Rex was quite a surprise for us.  As a good friend of mine likes to say,I couldn’t have been more surprised if I woke up with my head stapled to the carpet, when I found out Suzy was pregnant again.  Jax, our second son, was definitely not on our schedule.

It was tough on Suzy because she was only a few pounds away from her goal weight again when we found out Jax was on his way.  I was doing well too.  This time we pretty much just let loose.  We were dealing with a 5 month old and we just gave in.  Once again Suzy and I packed on the weight together.

The odd thing is that since we were doing it together it wasn’t so bad in our minds.  After all, I was just trying to make my wife happy.  I guess that is one of the things about having been on the show together.  I think it kind of gave us a false confidence.  “We may have gained weight, but we can lose it when we want.”  It was true that we could lose it when we wanted, but it was going to take a lot longer than when we were living on the ranch.

I talk all the time about how people in the real world shouldn’t expect to see double digit weight loss numbers every week like they see on the show.  I know from experience that it takes hours of activity and pretty excessive calorie restriction to get those numbers.  Knowing all this, in the back of my mind I thought I should still be able to do that. 

I can’t.  Not only can I not lose double digits each week, I don’t want to.  I don’t want to live on 1200 calories a day the rest of my life.  I like to eat  food and enjoy it.  I don’t want to feel guilty every time I eat something I’m “not suppose to”.  I want to be able to go out to eat with my wife and have some bread.  I want to enjoy living a healthy life.

After having our second son, Suzy and I decided to make it our goal to be a healthy family.  Not a family on a diet with an exercise obsession, but a healthy family.  We decided that we would eat healthy as a family and be active as a family.  This meant taking the boys with us when we went for walks.  It meant working our schedules out so that each of us could get our own workouts in.  It meant making healthy meals and staying away from the fast food joints.

Suzy made all of the boys’ baby food.  We never bought a jar of baby food from the store.  Doing this made us more aware of how we were eating as well.  Just before Jax was born we went for a hike.  On the way down from the mountains Suzy wanted to stop and get some ice cream at Dairy Queen.  Well, I didn’t want her to have to eat ice cream alone so I got some as well.

About 2 minutes after we got our ice cream Rex  started squaking in the back seat.  He wanted some ice cream.  Suzy said “No Rex, this isn’t for little boys.”  After she said that we both looked at each other.  We couldn’t tell our kids not to do things if we weren’t willing to not do them ourselves.  We tossed the ice cream.

We knew that Rex was getting old enough to see what we were doing.  We couldn’t fake it anymore.  This crazy life of ours has just gotten crazier as the boys get older but we are doing our best to change our family’s legacy when it comes to health.

See you tomorrow!

Add new tag, Biggest Loser, Family, family health, Goals, healthy eating, life lessons, Matt Hoover, pregnancy weight

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