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Besides making your breath nice and minty fresh, or even better yet…sweet and spicy with Cinnamon gum; by chewing gum for several hours a day in between your meals you can burn and average of 175 extra calories per day!!!

See, for every hour you chew, you burn around 10-11 calories extra. Add that simple little chewing exercise to the calories you can save by not picking on foods is around 35-40 calories per hour.

If you chew gum for 4 hours a day you will burn around 40 calories from the energy expended in the process of chewing it, and around another 130-140 by preventing yourself from eating "pick on" foods or candy.

Add those together and you have saved yourself an extra 170-180 calories.

So let's go back to Regular Average Joe…let's see how much walking he would need to do for this amount of calories.

Regular Average Joe, just got home from work and his kids are yelling and screaming, he finds some bills on the table that need to be paid, and also finds out that his wife said the car needs to get an oil change over the weekend and there seems to be a noise coming from the washing machine.

Plain and simple…Regular Average Joe who just started this whole "I want to Stay In Shape" thing is now stressed, but he still needs to go out and walk to keep off another 170 calories.

He finds out that he now must find the time to get out there and walk an extra 40 minutes to keep those 170 calories from adding up.

Do you see how easy it is to have the effects of the day to day challenge you to just go out and do some simple exercises.

He now needs to find an extra 40 minutes to go out and walk…and he could have just simply chewed some sugar free gum from around 10am-12pm (lunch time) and then again from 3pm-5pm, all while sitting at his desk working.

Add in the ice cold water throughout his normal workday (1, 8oz cup each hour) and he added another 70 calories to the day.

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No matter how hard people work to be terrific co-parents, there are always some communication pitfalls and traps that can catch parents by surprise. By understanding and recognizing the loopholes and possible mistakes that can happen when co-parenting, you are using one of the best ways to constantly assess your communication with the other parent. It avoids having your children getting involved in any conflict, misunderstanding or negative aspect of the divorce.

BECOMING DEFENSIVE

Keep in mind that sometimes, even when using reframes, active listening, "I" messages and focusing on the positive and collaborative aspects of the co-parenting relationship there is still the potential for finding yourself in defensive mode. Once you become defensive you are no longer willing to hear what the other person is saying and you are more focused on defending yourself with a retort or remark that you are with hearing what message is being sent, even though it may be communicated poorly.

If you find yourself becoming defensive because of what your co-parent is saying, immediately get curious about your reactions. You may have to ask for a minute to calm yourself and get back on track. This can be accomplished by simply saying "I really want to hear what you are saying and I need a minute to just consider your comments. Do you mind if we just take a short break?” During the few minutes that follow, calm down by taking a few deep breaths and thinking about what the other person said that got you in defensive mode. Identify what it was and address it so that you can put it behind you and listen when the conversation starts again. This may be a self-conversation, not out loud but in your head that sounds like.

"Ok, when I hear that same old comment about my not being on time, I get so upset. What I need to remember is that my being late is affecting my kids, and I want to be a good parent. I accept the fact that I was late and this upset the family, so I need to listen and suggest a way to prevent this in the future. "

Becoming defensive is a natural emotional way to protect ourselves from things we don't want to hear. In some cases they may be valid, but in others they may not be accurate at all. Arguing with the other parent about what opinion is right and what is wrong is likely not to solve anything, plus it will be extremely counterproductive to the collaborative atmosphere you are trying to foster. Being right is not as important as keeping your kids out of conflict.