My Painless Weight Loss Plan

The tri-shorts CC wants to borrow

This morning CC, my skinny as a rail 11 year old daughter, picked up a pair of tri-shorts that I purchased two years ago.  My big toe wouldn't fit in them now.

"Hey Mom," she said, "Can I borrow these for my next triathlon?"

I looked over to see she was already trying them on and they fit perfectly.  Was I really that thin two years ago? I'm sure I stretched them out a little more than she did so I probably wasn't THAT skinny but it is a painful reminder of the 30 pounds I gained while pregnant with B that I never lost.

I used to dream of being one of the women that came out of pregnancy thinner than I went in but I always had a minimum weight gain of 35 pounds and most of the time it was much higher.    Add to that the stress of life since B was born which ultimately led to me moving to a new city and trying to juggle my telecommuting job with a baby and toddler mostly alone in addition to having two older children with me part time.  I've been easy on myself.  I've let exercise fall by the wayside in the name of being a busy, working mom and while I was still eating some good foods I was indulging in a lot of junk like the time I bought an entire box of Reese's Cups that I was going to give to K but ended up eating myself.

So what is my plan?  I'll preface the details by saying that there is nothing scientific about it as it is based on my previous experiences.

1. I'm tossing out the scales.
We have a scale at K's house. If I went back through the list of things that would be mine, this one of them as I think it was a gift a while ago.  However, I know that when I do things right, I lose an average of 5 lbs per month until I get to my ideal weight.  I also know that the scale causes stress because I appear to be at a weight loss stand still until all at once I lose 5 lbs.  I'm really after losing clothing sizes anyway.

2. I'm going to enjoy being active.
Everyone has or could have a sport that they really enjoy. I enjoy the sports involved in triathlon and that's what I'm going to focus on. I also like to exercise socially as opposed to alone and it must be something that gets my heart rate up. I discovered during my last pregnancy that running and swimming with a low heart rate are also no fun for me.

Now that I know that I'm in this location for the foreseeable future, this also means doing a bit of research to figure out a schedule for workouts that might work for me and how to work that around taking care of my kids.  I asked our local Roadrunners Club about bringing my double stroller to runs and they said they have lots of women who do just that.  Most of the tri clubs in the area seem to do a lot of workouts on the weekends so I plan to attend these hoping to enlist K's help watching the kids.  Our local YMCA offers childcare with membership so any of their classes are good during childcare hours. I am already committed to swimming there twice a week.  Overall my goal is to find a group workout of some type 5 or 6 times a week.

I would encourage everyone to find something they truly enjoy.  Exercise doesn't have to be alone and it doesn't have to be running on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or the dreaded walking.  There's kayaking, martial arts, yoga, volleyball, and sports of which many of us have never heard.  Pick something that you are going to look forward to doing and improving.  Keep trying new things until you find the one thing that you look forward to.  In my opinion exercise, should not be done for weight loss; it should be done for the love of the activity.

3. Eating at home.
We are going to commit to eating at home in both households.  This alone has caused a lot of weight loss in the past. Even eating at "good" restaurants seems cause weight gain for me.  As a family of 6, we really can't afford to eat out that often anyway so this should trim more than just our waistlines.  Next, I'm going to severely limit the amount of refined sugar I consume and commit to replacing as much as possible with stevia. Lastly,we as a family are going to commit to lowering the amount of processed foods we are eating.