How we can help kids be healthy
This morning, I took off from my personal training studio in Boonton. Normally I don’t take off but being a father of 2, I wanted to be able to see my kids off to their first day at school. As we stood there awaiting the bus, the allotted time went by. My wife texted one of the other moms, and found that the bus had already dropped the other kids off at school.
Did the bus forget about us? Nope.
Apparently nobody saw that the bus stop had changed. We had led our kids to the wrong bus stop.
And it makes me wonder, how often do we lead our kids in the wrong direction?
I remember as a kid, I played soccer…badly. The first team I was on, we didn’t win a single game but we all still received trophies at the end. I knew back then it was meaningless. A pat on the back for participating would have been enough rather than a shining glaring reminder of my ineptitude. Actually now that I reflect on that, maybe it was good in that I realized I needed to do better not for getting a trophy but for my own personal pride. But that’s another story for another time.
Reality is it is our jobs as parents to try to raise our kids to be the best versions of themselves. We rely on the school system to teach our kids some of the fundamentals of reading, writing and math, but what about the rest of it? Sure we have physical education and health class but considering the fact that childhood obesity is still climbing (though not as aggressively as in years past), I’d say we are leading our kids in the wrong direction.
So what’s the answer? Well I don’t know exactly but I’ll tell you what I’m doing. If you’ve read my stuff before, or you heard some of the things people say around town you might know that in addition to being a personal trainer, I’m also a motivational speaker and modern day performing strongman. Part of being a motivational speaker involves studying other motivational speakers and one line seems to stick out in this case.
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” John Maxwell
You see kids look to us as role models for how to navigate their way through life, and the world can be a confusing place for them. They watch what we do, and they test us for consistency. If you aren’t prioritizing health and happiness for yourself, what kind of message does that send to the kids?
I train consistently, I eat balanced nutrition, I meditate, play music and generally live a healthy, happy and well balanced life. My wife works out first thing in the morning in our home and models it for our children as well. Our daughters try to wear her clothes however loose it might fit and attempt to lift things.
Every so often I take my girls to work with me, they interact with my personal training clients and occasionally test their strength. My daughter when she was 6 years old even lifted my 97lb kettlebell off the ground. All of this normalizes health and fitness and patterns in their head “this is what people do”.
To have healthy kids, we need to act as health role models for them. I know it can be confusing with all the conflicting info, but that’s what I’m here to teach. If you need hands on guidance, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio in Boonton. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 and introduce yourself to get started.
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.
Iron Therapy… The Mental Health Benefits from Strength Training
Yesterday morning I was telling my personal training clients about my weekly challenge to post an article relating to some aspect of health and fitness. I told them “the challenge is coming up with new things to talk about”. One of my clients suggested writing about how it affects mental health.
This particular client had recently been through a trying time, and technically is still going through it but seems to be doing much better. I like to think that either I or someone I’m networked with and sent her way had something to do with it.
About a year or two ago I did my motivational speech brought to life with a strength performance for a group of social workers and told them “You are important because mental health is the next great frontier, and you’re the ones working in the trenches. The world needs you.” That’s true, but a lot of us are also attempting to do the same thing.
I don’t pretend to be a therapist, and I recommend anyone going through a trying time to also go to therapy quite simply because I’m not qualified to handle that sort of thing.
What I am qualified to handle is what I like to call “iron therapy” as in the iron teaches you what you are truly capable of. And it’s one of the most valuable things really is knowing you’re capable of more than you realized.
As I reflect on my own personal journey of strength, I’m reminded of the fact that a little over a decade ago I started down the path of the steel bending superhuman. Before that, I was devastated when my first wife left me for my best friend in the first year of our marriage. I bounced back faster than I thought I would and I credit that to my strongman mentor making me feel good about myself again. Bending steel gave me back the confidence I lost when I was tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage. I learned that it’s possible to bend steel, and not just possible….but possible for me.
