We live in the age of extremes and in no area of life is this more apparent than with fitness. There is the cross fit crowd on one side of the table that pay well over $100 and possibly up to $200 per month to work out with a bunch of other lovely, jacked people in a converted garage. On the other is the seemingly unstoppable rise in obesity that has only been paused by drugs like Ozempic. Americans are having a rough time with fitness even though the most fit keep going to greater extremes.
In this article, I want to dig into the comment from the great fitness thought leader, Nate Bargatze, who looked at the before picture on a P90X DVD and wondered what that guy was up to. What does it mean to be okay at fitness and is that part of the answer to the challenge from the average person.
What does it really take to be reasonably fit? As it turns out, it really doesn’t take a ton of effort to maintain and active lifestyle. The most critical thing is figuring out what you will actually keep doing week over week without getting board. Here are a few thoughts to help us all out.
Figure out a Fun Fitness Activity and Make it regular
For me, the fun fitness activity is playing basketball with a group of friends at a local school where we rent out the gym. I would never work out as hard as I do each Monday if it wasn’t for this time. We enjoy the fact that now we know how each other move on the court and there is decent flow during our games. The game has gravity that keeps us all coming back. Its huge for keeping a bunch of 40-something dads from falling into the trap of crappy health that still stalks us as a nation.
Keep Dumbbells and a Bench in the House
It’s easy to build up momentum for 15-20 minutes of simple weights when all you have to do is step into another room in the house when you get home from work. Even better, if you work from home, you can take this during the day to refresh the brain. A set of dumbbells can sit in the corner of a home office and be plenty to engage multiple muscle groups every day. It allows for quick workouts which makes it easier to be consistent and its the consistency that is the key for maintaining fitness over the long term.
Get a Dog and Walk Everyday
This has been the secret to my father being in great shape for a 73-year-old. He has never been someone who cares to go to the gym, but he did start taking the beagle that they adopted from us on a 2 mile daily walk for a few years when he turned 70. My dad has the same level of workout motivation as I do and so he needs a reason to get out and be active. The responsibility to try to keep an old beagle from starting to look like a blimp was enough to get him out walking. The consistency of this “OK” level of activity has produced outsized results as time has gone by.
The Big Takeaway
Linking up weeks, months and years of consistent, physical activity really has some significant results for our health. Additionally, for those with tight budgets, it is good to know that a gym membership isn’t a requirement for health. There is plenty that can be done at home or by simply adopting an old beagle and hitting the trail.
Mental Health challenges amongst young adults is at an all-time high and many experts point to the fact that kids are being over-protected by parents and not allowed to step into their own ability to solve problems. An amazing way to combat this is to involve kids in home improvement projects. It can slow the process down a bit, but the payoff for their confidence is well worth it. Another aspect is that extra hands can move some projects along much quicker and when kids know they were involved in actually speeding a process up the boost to their self-esteem will be tangible.
It’s easy to read books on parenting strategies like the groundbreaking book on this topic by Dr. Daniel G. Amen and Dr. Charles Fay, but the true challenge is finding opportunities to apply these truths in daily life.
Kids don’t have enough opportunities to be involved in real problem solving
School assignments are generally paper or computer based and very controlled to the lesson at hand. This doesn’t provide opportunities for the mind of your child to engage in the kind of problem solving that almost any home improvement project comes up to. It’s great to see a parent work through what to do if a piece of baseboard is cut slightly short or to work to reset a paver that isn’t quite level on a patio. A major reason to involve kids in your simple projects is that these simple projects still run into complications and if they are around and engaged with the resolution, they will feel some level of power to deal with these things themselves. This will require patience (sometimes more than I have) and it could slow a project down, but this is the practical way to use the power of neuroscience to raise resilient children.
Becoming Mentally Strong starts with actually feeling useful
I have been involved in building two short fences and a paver patio with my kids and these projects all made me think of the big farming families that exist in the distant past. For the fences, my younger daughter was helping with a small nail gun (with me right next to her guiding) while my son held each plank in position. This allowed me to use my hands to ensure the nail was in place and the planks were precisely in the correct spot. This little system got us moving quickly through the installation of about 30 planks on a short front yard fence and we all felt quite pleased at the end. It honestly went much faster than I could have done it by myself or even just with my wife.
