On My Way.

YAY ME ~

I wrote recently about my postpartum fitness goals and about the place I was in when I became pregnant. I gained 50 lbs with this pregnancy. It sounds less painful to say that, if I tell you that I am 5’10″ tall and let you know that I had a 10lb. 6 oz baby. My little guy is now 6 months and 1 week old and I am happy to report that I have lost 43 pounds. I have 7 left until I hit my first goal. I then have 37 left that I want to lose after that. I mentioned previously that I was at the highest weight of my life when I got pregnant this time. Awesome huh? To avoid a stack of therapy bills, I chose to take this in two steps. The first weight loss phase is to return back to my pre pregnancy weight and the second phase is to get to my goal weight. I can add the two numbers together, but I chose not too. Denial is more fun.

HELPS ~

I joined a gym. It’s amazing. For the last several years, I have been trying to work out at home. It’s so hard because there is always something fighting for my attention. There is something about going out of the house to the gym that gets the job done. Tonight, I did my first group class since the baby was born. I did cardio kickboxing. Um, wow. What happens when you put me in a room with a ton of people, have Black Eyed Peas blasting, while a teacher is yelling at me to work it and punching and kicking is encouraged….well the outcome is I think, just maybe, I may have over done it. Find a gym. Get a free trial. Grab your friends. Hang out there. It’s a good thing.

My Fitness Pal ~ this is a great online gig that also has an iphone app. Its free. It’s sensible. Check it out.

Made to Crave~ I was recommended this book three times in one day. O.k. I get the hint, I am reading it.

Go Public ~ swallow your pride and do it. Post your fitness goals on the fridge, on Facebook, or your blog. Just do it. It helps your accountability and you will find that you are NOT alone.

PASS IT ON ~

We are trying to instill a very healthy attitude about food and fitness with our kids. Here are several things we try to talk about regularly in daily conversation with our crew.

1. God made our bodies. It is imperative to take care of them to the best of our ability. Eat right and exercise. It’s not all about how we look, but rather feeling our best so that we can do all that God has created us to do.

2. We do not use the words CLEAN YOUR PLATE around here. We use the words STOP WHEN YOU ARE FULL. I don’t care if there is food left on the plate. If you are full, S T O P. I want my kids to grow up listening for the cue to stop eating and then actually do it.

3. Along the lines of not cleaning your plate, we have taught our kids how to find the right serving sizes of foods. When I am serving meals, that is what we try and dish out. We typically do not allow “SECONDS”. We serve the proper amount the first time around. If the kids are still hungry, they are welcome to eat more fruit or vegetables.

4. Speaking of fruits and vegetables, they are aloud at any time throughout the day. The kids are welcome to help themselves whenever they want. This rule does not apply to any other types of foods.

5. Sweets? We typically do not have chips, sweets, etc around the house. The reason is because the kids get so much of it inevitably at other places. If we do have sweets around, or I am serving dessert at a meal, I give the dessert at the same time as the food to my kids. I have always done this, since they were little. They can eat it whenever they want during the meal. Now before you go calling CPS on me, I want you to think about this for a minute. Unless you give a child a pan of brownies, I really don’t see how a small dessert will actually in fact “RUIN” their dinner. I hardly think a small cookie or small scoop of ice cream is going to prevent a child from eating their meal. In addition, my kids almost always save their dessert for last because “it’s the best”. They did that on their own. Bottom line is that is about portion control. I don’t want them shoveling through their food to get to the end “prize” or worse yet…if I tell them to stop when they are full, then why at that point would I set more food in front them in the form of dessert?

6. We do not reward with food. Period. This is non negotiable for me. We do not go eat ice cream because we obeyed our mommy and daddy, or made our bed, or got an A, or on and on and on…..While we may end up going to get ice cream, or out to lunch, we focus on hanging out together, etc. It may just be in the words you chose on this one, but this is huge to me.

Life presents enough opportunities to become dependent on food, use food to cope, become addicted to food, and just in general eat too much. I am trying to the best of my ability to continue to enforce not only healthy eating habits, but healthy attitudes about food, as long as I am the one feeding these munchkins.

JOIN ME

I mentioned in my last post on this topic, that I wanted to try and set up some type of support system. I had multiple emails that day of people who were interested. SO, I am going to try something. I am going to create a private Facebook group. Please send me a private Facebook message if you wish to join and I will add you to the group. We can post achievements big and small and generally just encourage each other. If you have a fitness goal of any type, please consider this. Men and women, big goals and small goals are all welcome! If your goal is to maintain, lose 5 pounds, or 500 I would love to see you! You can chose to disclose whatever info in the group you want to regarding specifics of your journey to find and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Our health takes time. It takes even more time if we have gotten off track and need to find our way back. Make the commitment. Do what it takes. It is so worth it.