free and fun. It reminded me of when I was about eleven or twelve years old, a time when I broke free from the constraints of my neighbourhood and started exploring the city, often on warm summer evenings. It was during that time that I really fell in love with cycling.

Last night those old childhood cycling feelings of freedom and joy were rekindled. My inner child who adored cycling got to go for a bike ride with my beloved boy, Aiden, who also adores cycling, even before he knew his daddy was capable of it.

Bike Ride Leads to Electrifying Bonding Experience With My Son

My son, his trusty bike, and approaching weather.

I've been looking for motivation to do more cycling. I've upgraded my bike to (possibly) support my weight, I'm training at my clinic's gym to have the strength to do it, but for some reason, I'm still a little hesitant to "get on the horse," as it were.

Part of the reason may be that it can be difficult at first if I'm not warmed up. Doing a few minutes of slow jogging after 15-20 minutes of walking doesn't seem more than a progression of what I'm already doing.

Biking can involve a getting the heart rate up fast and, frankly, I have to dig the thing out of the shed, fill my water bottle and don extra shorts, gloves and a helmet. And part of me wants to preserve my bike until I'm lighter.

Starved for entertainment, I decided tonight was the night I was going to tackle the Devonian Pathway in my city. It's a multi-use pathway that spans about 8 KM or so, covering much of the city. Last fall my son, who was still six years old, rode the entire pathway by himself. It was part of a parenting philosophy I've embraced to give my children freedom so they can learn not to be fearful and to solve problems on their own. In short, it's an anti-helicopter parenting philosophy. There's a movement, check it out.

I let my son do it because he's quite smart for his age, knows more than most GPSs when it comes to geography and he really wanted to do it. Normally I would have gone with him on my bike but I was unable to due to my poor physical condition. It would have suited him fine if I was able to go, it's not that he was asking to go alone, but he was eager to attempt it, even without me or his mother riding with him.

I followed in a car but due to the nature of the terrain, I wasn't able to keep constant watch on him. I had a few nervous moments waiting for him to appear at the next check point but he always did, with a big smile on his face, pedalling like crazy (he only lost his training wheels two months earlier.)

I couldn't do what he was doing and I regretted it. At the time I didn't even dare to dream that I ever could attempt something like that again in my lifetime. Tonight, I set out to put that skeleton in my closet behind me. I decided we'd do the path tonight. I figured it'd take an hour or so round trip.

However, storm clouds threatened. There was a line of rain pouring out of the sky to the west of the city. The trail starts at the West end of the city and it seemed like it might hit us. My boy, now seven, pushed me to continue. "We can always turn around Daddy."

We got about half way when the lightning got a little too intense and a little too close. I changed my mind about the storm missing us. My son convinced me to turn around and make the fifteen minute trip back to the van, even though we'd be going into the storm.

I was wearing my heart rate monitor strap that happens to work with my old bike computer from fifteen years ago. I can see my heart rate on the little computer screen, below my speed, distance, etc. As we pushed hard to beat the rain clouds and lightning, I could see my heart rate rising to the 85% level, the maximum my doctor recommended I go.

I began weighing the risk of heart attack vs the risk of being hit by lightning. Maybe it didn't matter because a friend later joked, "lightning is nature's defibrillator." I kept my heart rate at 85% even though I wanted to pedal harder to possibly save my life. (OK, it wasn't that bad!)

As the skies grew even darker, the wind blew harder and the rain began to pelt us, I told my son that in all the years I've cycled (avidly until my early twenties when obesity came, and again later when I got fit for a period) that I had never cycled in a thunderstorm. The first time was with him.

I was really impressed with my son. He watches the weather channel a lot and we worry that he might be scared of severe weather but he was cool as a cucumber. The kid who runs in the house to change as soon as he gets water on himself outside on a hot day didn't even want to change into dry clothes when we got home.

I suspect he will remember this evening fondly for the rest of his life. I will too. There's nothing like cheating death to bring a family together.

It's also a good way to get a wicked workout.

