Getting fit has been on my mind lately. Where I work, my department has challenged another department to lose weight and get fit in 2006. Our two departments weighed ourselves as a group (no one would do it individually) on a big freight scale and the race is on. The group with the largest percentage of weight loss and the most steps taken (we are all wearing pedometers) wins. Anyhow, it’s a lot of fun and everyone is watching out for everyone else.

So, when I was scanning through the forums and I came across some posts on weight and Korean adoption, I thought “bingo” here’s a post idea. The question was if weight is a factor when adopting from Korea. The answer is yes and no. Some of the agencies take weight into consideration and some of them don’t. However, even if you are choosing an agency that doesn’t take weight into account, shouldn’t you be thinking about losing weight anyway?

Weight can affect your health and your ability to play with your child(ren). I personally am on a mission to loose thirty pounds. I’ve lost five so far, but it’s only been a week so I’m pretty pleased. Here are a couple ways that I’m exercising with my son:

• Power Walks – For longer power walks, I push him in the stroller, but we talk about the things we see on the way. He likes to look back at me and point out things of interest.
• Short Walks – For shorter walks, I let him walk/run. They aren’t power walks, but I’m adding steps and I’m getting some fresh air. Since his two year old legs are starting to move pretty fast, sometimes I have to run too.
• Chase – My son and I just chase each other around. Sometimes it’s outside and sometimes it’s just around the living room. He gets a big kick out of it and I get a little exercise.
• TV – I try to leave the television off. Studies show that television watching can seriously affect children’s development and it does nothing for my waist size either.
• Dance – Sometimes we turn on music or pop in a music DVD and we both dance. I’ve discovered that if I’m sitting, my son will just watch the DVD, but if I get up and dance…he dances too. When it’s over, he will often say “more mama” and then we dance some more.

We are also working on diet. There are no more high calorie and high sugar snacks in our house. We’ve stocked up on yogurt, fruit and pretzels. My son thinks yogurt is dessert. In addition, we are making sure that we cook most of our meals and only go out to eat once on the weekend. Wish me luck!