Happy Sunday Everyone:
I grew up bigger than the other kids. Any “big” kid that is reading this knows the days of watching your skinny friends devouring a pizza and just looking at them with envy. Milk shakes, cheese burgers, bacon, hash browns, candy bars….yes they all went down but not without a feeling of guilt and what was to come the next day…an extra 1lb, 2lbs, 3lbs….what was it going to be? Why do I bring this up? I passed this “big” trait on to Jack and Thomas. Jack being 14 years old, 6’0, 200 lbs., Thomas being 12, 5’6 and 171. Jack looks like a man, Thomas does not, which is to say Jack wears it a little better at this moment in time.
Thomas decided he wanted to play football with his friends this year for the first time. All of these teams have weight limits and the team Thomas wanted to play on was 150lbs. He could play up with the older kids but he really wanted to play with his friends. Thomas came to us and said “what do I need to do to lose the weight to play in this league?”. This was 40 days ago, and his first game is next Saturday. I had two thoughts going through my head, the short term thought was this can’t be done, the long term thought was I don’t want Thomas going through the same mental crap I went through with my own weight i.e. I want him to be healthy but I want him to embrace who he is and what he is vs. focusing on wishing he looked different i.e. skinny. In the end, Kim and I sat him down and told him if he wanted to do this we would help him but he’s doing it for him, not for us, and we were not going to fight him along the way. We would simply tell him how we think it could be done but it was up to him to make the needed choices, not for us to discipline him into attempting to accomplish this.
I’ll skip every day but it started w/ Thomas going to the track with me at 6:00AM to run, he ate healthy breakfasts, salads/chicken for lunch, fruit or hummus for snacks, a light dinner, mostly before 6:00 PM, and then he was done for the day, all while going to football practice from 6:00-8:00PM. He asked us for advice/opinions but not once did we have to push him. As of yesterday morning, Thomas weighed in at 151.2, with another 7 days to go. Yesterday at lunch, without any suggestions he ordered a quinoa salad w/ salmon and then picked out the candied walnuts…WHO DOES THAT at 12?
I’m writing about this for multiple reasons, probably the biggest being simply how proud I am of my son (as is Kim). He is so casual about this whole thing while Kim/I (and Jack) are in awe over his commitment to doing this. He is the family hero right now, not for the weight loss but for the commitment to all of it.
Some of my thoughts/learning lessons from watching Thomas:
1. The simplicity of defining a goal with the end in mind. Putting a plan in place to accomplish it, and then simply doing it.
2. Changing your mindset. there is a shift that took place in Thomas’s mind/heart. He looks at a cheeseburger as his enemy and a carrot as his friend. It’s no longer willpower making these choices, he changed his mindset so that he doesn’t need willpower.
3. As a coach/student, a parent/child…You can’t want something more than the other person, you can only help find what it is they want, and then support them in accomplishing it. We supported Thomas but he wanted it.
4. Confidence comes from accomplishing goals, big and small. I believe this will impact what Thomas believes he is capable of doing the rest of his life.
5. Being on the supporting side of someone attempting and accomplishing their goal is beyond gratifying. The love and support Thomas heard/felt every single day from his brother/Kim/I brought us all closer. I think we could all do some reflecting on who we can help and support more. A single word of encouragement might be a word to you but it makes all the difference in the world to the other person….stack those words on top of each other and we have something going.
Have a great week ahead. BTW-Thomas is sitting next to me right now, he gave me the thumbs up to hit the send button.