Healthy Mama Challenge 2.0 [Week 1]

It’s been 2 years and 3 months since my last Healthy Mama post.  When we last left off back in 2015 I had gotten back down to my pre-pregnancy weight, which was just below where I needed to be in order to have a healthy BMI.  I was about 4 pounds above my pre-marriage weight, and about 14 pounds from my ideal weight, the weight I was 10 years ago when I got into great shape when training for races.

In the 2 years and 3 months since then I have gained weight.  After a lot of stress eating and very little exercise I have gained 30 pounds.  There was one situation in my life that was stressing me out in particular and it was a long, drawn out emotional one that I did not handle well.  Thankfully things are much better now with that situation but I find myself about as heavy as I did when I came home from the hospital after having my second son.  Beyond the weight I’m just woefully out of shape.  And I hate it.

In the past 2 years I have had small spurts where I tried to do better.  But I’ve gotten sidetracked each time.  Why will this time be any different?

I don’t know that it will be.  But when I think back to what has worked for me in the past I know a few things help me do well:

• Accountability- Talking about it helps.  Having people know that this is something I’m working on helps me.  So I’m going to start blogging about it here again.
• Food Journaling- Being conscious about what I eat and planning out my meals helps tremendously.  When I measure and portion out my food and think about what I’m eating I make better decisions.
• Exercising in the Morning- I’m going to have to shift my schedule again so this one is going to be a little hard… but when I used to exercise in the mornings I did so so well because I had something to protect.  I put in hard work first thing in the morning and I knew I didn’t want to waste all that hard work by not eating right.
• An Exercise Goal- This used to be races.  Knowing I needed to run a certain distance by a certain date made me do it.  Or sometimes signing up for an exercise class helped as well.  Knowing I needed to be somewhere and having that time blocked off in my calendar worked for getting me there.  I’m still mulling this one over and figuring out what I want to do but I know that picking some sort of eternal motivation like this will help.

So here’s where we are starting:

I have a few weight loss goals-

• Get to a healthy BMI (27 pounds to go)
• Get to my pre-pregnancy weight (30 pounds to go)
• Get to my pre-marriage weight (35 pounds to go)
• Total Weight Loss Goal {Get back to my ideal weight} (45 pounds to go)

I also have nutrition and fitness goals (which I think are more important but less quantifiable)

• Eat consciously (No more emotional eating or eating without thinking about proper portions)
• Get in some walking every day
• Workout 4 times per week

So here we go again.  I’ve been here before and while it’s disheartening to be here again I hope that by sharing this so publicly I can work on getting back into better habits again.  I’ll be back in a week to post an update on my week and share what I’ve been doing with you all.

Anyone else out there working on these things?  Feel free to share how you’re doing or what works for you in the comments below.  I’d love to hear from you!

Cat

Cat is a teacher turned stay-at-home mom of two boys.  She shares crafts, DIY projects, kids’ activities, and a little bit about life in Ohio.  Learn more about her and the blog on the About page.