Category: role model

Not an Excuse

Reason Not ExcuseI came across this quote while I was putting together a mini motivational poster for our workout room.  It really hit a nerve.

I have four stepkids, and I have always been an active stepmom, long before my husband and I got married.  I don’t see a point to half-assing anything.  I’m either in or out of the kids’ lives, and if I’m in, I’m all in.  I have been at my husband’s side for school events, sporting events, church, teacher conferences, awards ceremonies, you name it.

A parent’s job is to raise strong kids who grow into independent, thoughtful, productive adults.  I worry about the kids all the time, especially when our efforts to build them up are deliberately and routinely torn down by others.

The kids are only with us sometimes.  They also live with their egg donor, Psycho.  More than once, the kids have sadly made a comment to me, usually while watching me get ready to leave for the gym or while I’m working out at home, like “Mom says she doesn’t have time to work out.  She says she’s too busy taking care of us” or some variant of her “losing herself” when she had kids, or when she got married, or some other occasion that should be celebrated as a happy time of her life, not an opportunity to pawn guilt onto the kids, or an ex-husband who was forced to escape her.

Having kids changes your life, no doubt about it.  My world was shaken up, tossed around, and rearranged until I didn’t recognize it, when I met my husband and the kids.  I had a choice to either fly solo and continue with life as I knew it, or accept that my life is now far more about four children than it is about me.

Of course it’s different being a stepmom than the one who gave birth.  But all of the kids are old enough now that the timeframe for using the kids as an excuse for extra weight has long expired, anyway.  And that’s not what my post is about.  I get that being pregnant adds baby weight and changes your body, even if I’ve never experienced it personally.  The pressure to lose that weight as fast as humanly possible, at the expense of all else,  is patently absurd.  Over a decade later, however, that topic is no longer relevant.

I’m talking about using the kids as a lame excuse for remaining overweight.  The kids have mentioned it enough times that it is obvious they hear it from Psycho ad nauseam.  She is overweight because of them.  It’s not her fault, it’s theirs.  She would have time for exercise if it wasn’t for them.  (Apparently she’d be a fitness model if it wasn’t for them, to hear her talk.)

It’s so ridiculous that it would be laughable if it didn’t hurt the kids’ feelings so deeply.  Psycho had no job for at least half of this past year, with eight hours a day wide open while the kids were in school.  She has no adult responsibilities, since her daddy pays all her bills, so are we really supposed to believe she had no time for workouts?  Please.

But the kids don’t logically rationalize it out like that.  They accept the blame, completely and unquestioningly, and they feel guilty for…what?  Being born?  Existing?  That is disgustingly unfair.

I am overweight.  I don’t deny it.  I also don’t blame my husband or kids for it.  They don’t cram food down my throat or tie me to a chair so I can’t work out.  It would be convenient to blame them, but I make plenty of bad choices all on my own and don’t need any help in that department!  I would never foist responsibility for my poor decisions onto the kids, who have absolutely nothing to do with it.

In fact, it should be the opposite: the kids should be my (and others’) motivation, not a cheap and easy excuse.  The kids were so proud of me when I was losing weight and getting into shape before the wedding.  It was a huge motivation for me.  I am ashamed that I let that go.  I need to get back at it, let them see that I didn’t give up, that they are a momentous reason I want to push forward and work hard.  I want them to feel positive and proud, happy and confident, and see that they are a shining star, a bright spark, for me.  05090b7bab03906486566596baea03b7d0dcaf-retina-thumbnail-large

My New Day #1

I have started over before.  In fact, my blog is over a year old, and I have bounced right back to my starting weight, and then some.  So me declaring that I am starting over might elicit nothing more than a yawn or an incredulous “Again?”, but I am drawing the line in the sand.  It’s time to either start making real changes in my life, or just accept being fat.  I refuse to do the latter.

Seeing the kids this past weekend reminded me that this is about so much more than looking good in a pair of jeans, or a number on the scale.  For better or worse, kids are always watching the adults in their lives, and more sinks into their brains than we realize.

My oldest stepdaughter said she wants to lose weight.  My heart sank.  She is, by no stretch of any imagination, overweight, and she most certainly does not need to lose weight.  I mentally ran down all the female role models closest to her: a snooty grandmother with a stick wedged permanently up her ass, who emphatically believes that appearance is absolutely everything; an overweight, out-of-shape egg donor who moans constantly about her weight while doing nothing about it, and insults other women instead of lifting a finger to improve herself; and…me.

What about me?  I deliberately don’t mention my weight to the kids.  I know they are already fed enough of that body-and-appearance obsession at their other household, and I refuse to add to it.  But they are not blind.  They can see that I am overweight.  They can see my weight ricochet up and down.  So whether I piss and moan about it or not, I am still not being a healthy, strong role model for them, when they desperately need one.

I need to do better.  I will do better.  So I may have started over a million times before, but this time, I am going to keep in mind that there at least four other, very important reasons to do this besides myself, and those are my four stepkids.

Kids and Bad Habits

The kids didn’t look this bad last night, but pretty close!

I am a bit of a football nut (and even worse about hockey), so going straight from my younger stepson’s football game to watching my Steelers play on TV was a little piece of heaven for me last night.  My stepson’s team lost, pretty bad actually, but he got to play and did very well, so I loved it.

My stalker, Psycho, was there, with both of my stepdaughters.  Psycho seemed to be there mostly for the concession stand.  She even missed my stepson playing because she couldn’t resist yet another trip for nachos and soda.

What truly bothered me, though, was watching both of my stepdaughters do the same thing.  They were already munching on hot dogs when we got there.  Both of them trotted to the concession stand several times, for pickles and candy bars and soda and more nachos and bags of candy and then more soda.  Every time I looked at them, they were coming back from the concession stand with a fresh round of junk food.

I freely admit to liking soda and sweet things.  But there is no way in hell I’d have kept giving them the money to cram more junk into their bodies.  Seeing them display the exact same binge-like behavior was scary.  They honestly didn’t think anything of their non-stop eating.  Why would they? Their mother was doing it, encouraging it.

None of the kids is overweight, but they are out of shape, if that makes sense.  They get out of breath easily.  I remember being in constant motion as a kid, and I played sports in school.  Sitting in front of a TV or video game was out of the question.  Combine that with the kind of eating I observed last night, and it’s really just a matter of time before one of the kids has a real weight problem.

They are more active with us, since we go to the park or break out the football or soccer ball or go for walks, and sometimes they work out with me.  But they are only with us for so little time.  I’m not convinced we can offset the inactivity and bad eating habits they have already learned.

It reinforced me how direly the kids need a healthy role model in their lives.  I am ashamed I have not been that for them up to this point, but it is a huge motivator for me to kick this weight to the curb and show them what a strong, fit woman is.

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