What makes weight loss so hard?

My mom and I were recently out for lunch for a celebration. It was just the two of us!  That rarely happens.  My mom is my number one babysitter so most of the time when we see each other it's either for family get-togethers or for her to babysit my kids.  We went out for lunch and were about to have adult conversations over a yummy and quiet lunch.

We both studied the menu carefully before ordering.  We are both trying to lose some weight.   We were trying to break down the menu items for PointsPlus values.  I wrote everything down that I was eating so I could go home and track it all in my etools on my computer.  I was very careful because it was only lunch time and I didn't want to use the rest of my Daily PointsPlus Target.  I still had eating to do that day;)

My Mom is one of my inspirations for continuing my weight loss.  She is very supportive.  She asks me how I'm doing regularly.  She is also trying to lose weight so she watches what she eats too.  She asks me questions about how healthy things are because she knows about all of training with Weight Watchers.  She is encouraging when I tell her about my weight losses. We had a long conversation about the whole thing over lunch that day.  I shared how I've been struggling and how over summer I crept up to the point that I am now losing weight that I have already lost.  I shared my frustrations with her and she understood completely because she has had the same struggles in her life.

She commented that it's interesting that I have had such a hard time losing the weight this time around.  She noted that when I was a Weight Watchers leader I kept the weight off quite well and even lost a little more.  She wondered what was making it so hard for me this time.  I told her that I've thought about that because I've certainly noticed it too. Since our conversation I've been thinking about it even more.  One thing that I was thinking about was the fact that I am no longer working out of the home.  Before Samuel was born I was leading 3-4 Weight Watchers meetings per week and helping as a receptionist at another 2 most weeks too.  In addition to that, I was a homemaker and home school mom.  I kept really, really busy.  I kept moving constantly.  While at work I never sat down. I stood when I weighed people in.  I stood while I led the meetings.  I set up most of the locations that I worked at and that was an incredible amount of walking.

Last Saturday in my Weight Watchers meeting we talked about how every little movement counts in your activity level and counts for burning more calories.   I was, without a doubt, burning more calories when I was working for Weight Watchers. In turn I was able to eat more food without gaining weight.  Now, I don't want to give you the wrong impression.  I am a mother of 5 children.  I home school them.  One of them is a 14 month old with a ton of energy.  I  am on my feet almost non-stop all day.  But it's not the same movement as I was getting when I worked out of the home. My house is a very small 3-bedroom ranch. The only stairs are the ones to the basement and I only go down there a couple of times a day to do laundry.  There is just no way to earn the same amount of steps in this little house that I did when I was working for Weight Watchers.

That leaves me with the fact that I need to try harder to get exercise.  I exercise 4 times per week on most weeks.  That's not bad.  I know that I should be exercising 7 days per week but that's just not happening at this time in my life.  I'm sure I'll get there some day but today is not the day.  It's very hard to find time to exercise for an hour when you are responsible for 5 children, a husband and a home.  Time for me doesn't come along very often.  That means that I need to be more aware of my movements throughout the day.  I dare say that it means that I need to spend less time on the computer.  That is probably the most sitting that I do all day. (I guess I'd better type faster;)  I need to get moving when the kids are moving.  I need to go play at the park with my younger kids when we are waiting for my oldest at football practice instead of sitting in the car clipping coupons. I need to make more trips with the grocery bags.  Even though I find it very important to teach my kids to be good helpers I need to do some of the work myself so my body can get more movement.

When I do get out of the house I need to take advantage of the places that I am visiting.  I can walk all over the grocery store and gain lots of movement.  When at a party or a picnic, I should choose to stand, walk around or go outside where the kids are running around.  These little movements will make a difference.  It will make my body burn more calories and make it easier to lose the weight again.

There are more reasons that I believe it's harder this time to lose the weight although I believe that this is the biggest one.  I intended to share them all with you today, but since you probably didn't go to my blog today hoping to read a thesis I'll discuss the other reasons tomorrow.

If you are struggling with your weight loss please ask yourself why.  Don't give up and just decide that it's too hard.  Find out why it's hard and make adjustments to your lifestyle.  This truly is a lifestyle change so it's not going to be easy, but it will be well worth it.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved."
-Psalm 55:22