Last week, we continued with our New Year’s Resolution theme and focused on promoting a healthier lifestyle at school. This week, in our final blog on the topic, we will be focusing on how you can live a healthier lifestyle after school.
In the winter months, it is too easy to come home in the dark, eat stodgy comfort food and turn in for an early night. However, all this will do is leave you feeling groggy the next day and may lead to the dreaded ‘January Blues’ as everything seems repetitive and bleak.
In this blog post, we aim to give you a few tips to help make the few hours at the end of the day as easy, healthy and enjoyable as possible.
Healthier Lifestyle After School
So you’ve picked the kids up from school, finished work or finished school yourself and arrived home. What now?
The temptation to just stick the TV on, sit down to a big plate of quick comfort food and put your feet up is overwhelming! Especially on these dark winter nights when everything seems bleak outside.
However, in order to stick to your new year’s resolution, you must battle the January Blues and stay away from the temptation.
So what should you do instead?
Well for a start, lots of schools, gyms and individuals run fitness classes that are perfect for the entire family. A lot of fitness classes actually offer children under a certain age the opportunity to participate for free! Schools often run a multitude of after-school activities, which can often be easier for parents to manage rather than taking them to an external fitness class.
However, if none of those activities is what your child wants to do, get on Google and search for local fitness classes near you.
Swimming is a great solution as it truly is a great activity that all the family can get involved. It has so many benefits too. We found these reasons why swimming is so good for you and we couldn’t agree more! Read them here. If you’re going with the whole family, it’s great bonding time.
If swimming isn’t your cup of tea and you would rather stay at home or can’t find the time to schedule it in, there are plenty of other ways to get movement at home.
Walks are free and you can go on them whenever is convenient for you. Walks count towards a young person’s daily recommended quota of 60 minutes a day of moderate exercise and can be very beneficial to helping you lead a healthier lifestyle. They are also a great way to bond with the family – getting outside and doing stuff together, as well as discovering new places.
Although it may seem impossible to squeeze exercise in after school it may be easier than you think.
Doing active chores around the house is a great way to maximise your movement. Encouraging your child to push/pull the hoover around or dust is not only getting them off the sofa, it’s also giving them a valuable life lesson about how to act around the house.
We found some fantastic chore charts that can be used as a reward system on Pinterest. You can have a look here and find one that would best suit your family.
Making simple changes like this will contribute towards your family staying active after school finishes.
It is important to combine this activeness with a healthy balanced meal so make meal time a family event. Cook together and cook well! There are so many recipes out there that are quick, easy and good for you. Take a look at some of the yummy recipes on the BBC Good Foods website here and see if anything takes your fancy! Spending more time on meal prep gives you a better idea of what you’re putting into your body and also less time lazing around.
However, we do also want to stress – forgive the pun – how important relaxation time is. It’s equally important to children as it is to adults. Therefore, try not to overwhelm yourself or children with activities. Make sure you schedule some time in the week to stick the TV on, sit down to a big plate (albeit healthier) of comfort food and put your feet up. Just not every night.
We hope you have found our blogs on how to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions helpful, and we truly hope you stick to them.
The way to view it is a small change in lifestyle (just minor adjustments to your usual routine) rather than one huge change that can seem scary. Any improvement in how active you are or how you eat is a step in the right direction and one step closer to achieving your goal.
As we mentioned in our first New Year’s Resolution blog, childhood obesity is still a major problem. According to the Government publication, Childhood Obesity – a Plan of Action, nearly a third of children aged 2 to 15 are overweight or obese. This is a staggeringly large percentage of children and unfortunately, although this report was published in 2017, it doesn’t seem to be changing.
The only way of this changing is by educating ourselves.
The important thing to remember when starting a healthier lifestyle at home, in school and after school – is that educating yourself on ways to eat healthier and stay active is key. Once you have the basics down, the rest comes pretty naturally and we can set a better example for children in the future and solve childhood obesity.
Tagtiv8 support you all the way in your healthier lifestyle choices!