By Natalie Silverstein

Savasana means corpse in Sanskrit, which seemed appropriate. I had just completed a hot power-yoga class, which began at the ungodly hour of 6:45 a.m, and I was lying in a tepid pool of my own sweat. Immediately after the class, I confronted my daughter, the one who dragged me here. She is 21 years old, home for summer break after completing her junior year of college, and I’m pretty sure she’s trying to kill me.

Not intentionally, of course. She is the sweetest person and we are very close. Over the last couple of years she has become a fitness enthusiast and a remarkably healthy eater, bordering on vegan. But this commitment to living a healthy lifestyle, and her dedication to daily exercise and clean eating, has thrown my own habits into sharp relief.

To keep all of this in perspective, this child, my oldest, was not particularly athletic growing up. She was a dancer and had lots of extra curricular passions, but participating in organized sports was not among them. As she moved through her teens, she began to develop a passion for fitness, and took up indoor cycling, yoga, and eventually distance running. 

After beginning college, she got hooked on barre classes and went through an intensive training program to become a certified instructor. In addition to her academic work, she held a part-time job as an instructor at a fitness studio near campus.

During the pandemic lockdown, which truncated her freshman year, she was diligent about using online videos and staying in shape. She would walk our neighborhood, sometimes multiple times a day, making sure to get her 10,000 steps. Hers was certainly a better attitude than my own, which leaned more toward comfy sweatpants, baking, and wallowing on the couch with a glass of wine and Netflix.

At some point during this transition, she decided that she didn’t want to eat red meat as often (if at all) and started to explore a mostly vegetarian diet. Her college roommate struggled with digestive issues; in solidarity, my daughter sought out healthy meal options that they could both enjoy. They were always baking and cooking, and began photographing their healthy creations. They even started a short-lived social media page to highlight their avocado, kale, and quinoa salads.

She became a quick study of celebrity chefs and a collector of the hottest new cookbooks. As the parent who had prepared most meals consisting of chicken nuggets, pasta with butter, and the occasional piece of broccoli, I was fascinated and relieved to witness this evolution.

Maybe my daughter’s arrival for the summer is well-timed and just the motivating force I need to make a change.

As I watched her become more mindful about her health, I was confronted with the fact that my own regimen could use a little jolt of energy. I’d been stuck in a rut of coffee for breakfast, a boring salad for lunch, and takeout for dinner. My New Year’s resolutions — to drink more water, exercise more consistently, walk more steps — were abandoned long ago. 

We are lucky enough to have a treadmill at home, and I do make an effort to take virtual classes with my favorite instructors, but I rarely push myself to take any classes longer than 20 or 30 minutes. The benefits of a virtual exercise class are self-evident. The drawback is that the instructor can’t see me — she doesn’t realize that I’ve stopped doing the sit-ups, I’m lying on the floor checking my phone and her words of encouragement are falling on deaf ears. 

I comfort myself with the knowledge that some effort is better than none. I do love earning “badges” and hitting milestones on the tread program — I’ve always been a sucker for praise and rewards — but I’m hardly pushing my limits or noticing any transformative progress in my physical fitness.

Maybe my daughter’s arrival for the summer is well-timed and just the motivating force I need to make a change. That was the thought that went through my mind when she asked me if I’d like to join her for an early morning, sweaty yoga class. I agreed, and before I could change my mind she had signed me up. We set our alarms and went to bed.

We left the house at 6:30 a.m. and I had to ask her to slow down her speed walking on the short trip to the studio a few blocks away. I told her I didn’t want to be exhausted before I even started the class. The first thing that hit me when I entered the lobby was the smell of moldy yoga mats and sweaty bodies. We stowed our belongings and took our mats into Studio 1 which was already packed. We found two spots—not next to each other—and got settled. The studio was stifling, and I was the oldest person there by at least twenty years.

I won’t mince words: it was grueling. The class consisted of traditional yoga poses (with which I am very familiar as a long-time practitioner), interspersed with weight lifting, repetitive movements, and cardio. Aside from my growing annoyance about the length of the class, the time flew by. 

It was, far and away, the toughest workout I had done in months, perhaps years. I was literally drenched in sweat during the final relaxation pose. I looked over at my young, beautiful daughter and she was irritatingly calm. The class hadn’t been a picnic for her, but it certainly wasn’t hard. Youth is apparently not wasted on the young.

We walked home, a little more leisurely this time, and discussed the class — what we liked, what we didn’t like, why it was superior to other workouts, whether I would try it again. 

Yes, I think I will. I’ll make a commitment to go with her at least once a week if I can. We’ll go to this class or another. We’ll go for a walk together and talk. I’ll make her a vegetarian meal when she gets home from working at her internship. And maybe, for a few precious summer weeks, under the watchful eye of my little girl, I’ll move more, eat healthier, and feel better.

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Natalie Silverstein, MPH, is an author, speaker, consultant, and passionate advocate for family and youth service. Her first book, Simple Acts: The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back, was published in 2019. Her second book, Simple Acts: The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making a Difference, was published in July. Natalie is the New York coordinator of Doing Good Together, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit. In this role, she curates a free monthly e-mail listing of family-friendly service opportunities distributed to thousands of subscribers. Her personal and parenting essays have appeared on a variety of blogs including Grown and Flown, Red Tricycle, Motherwell, and Mommypoppins. She is a frequent public speaker and podcast guest. Natalie holds a master’s degree in public health from Yale. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.