A dream came true for me today, although there were moments that seemed like a nightmare

Four summers ago my son started riding a two wheeler bike with training wheels (he skipped tricycles all together.) He must have picked up on my love of bikes because he rode and rode and rode that thing. Once he rode several kilometers to my mother's house as I walked with him to the point of exhaustion.

But he saw my bike hanging in the garage with the helmet attached and frequently asked why I never rode with him. "I can't," I'd say. "Daddy's too unhealthy."

So for four years it was a dream of mine to ride my bike with my son. A dream that I thought wasn't any more attainable than owning my own tropical island. A few weeks ago it became a goal, but not for this year. Then I found myself in a bike shop asking to replace my bent wheel with a stronger one and a larger more cushiony tire. Later, I tried out some plush seats, taking one back to the store and finding a better one. Suddenly, my bike was ready to go, but I wasn't. I felt I was too heavy to ride a bike with thin rims like mine.

I was still 350 pounds at my last weigh in. I had lost fat and became smaller, but my overall mass didn't go down much and that didn't help get me any closer to my goal. I tried riding my wife's mountain bike but it was so wrong for me that I almost gave up on the dream of cycling completely.

One night recently, after the sun had set, I nervously set out on my newly-refurbished bike to see if it were possible. I zoomed along like I was riding on air. So much better for me was my hybrid bike (a cross between a mountain bike and a road bike) that it had almost seemed effortless. Yet I was still tentative and when challenged, my legs seemed really weak and muscle pain came easy. I didn't go far. I also was very tense, fearing my wheel would cave in.

I did one session of training at my clinic's gym yesterday to strengthen my legs for cycling and my arms to support my weight as I leaned forward on a bike. After a night's rest, I decided to give cycling a try with my son. He likes exploring, so first I tried to find a stretch of abandoned highway. I couldn't find one so I decided to go on bike path in a newer part of the city that no one in the family had ever tried. It was to be an adventure.

I tried to prepare my son by telling him I didn't think I could go very far or for very many minutes. He seemed to understand, but he's only seven. I put his bike in the minivan and strapped mine to the roof. We headed to the other end of town and I parked near the pathway on a residential street.

I was very apprehensive and worried that I'd disappoint my boy. But we set out and things went okay at first. People greeted us regularly. My perineum had been bothering me and I was worried it wouldn't hold for very long. I was sweating and tense and after a few minutes I asked to stop at a park bench.

We continued through the beautiful park on this cool summer day with lots of clouds. I spent a lot of time coasting past my son because my heavy weight gave me a lot of momentum going down hills. We explored as I chased after him. He completely forgot I had limitations and after a while, so did I.

The path was confusing because there were constant forks in it. We eventually got to the end where there was an artificial marsh in a park area. This is a more affluent part of the city and there's amazing play structures every few yards it seemed.

As we were headed back, we weren't quite sure where were were going. I over-exerted myself and became a bit aloof in my concentration. I was going too fast approaching a walking bridge and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting some large rocks. I skidded on sand and crashed. I thought I wrecked my bike but it was fine. I didn't care about me so much because I have free health care, my bike doesn't not, and I have no money to fix it.

I dusted myself off and walked for a while to get my bearings and see if I could recognize where we were. It didn't seem familiar and we thought we were lost. Storm clouds were moving in and I discovered my cell phone was dead.

Where we were lost, minus the storm clouds.

My son, the mapwhiz, found a sign with a map on it and figured out where we were before I did. A moment earlier we were lost and worried. He felt like he saved the day and his mood got even brighter than it had been. We had bonded more in those few minutes of desperation than we had since at any one time since his birth.

After 10.5 kilometers, I've never been so happy to see my stinking 1998 minivan. I pedaled even harder to get to her sooner.

Lessons Learned

Bring more water. I thought a small water bottle from a grocery store would do. It did not. I had to suck on some of my son's water. A proper bike water bottle needs to be purchased.

Find a way to wear a sweatband under my helmet. My eyes had sweat in them constantly and it was irritating.

My GPS might have been handy if I recorded the route so we could retrace it.

I got a mosquito bite on my back and I wish I had a back scratcher in the worst way.

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This has been a Canada Day I won't soon forget.