That's Fit

Soccer moms (and dads), I suspect the soccer season has begun. Coaches have been drilling your kids on the soccer field as you sit in your comfy chair with cupholders to watch and hang out with other follow-the-checkered-ball parents. At the end of the practice, maybe the coach says, "Moms and dads, the kids can only learn so much during our one hour on the field -- please, please practice with your kids at home."

As a first-time soccer coach myself, other than kicking the ball with my son in the backyard and perhaps setting up a goal to defend, I don't know much about soccer strategy or appropriate drills. When I was young, youth soccer was not on the radar. I played one organized sport starting at the age of nine -- softball -- adding golf and basketball to round out my three seasons at the high school level. Soccer? Other than gym class, I never played.

If you'd like to take on the coach's challenge to improve your child's soccer skills with age-appropriate drills and fun games, check out Footy4Kids. It's a comprehensive website for amateur coaches and parents to learn all about the game while keeping kids entirely in focus. As a new soccer coach I'm leaning heavily on the site. We played Sharks and Minnows last night at practice and had a field of six-year-olds screaming for more! Young kids learn foundational soccer skills via exciting games. Keep your backyard drills on the fun side and your soccer stars will beg for more, and you'll burn a bonus one or two hundred calories, too.

Spring is more than spreading mulch and planting new flowers -- it's kid soccer season in our family. This year I've decided to slide my butt off the spectator bench, forego the bag of game pretzels and raise my hand to assistant coach my six-year-old son's team.

We had our first practice tonight and I'm tired and sore. I ran around the practice field modeling proper dribbling techniques, made several shots on goal, leaned over constantly to talk to the 48-inch and under set and topped off practice with a 'coaches versus players' scrimmage. It was freezing outside, but with all our movement we remained warm. No doubt we were steadily burning calories -- equivalent to maybe a brisk walking pace which AOL Body's Calories Burned calculator estimates burned over 200 calories per hour for my frame.

If you have kids in organized sports think about coaching. I am now guaranteed eight weeks of consistent activity three hours a week during times I'd otherwise be milling around in the kitchen potentially snacking away. No more sitting on a blanket with other parents and gossiping between gametime cheers and handfuls of pretzels. I'm going to be running up and down the sidelines working muscle.

If you don't have time or the inclination to coach youth sports, volunteer to be a line judge in soccer, hit ground balls to the baseball team during warm-up or regularly practice with your child at home. You're supporting the league, investing in your health, spending real time with your child and setting a great example, too. Go Fireballs -- our new team name!

I remember viewing forced exercise as punishment well into high school. I never ran for fun. I ran because I was late for practice, or because we hadn't played well the night before.

Having coached youth sports, I understand the need to have some sort of punishment, and it's totally logical that the punishment be something that will also benefit the players. However, it's also important that the kids realize that's why you've chosen this consequence.

Cancer is a scary thing to tackle alone, so a lot of people reach out for help when they get news of this nature. Having someone in the family with this situation, I can attest to how dizzying it can make a person feel when advice is coming from every angle. However, "cancer coaches" are now starting to become more widespread that offer help with information, not advice.

These patient navigators are an outlet for someone to talk with about options and other help they may need to consider. The article says that an ideal candidate for this supporter should be someone who can lend support. This includes mental reinforcement, because not everyone has a strong family to lean on. The coaches should also be able to lend a hand with sorting through information and resources.

Objectivity is also important, because these people may have survivor experiences of their own. Either way, volunteers doing this (and paid workers alike) are turning out to be a valuable asset. Almost 90 locations have these coaches available, and the American Cancer Society wants to take it further. It's good to hear about straight-forward solutions to information overload that involve real people for once.

Everyone has a cell phone these days -- what if you can use it to help you stick to your diet program? Here are a few cell-phone diet gizmos that you can use to keep on track--courtesy of WebMD:

• Food Phone Here's how it works: when you want to eat something, take a quick cell-phone picture of it and send it to the Food Phone people. A diet coach will text back with either a thumbs up or thumbs down, as well as suggestions for how to make it healthier. For $149 a month, you can sign up to this service, though that seems a bit steep to me.
  
• Cell Phone Diet Coaching For about $7, you can download a 'diet coach' application to your cell phone that will help you stay on track while losing the weight. Talk to your phone provider for programs available.
  
• Fitness Phone Nokia makes this phone and it has a variety of fitness-related utilities, like a calorie counter, a scheduler and more. It will set you back about $200 plus service fees.
  

What do you think of these? Worth it, or a rip off?