Getting healthy

I love food.  I love food that’s bad for you as well as nice healthy stuff, and I know what I’ve done in the past to lose a good amount of weight.  Exercise lots and count calories, keeping a diary.  It’s worked twice (the first time I kept it off for a while, but working for a food company is always a bad idea.  Second time I got pregnant and my craving was ‘food’) but it was hard work as I’m the sort of person who has to go for it hard core to keep it up.

Last time, I lost the weight by not really eating with my OH.  Main meal at work, he sorted out his own at the farm, which meant I could plan.  My downfall is sweet things, and he likes his pudding and full fat food with large portions.  Lucky for him, his job’s active so he doesn’t suffer from it.

But post having N I’ve struggled on motivation.  I’d got so far, lost some weight, and got back into exercising (which I have to do early mornings before N gets up otherwise I’d never do it), then got ill and couldn’t exercise so it all went to pots.  Once I get the taste for bad foods, that’s it.  It didn’t help that on maternity leave, we spent a lot of time eating and testing my friend’s cakes as she was setting up her business.  I can never say no to cake!

I’d lost weight easily the first time by using an online subscription service, and was into the forums etc.  But the second time I just couldn’t get into it, all the discussions were repeats, and I didn’t have time to input all the food I was eating.  I then tried an app – again, it takes a lot of time to input all the food and exercise when it’s a US based app (although since then, they’ve got a lot better with UK foods).

I even tried Thinking Slimmer.  I hear about these all over the internet, and have tweeted with the company and users who’re all doing brilliantly and finding it’s doing great things for them.  But instead of making me want smaller portions, eat less and eat better, I was wanting more food.  It was ridiculous, when I was following the goal setting, the daily success logging etc.  So obviously not for me (bizarrely, as I don’t think there’s ever been fails like that).

After even more weight creeping on, I’m now back into the healthy thing again.  It is difficult to find something that fits with children and family life, especially if you refuse to cook different meals for dinner, and have an OH who won’t eat nice healthy stir fries, salad, omelettes, or any ‘light’ options.  Plus of course, they need to be suitable for a toddler to eat.

Luckily with childcare, N rarely has meals at home during the week.  On 2 days he eats at the farm with his dad, and I eat my main at work, then the rest of the week I cook.  So I need to really watch my portion size, and then up the exercise.

I know what exercise works for me (I used to dance 3-4 nights a week and would love to do that again, but it’s just not feasible cost and journey wise, as well as babysitting), and that’s exercise dvds in the morning.  There’s only a few I like, and I like intensive short work outs that really work on toning, and that are only up to 30 minutes long so I know I’ve got the time in the morning.  Those done daily, or in the case of my Beach Body workout set with a day a week break, do the job quickly, if I’m eating healthily as well.  This time I’m trying out 30 day Shred, so we’ll see how that goes.  Day 2 today and on top of aching limbs, it does hurt.  It’s only 20 minutes so I shall do that for the month, see how it goes, then revert to my Beach Body Workout, as I can build that up to 30 minutes depending on what I’ve got on.

I’m combining it with MyFitnessPal app (again), so hopefully planning in advance will tell me up front for the day what I’m eating and therefore it works out what additional food I can have on top of my exercise.  If the weather breaks and becomes a bit more bearable, I’ll walk at lunchtimes as well.  I walked yesterday, and it was just too hot at lunchtime to then have to go back to the office afterwards.

I have taken my (horrendous) before photos.  Embarrassingly, I’ve put on 1 ½ stone since losing 2 ½ after having Nl (which was half of what I’d put on – disgusting considering I was a healthy weight beforehand, and was exercising til quite late on).  I won’t be sharing them, as that would probably put readers off their tea, but hopefully by the end of October, I’ll be able to get back into the majority of my clothes in the wardrobe.

What did you do to lose your baby weight?  Any great tips?

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2 Comments

  1. I’ve been thinking of writing a post on this topic, but I don’t need to any more. My situation is very similar except I haven’t been trying as hard. I did pretty well losing my baby weight to start with and got within just under a stone, but since then I’ve been doing a lot of comfort or stress eating and my weight has started creeping up. I also need to strengthen my stomach muscles.

    I would like to exercise in the morning, but I am too tired. So this week I’ve started spending a few minutes doing toning exercises and also working on getting to bed earlier. Hopefully I’ll build up to having time to do 30 minutes.

    I haven’t taken any photographs get, but will do soon. Years ago I saw this sequence of pictures and tried to do something similar, but think I then got pregnant. I’m tempted to do it again http://thechive.com/2009/02/23/mans-body-change-over-5-years-becomes-new-person-19-photos/

    1. It’s a good idea the photos as it really shows a difference, and it should stop it happening again. I find I have to weigh regularly otherwise that’s when weight starts to creep back on as well. I’ve always set my alarm earlier so I can get things ready in the morning and read etc, but it should really be my exercise time. I get the tiredness too. I’ve been staying up later, so I really need to go to bed earlier as well. But I think now I’ve started exercising, it does make me less tired (plus I tend to wake earlier than my alarm anyway (no curtains, means waking earlier!). Hope you get on track with what you want soon.

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