The three sets of hands, even if they were small were super helpful. It provided a first time to get hands on a project which allows them to begin to understand what it takes to see a project through. This is critical to becoming resilient children and young adults who know how to problem solve.
Types of Projects That Work for Kids
Obviously, the scale of the project needs to be right for this to work. The mental strength and patience that I am trying to generate by having my kids help is obviously not something that has much supply now. I’ve found that fences or replacing siding on a shed have been awesome for this. The kids are genuinely useful and we see a ton of progress quickly. Other items that I think fall into this category would be installing vinyl plank flooring since the kids could be staging to allow a parent to move through the placement or for an older child to actually do the placing while the parent is doing quality control.
Similarly, installing new baseboard is a great home improvement project where extra hands are tremendous and it also allows one of the kids to use a nail gun (with a parent right next to them, once again). This allows the parent to focus on positioning and the child can drive the nails. Cutting baseboard is definitely something that only a teenage child should help with, but if they are ready, this is a great next development step.
Experiences are the way to build mental strength and confidence
The major underlying theory here is that experiences are the currency for building self-confidence and resilience. In the United States, these types of experiences simply aren’t coming to kids at the same rate that they were in past generations. It takes intentional, effective parenting to create these experiences and home improvement projects provide a perfect, organic way to do this. It won’t be perfect, but its 100% worth bringing kids in to help with these items and also plant the seed for them to catch the DIY bug as adults.
All parents want to avoid power struggles and behavioral problems from children of all ages and the foundation that is required is to help build resilient children in their early years to insulate against these challenges.
If you like this post, check others related to this topic:
Raising Mentally Strong Kids by Helping them Understand the budget
Raising Mentally Strong Kids by Letting them Pack Their Own Lunch
Buying a house is tough and it can be even tougher in older neighborhoods that are often highly desirable due to their character and proximity to downtown areas. If you are someone who loves the idea of walking down streets with large trees and unique homes from these earlier eras. Here are some things to keep in mind if you want to be a person who puts Dave Ramsey’s wisdom into practice and buy the cheapest house on the street and then get ready to quickly add equity. The three examples below were all present in a house on the South Hill in Spokane, Washington in the 99203 Zip Code which is among the most expensive in the city.
Overgrown Landscaping that is Easy to Remove
Many older homes have landscaping that was carefully planted over 30 years ago and now has grown to a point where a significant amount needs to be removed. However, once you remove some of the overgrown portions, what is left is still mature, beautiful landscaping that simply can’t be duplicated in newer homes without spending a small fortune. This is a perfect example of a house where two trees next to the house are completely covering up the window to the dining room, but once those are removed there is still a fully mature landscape in front of the house. A day of yard work and a run to the dump could instantly add significant value to the property.
Weird Decisions that Tank Home Value but are Easy to Undo
In older neighborhoods where the homes have been with the same owner for many years, it’s pretty common for decisions to be made that are either a preference of the owner or some simple convenience item that are pretty devastating to a home’s value. In the same house pictured for this article with the overgrown landscaping there was a bathroom where a shower was removed and then the room was painted a dark red. This is the type of thing you do when you’ve been in your house for decades and you have the place paid off. You don’t need the shower and you like the color so go for it. For many people looking for a house, this is a total deal breaker. It’s weird and the house only has one total shower so most people will simply walk away and never give it another thought. However, the bathroom has plumbing hidden behind the new wall and floor and so it is likely a relatively simple remodel.
The dark red paint is a funny one because the entry in the home we currently live in was also painted this same color and along with the ancient light fixture in that area it made it feel like we were entering a cave. The principle is the same though, it causes an instant ick factor for home buyers, but it only took a couple hours to fix the whole area.
Expensive Updates Complete, Simple Stuff Left Unfinished
This is another one that my wife and I have seen often enough largely because people will fix the biggest eyesore in their house like an old shower, but they are used to the peeling paint in the bathroom so they don’t care to get that fixed. For an older person, all the little items like painting or replacing light fixtures are a bigger ordeal and its expensive to hire contractors so its not uncommon to only see the higher value items completed. This is still a situation that can turn off many homebuyers and bring down the overall feel of the home even though a little paint is one of the easiest DIY opportunities. In a situation like this, the home improvement is simply repainting a few walls and then the value of the bathroom skyrockets.
