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Family Fitness Made Simple

Family Fitness Made Simple

It can be hard to get your kids up off the couch and get the game controller or laptop out of their hot little hands.

Believe me, I’ve got seven kids, and although none of them are addicted to television (because we rarely watch it), my boys do enjoy the Wii. I find that I have to allocate their time carefully because they seem incapable of self “policing” themselves.

In our family, we play the Wii two days a week, for one hour each session. The four boys who are old enough to play play in teams of two for about 30 minutes each. After that, the Wii time is over.

If you are like many parents or relatives of young children, the rising obesity rates in America are concerning. It concerns me.

So, we look for opportunities to get out kids out of the house. I also figuratively “kick them out” of the house regularly to play in the fort, ride their bikes in the driveway, shoot basketballs, and run around in the yard!

A couple of weeks ago we traveled a couple of hours from the house to the Land Between the Lakes National Park to do some hiking and sightseeing. You would have thought we were going to Disney World for all the excitement. Days of planning from this little guy who is very much like me in the planning department. . .

We loaded up our 12 passenger van and made the trip. I never stop at fast food for refreshments, but instead always make snack packs for each of the adults and kids. Saves money, calories, and stomach upset!

We got there and headed to the lake for a 3 mile hike. (We debated on a longer one, but chickened out because of the 4 year old.)

We started out on one side of the lake.

We sat on rocks.And got a great workout carrying the 4-year-old the last bit.We made great memories and hopefully continued our deliberate effort at instilling the love of activity in each of our kids.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/related-fitness-blogs/?bbPostId=Cz4oE3r1oKIesB4T4OwwLO0suCzE6e9t8AWbJCB6MTJW3j684A&bbParentWidgetId=B7kujPXTAmOH57GjgJYfG8O#ixzz1f1vAfYo8