My 4 Year Old Nutrition Coach

When I was a kid growing up, nutrition wasn't a thing.

I mean, it was a thing. Just not really so much in my household.

Don't get me wrong, my parents were pretty fit. But they got their beach bods mainly from brute force exercise and limiting their calorie intake while they were at work.

The only issue is, I didn't see any of that.

What I did see when we were gathered as a family around the dinner table was a lot of white rice, red meat, and Diet Coke. Salads only came in the fruit variety, and nearly all of the snacks in our pantry were highly processed diabetes catalysts.

I'd suspect that this experience isn't all that uncommon in American households.

Now, I'm not saying that more education on nutrition would have immunized me completely from my struggle with obesity. After all, I've wrestled with losing weight for the past few years and I now know more than I ever have about nutrition. As I've discussed in previous posts, obesity is more often rooted in emotional issues rather than nutritional ignorance. But, I certainly do think that I would have developed healthier habits that may have helped me put on less weight and lose that weight faster.

That's why it's so important to me to find opportunities to share my weight loss journey with my kids while they're still young. I want it to become a way of life for them from an early age.

One of the best parts of my day is lifting my son up (I won't be able to do that much longer) onto the kitchen counter and having him help me make my morning nutrition shake. We use mainly Arbonne supplements, which are all vegan and plant-based. We talk about the ingredients, what they do, and why they're important.

I can't help but smile watching him pour all of his concentration into retrieving the perfect scoop and placing it expertly in the blender pitcher as he inquisitively tastes each ingredient.

I hope these moments are something that he'll always remember.

I know I will.