The big takeaway is that in a softer housing market like it has been in 2024 and likely will be in 2025. These little items can add up and make houses sit longer and drop further in price than they should. These issues caused this home to fall $50K from its initial list price and there are hundreds of homes like this in neighborhoods across the country. A smart, scrappy buyer who pays attention to this stuff and isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty can potentially snag $30K-50K in equity.
Mental health challenges amongst kids today are at an all-time high and many experts point to the fact that kids are being over-protected by parents which is in turn leading to a generation that hasn’t developed the ability to deal with the natural stress of live. When the challenges of being a teen or young adult confront many kids, they have not developed the coping muscles due to being overly sheltered. This aligns with the parenting strategies outlined by Dr. Daniel G. Amen and Dr. Charles Fay in their bestselling book with the end goal of helping our kids reach their full potential. His groundbreaking book is loaded with practical advice for parents, but it’s up to us to put this evidence-based help into practice in our day-to-day interactions with our kids.
The following are three ways the helping your kids understand the family budget and live within it will help them be emotionally strong and hopefully lessen their anxiety as they become young adults. The best thing parents can do is give kids their first time exposure to the realities of life in a setting where we can show them what good decisions in the real world look like. As parents we obviously want the best possible mental health for our adult children and these small opportunities, we get with them as kids are the steps to build this foundation.
Learning to Wait for Things for a Real Reason
One major aspect of developing mental strength for kids is learning to wait. The challenge is that it can be a power struggle if parents are just saying no to requests and then deal with the onslaught of questions. Rather than just starting a fight with, “Because I say so” it can be super helpful to just share what the family has budgeted for the particular area and then explaining when the item fits in or why it doesn’t fit at all.
In this way, parents are just pointing to a bigger reality which in turn helps kids start to understand the world has more to consider than what they want right now. We can share that it’s smart to wait on some of the random stuff they want because this month the car needed work done. As they internalize the larger picture over time from interactions like this it helps them lay the foundation to become resilient children and young adults. This is how the power of neuroscience can be on our side as parents if we set up simple opportunities for our kids to develop mental strength.
Learning to Choose between Two Desires
This item is usually centered around something bigger that a child wants like a video game system or a bike that takes a little more time to save up for. If a kid really wants the bigger item, then its is a helpful way to push back on every request that seems to come up at Target or from seeing a new product on social media.
Once again, its connecting to the bigger picture rather than letting the desire in the moment run the show. The family budget can be a practical tool for helping children of all ages grow in this skill. It doesn’t require a child psychologist like the team at Amen Clinics to make progress like this if parents use the opportunities well that arise in daily life.
Becoming Mentally Strong starts with knowing you aren’t always in charge as a child
This is a big one because this is what kids really want. They don’t want their parents to be pushovers and give them everything they want even if the complain and use all the tactics that make every parent cringe. Children need to understand that their parents have a plan and are moving the family in a direction that is more complicated than their momentary wants.
This is also an area that can help parents recover if you (like all parents at some point) deal with saying yes too much to your kids. A new budget for the extra expenses that come along with a trip to Target can be a great way to take background if your kids have gotten to a level of whininess that you aren’t feeling great about. The key is that restoring this balance is the key to raising mentally healthy kids. This also helps avoid behavioral problems during the teen years that often arise from a lack of effective parenting in the early years.
Giving kids a picture of the real life that they are headed towards
This is huge because talking to kids about the bigger aspects of the family budget starts to get pictures of adult reality in to the mind of your child. They can start to see that its not scary or super complex, but that adults have to live in reality. The biggest part of reality is that you have to spend less money than you make.
Another aspect of this is that it gives us as parents a bit of built-in accountability to know what we are doing with the budget since we’ve opened up this world a bit to the kids. As kids get older, some of the specific numbers for groceries or how to use a credit card can be shared to help them wrap their mind around what life really costs. In the United States, its so easy to skip past these opportunities to help develop resilient children due to the lack of focus that is a constant challenge in a world full of social media distractions.
If you like this post, check out two more on related to this topic:
Raising Mentally Strong Kids by Letting them Pack Their Own Lunch
Raising Mentally Strong Kids by Involving them in Home Improvement