Kids making us "step" up our game!

Two weeks ago we started our family journey of stepping together.  Our two oldest children challenged us that they would easily beat myself and my husband on a daily basis counting our steps. Our last blog we shared the details of how this started and today is our update.

The kids watches came in the mail on a Wednesday.  The first week they only logged three days officially. Our oldest racked up 59,163 steps in three days and our middle child, who had an ear infection and did not seem very active still managed to get 44,383 steps in three days. Considering that the universally accepted goal is 10,000 steps, my kids numbers were already starting to make my husband and myself a little nervous.  So much so that Tim and I found ourselves jogging in place like total weirdos when no one was looking. The first week the kids had their watches was the first week Tim and I both had more than 90,000 steps.  Up until the challenge with kids we both were averaging 75,000 steps but we didn't want to beat by kids!

Tim started to get really nervous the following week and started running in place all the time. I'm not sure if he was even doing it in rooms while seeing patients because he pulled out the big numbers week two.  He broke 100,000 steps to crush the spirits of the 10 and 9 year old children (and a 41 year old lady).  The children that did more laying in the pool and watching "Teen Titans Go" and they still managed to post steps in the 80,000.

I took a different approach to try and equalize the playing field.  I would pick kids up from camp and then put them in the pool while I ran around the pool.  Suckers!   While they were floating and hitting each other with noodles, I was sure to beat them right? Wrong, I still got my butt kicked by a 10 year old who does not like to lose!  Lily pulled up 1,000 more steps than me getting to 89,000 steps!

Now we are in week 3 of our challenge with 5 days left.  Our 10 year old came home from camp on Monday with 17,000 steps.  She means complete and total business this week.  So we did what every good parent would do.  We put the children to bed by 9pm, and Tim and I jogged in place for 5,000 steps each extra to beat her by 1,000 steps.  The next morning our daughter lost her mind and she vowed to beat us this week.  Our current numbers are here.  But this challenge truly has mad me move more than ever.  Moving like a child is hard and takes a lot of work.  I have even lost 3 pounds in the last week and a half, but this could be attributed to the late night snack being replaced by the weirdo running in place to try to surpass a 10 year old.

We are continuing to let our kids to inspire us and make us move more.   The watches we are using are the Withings Pop Activate, these watches are water proof and even log swimming, so I may have to keep the kids out of the pool if I really want to win! We have the scale below too that helps me stay on target! Happy stepping everyone!!!!!

The family that steps together.....drives each other crazy!

About 6 months ago, my husband and myself jumped on the bandwagon of fitness watches and counting our steps. Our children have watched us over the last several months challenge each other and taunt each other when one of us is obviously way out performing the other in overall steps for the day. In the last 2 months our children, our oldest two, Lily 10 and Abby 9 have begged us to let them be a part of the "fun". Did they not realize this was extra work for us? Did they not realize that this is part of our fitness routine? This is not fun!!! But then we realized it was pretty fun being psychopaths running in place in between seeing patients and feeling the effects of a little more movement. So we ordered the fitness watches for 2 of our three children and our youngest who is four is quite content with her invisible fitness watch! (As pictured below)

It wasn't until yesterday when we received the watches for the kids that the cold hard reality hit myself and my husband.  We are totally going to get our butts kicked by a 10 year old and 9 year old. After only having her watch on for less than a half hour or so, our oldest had already racked up over 3,000 steps and our 9 year old was right behind her.  I was sitting well over 12,000 steps for the day, but this was 9 pm and I had my watch on all day and had to push myself to that number.  

After we put these kids to bed, we knew we had to console each other.  This was probably going to be the last time either of the adults would be number one on the challenge leader board.  But then we started to think a little deeper about fitness and our overall predictions of what might be the outcome of being challenged by a child.  And I am not talking about average couch potato kids, I'm taking constantly moving, soccer playing and swimming all the time kids.  Could our kids push us to a new fitness level? Hmm, it sure is an interesting idea.  So we have decided, for fun to log our results of our little family challenge.

The hypothesis, in no way form or shape is this a true scientific study, but we have an idea that the kids move way more in an average day than adults.  When we first got our fitness watches, we were in shock to find we did not just automatically log 10,000 steps at work, more like 3,000! We actually have to work hard to get 10,000 steps, but my 10 year old had 3,000 steps in a half hour.  This family fitness challenge is not an attempt to make our children move more, it is our sad attempt to make us move more, using as them as our role models.  My average daily step count has been at about 11,000.  I feel like I am working so much harder the days I get to 16,000.  My complete paradigm is about to change, as I guess my two children each will be well over 20,000 when they get home from soccer camp today.

Soccer camp week is a tough week to compare and start this challenge, but even weeks they are not at soccer camp I believe their daily step count will far exceed mine and my husbands unless we move more! We are going to log our daily and weekly progress and see if being beat by a kid is enough inspiration to change our habits.

The brand of watches we are using are Withings, a brand that we extensively researched before buying this type of device.  All of ours are waterproof, only because I jumped in the pool with my first watch that was not. We also have the scale and blood pressure cuff that all sync to the free Healthmate app.  The link to Amazon is below for the watches.  Maybe you will join us in this challenge to see if we should be raising our fitness standards to that of a child.