Now for those that don’t bend steel, well getting stronger with weights does the same thing. I’ve seen it happen multiple times. As great as therapy is, it’s difficult to measure. How do you measure something subjective like a general feeling that can shift by the minute? Getting stronger with weights is objective. Nothing teaches you what you are capable of like lifting weights you never thought you could. It proves to yourself, your self efficacy and that you are capable of more than you realize. Numbers are easy to compare.
It’s almost become an internal joke. I load all the weights for my personal training clients and when they ask me how much it weighs I’ll say something to the effect of “don’t worry about it” or “it’s the appropriate training load”. I wait till after they do it to tell them and sometimes they’ll be floored, like in the case of when they took something they could do only once and do it 10-15 times in a row or get around 50 reps in a 10min period after having only trained 3 or 4 months.
Something like doing their first chin up which is harder to disguise has provided numerous times for discovery of ones potential, and we can see it happen in real time as they do it. I watch their face go from doubt, to determination to “OMG… I’m doing it!” all within a matter of seconds as they get their first one. One woman who started training with me in her 50’s had never done a chin up before, despite having worked with other personal trainers over the years. She didn’t think she would be able to get there and when she did her first she had an emotional release as she cried, now realizing yes she can.
And just this morning, one of my other personal training clients is going through a bit of a stressful period in her life. Took it out on the weights and had that natural endorphin release which made her feel way better than when she walked in.
And then going back to that first one, she has a goal that she is working towards. Not a training goal though training is a critical part of the journey to get their, but she’s making meaningful process en route towards her goal and that plays a part in mental health. Knowing you’re getting closer, seeing the changes, feeling the changes, other people telling you they see the changes, seeing the numbers get higher and getting that natural endorphin hit that makes you feel better when you walked in and quiets those internal whispers that tell you you aren’t good enough. You don’t have to say anything back, you already proved it to yourself. The iron said it for you.
If you need help with this, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 to get started.
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.
The importance of weight training on a weight loss program
I’ve been a personal trainer for a number of years. More years than I can count on my hands anyways but that’s besides the point. In the beginning I worked at a bigger box gym and was the personal trainer that would take you around and show the machines, and back then people were afraid of bulking up and looking like a body builder. They didn’t want to look like a body builder, they just wanted to lose weight.
And the more things change, the more they stay the same. I still have to field those concerns, though it has gotten better. I think a lot of it really has to do with association. They see big jacked body builders lifting weights in all the advertisements and they just associate weights with that.
This scares some people off of using weight training as part of a fat loss program. And it’s a shame because it can be a critical component. Here’s why…
Well before we dig into why…let’s clarify something really quick. It’s not weight loss we are after. I mean, if it was, then crashing a motorcycle might be the greatest program for that. No what we really are talking about is fat loss.
And in order to create fat loss, we need to be in a caloric deficit. As in calories in vs. calories out. When it is in a caloric deficit, your body needs to use calories to maintain basic functions, and instead of getting them from food, it uses up stored energy in the form of body fat…or at least that’s the hope.
The reality is, it can burn up stored body fat…but it can also burn up stored sugar in the form of glycogen or it can even burn up your muscle tissue.
The importance of weight training, is that it signals to your body “hey…we need the muscles, see we use them…don’t burn them up…burn the body fat instead.”
In addition to that, it improves metabolism and insulin sensitivity (both good things btw) and last but not least, it makes you stronger more muscular. I know that might not be something you’re interested in but bare with me.
When you go through a body transformation program there are a number of things that happen. Yes people get leaner and their bio markers of health improve, but what also changes is their sense of self effectiveness. They walk down the street with confidence knowing that if something comes up, they got this. If they need to move a couch or something, they got this. They want to go to the beach, they have a body they feel more comfortable putting on display.
No they won’t look like a body builder, but they’ll have the strength, the physique and the physical capacity to live life on their own terms. If this is something that sounds good to you and you’re looking for help, I offer a free trial at my personal training studio on Main Street in Boonton. Just send me a text at 973 476 5328 to get started.
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and moonlights as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. In the tradition of the strength performers more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a live show and travels across the country doing presentations on goal achievement for conferences, corporations, associations, nonprofits, and government entities as well as for schools and universities. His personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville, Butler, and Parsippany New Jersey.