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So my husband and I love watching “The Biggest Loser”, and with the writers’ strike, we love it even more since it looks like there won’t be much else on TV for a long while, so of course we couldn’t wait for the start of last night’s “couples edition.” It’s basically teams of two losing weight together, all of them, with one exception. They are all in existing relationships (spouses, best friends, etc.). The rest of the format remains unchanged: trainers Bob and Jillian yelling at very large folks to motivate them to push, push, PUSH past the pain, dizziness, and vomiting to do 10 more minutes on the treadmill or lift that 30-pound weight just one more time, before stepping on that massive scale and (ideally) watching the pounds melt away. It’s a true TV guilty pleasure, like a hot fudge brownie sundae. Anyway, one of the couples last night was a husband and wife with a toddler, and the husband said their motivation for coming on the show was, basically, to lose weight before their kid realized they were fat. And it hit me that having kids really has changed the way I look at my body and my reasons for getting in shape. Now don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to look good in jeans and bikinis, so there is still a narcissistic element to it. But I have much more responsibility now as a mother, I want to stick around for my kids … which means staying healthy. And another of those responsibilities is modeling a healthful lifestyle–if I won’t let my son have Pop-Tarts (or any fill-in-the-blank junk food) then I shouldn’t have them either. And I’ve found with two kids, I need all the energy I can get. So while I may not need to drop as much weight as “The Biggest Loser” contestants, I’ll still be dragging the double jogger out much more in this new year.

Tags: biggest loser, exercise, healthy lifestyle, t.v. shows, weight loss