Written by: Kate Bixler, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We’ve all been there. Wanting to lose weight but wishing that we could just have a 2, 3, or 6-month sabbatical to just focus on our health goals only and nothing else. One day turns into another, and it just feels so hard to finally get around to reaching that weight goal, health goal, or to just get into shape.
Some teachers are lucky enough to have the summers off. 8 weeks to pack it all in. Many of us work year-round, though. Child care doesn’t close down for the summer. So, Early Childhood Education teachers often wake up early and head to work instead of the beach.
We are bound to the classroom all day, except for our lunch break.
We stay up late writing lesson plans. Sometimes in front of the TV. With a snack.
Iced Coffee. With Sugar. All Day Long.
Stress. Stress from supervisors. Stress from deadlines. Stress from children. Stress from parents. And pressure on ourselves when we compare our performance to another teacher.
Sweets- from the children, from the parents, staff appreciation days, you get the idea.
We are so good at taking care of others. We forget that taking care of ourselves first should be a priority.
The children make us tired! They are little bundles of boundless energy that can spin in circles for hours. Just watching them go can be exhausting! If only you could bottle it up.
But it’s all a matter of perspective, right? Our weekly routines can make it hard for us, or we can look for evidence that it is easier for teachers to lose weight than for those who are stuck in an office or who work at home.
Routines. We plan all of our weekdays around routines. We know how to do that for the children. We can just extend that skill to our evenings and weekends. Go to the gym on the way to or from work. Decide when to lesson plan so that you can get to bed at a regular time.
Get exercise right at work. Dance, play running games outside, do yoga every morning before lunch with the class, stretch after nap time, take brain breaks throughout the day and do one minute of high-intensity movement with children who can use a little re-direction too.
Teachers can’t snack throughout the day. Can you find a way around this? Sure. But is it helpful too? You are in the classroom, so you have less options when it comes to deciding when to eat. Use this to your advantage and enjoy not being tempted with available food. Just decide that you can't snack throughout the day.
Document with the children. Make tables, graphs, and charts based on the vegetables you eat, the minutes of exercise that you get, or the number of songs that you dance to. Teaching math skills can work for you, too, as inspiration to do just a bit extra each time that you do something for yourself.
Plan a healthy lunch and eat with the children. Talk about what you bring and why it’s good for your body. Pack foods that make a great nutrition lesson at the moment. We want to prioritize ourselves, but if contributing to what the children are learning matters more to you, then use that motivation for you!
We have little accountability partners all day, every day. Share some of your goals with the children. They will remember and be your cheerleaders, just as you are theirs. Great goals to involve them in are: eating healthy dinners, getting to sleep by a certain time every night, eating 5 servings and fruits and vegetables each day, drinking 8 glasses of water, or getting a half-hour of exercise each evening. Have a morning report and share about your evening, and you might have an extra incentive the night before.
We can be role models and hydrate. Children really get into this when it is a group goal. If we always have iced coffee in our hands and tell them to drink water, they get a mixed message. Children love to do what we do. They don’t always love to do what we say. We come from such different energy when we are hydrating together all day.
Make your evening workout adventures part of your literacy curriculum. If part of your plan is to walk your dog every evening, involve the children by promising, and delivering, fun stories about the adventures of dog-walking in your neighborhood. Include true moments from your evening, and then describe them in an engaging way, introducing new vocabulary. Invite the children to tell their own stories, and it is now a part of your day that will keep you going on your walk. It might encourage you to enjoy it more as you look for new material to talk about.
It’s all a matter of perspective. You decide if it’s easy or hard to lose weight as a teacher. You have 100% control over which one you choose to believe. Either way, you will continue to prove your belief true. Why not choose the one that will help you to reach your goal?
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Kate Bixler, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kate Bixler is the certified weight-loss and life coach that women turn to when they are tired of struggling to lose weight on their own. She has a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership and has 30+ years of experience teaching, presenting at conferences, and training teachers to be the best version of themselves. She combines her personal experience of losing 40+ lbs. and coaching expertise to help women transform their current identity into the future self that they dream of, leaving their struggle with weight loss behind.
