What makes weight loss so hard? Part 2

Yesterday I told you that I would continue evaluating why it seems to hard for me to lose weight this time around.  If you haven't read yesterday's blog yet, you might want to do that first.

The second reason I think it's so hard to lose the weight since Samuel's pregnancy is that it's not new this time.  When I lost my weight back in 2007, it was something new.  There is something to be said about the automatic motivation that we get when we join Weight Watchers and follow the program with "newbie vigor."  2007 wasn't the first time I had joined Weight Watchers but it was the first time I had joined it seriously.  The other times I had joined Weight Watchers I was young and not serious about following the program.  I was old enough to understand how much I wanted to lose the weight.  I had done my research about following other plans and knew that Weight Watchers was the one for me.  I had been following the plan on my own at home and had lost some of the weight already.  I knew I had liked the plan.  I knew that it was just a plan that taught me how to eat right and exercise. It didn't have any foods that were forbidden.  I didn't have to give up desert for the rest of my life.  That's what I needed, something to teach me how to live a healthy life

Since I had been following the plan on my own at home for a while, I had already lost about 30 pounds.  The problem with following it by myself was.............well, I was by myself.  I needed support.  I needed the meetings.  I needed to hear some tips.  Yes, I could read the materials that I had at home but I knew it wasn't the same as being in the meeting room and having someone else weigh me in each week.  The "newness" of following the program on my own had worn off. I was struggling and needed something to trigger steady weight loss again.  When I joined the meeting room in 2007 I found the new feeling that I needed again.  The newness of the meetings gave me the extra "umph" I needed to lose the weight.  By the end of 2007 I had made my goal.  It wasn't all smooth.  I had my gains.  I had my stumbles.  But I made my goal.

As many of you know I stayed at or under my goal until 2009 when I got pregnant with Samuel.  It was a true blessing to have another child so I really wasn't concerned with how to get the weight back off. I was actually excited to get through a pregnancy without gaining 60 pounds because I now knew the secret of living a healthy lifestyle.  I was proud to have gotten through my pregnancy with about a 40 pound gain.  That was 10-20 pounds less than each of my other 4 pregnancies! That was success!!  After his birth I got back to following WW because I know it is a fabulous plan and works well.  The tricky part is that it is not new any longer.  Not only have I been a WW member for many years now, but I have already achieved the status of Lifetime Member so the "newness" has long wore off.  That has surely made losing the weight a bit tricky this time.  A new thing is always exciting.  Sometimes it's a little nerve wracking but exciting also.  That excitement is not nearly as strong this time.  Especially since Samuel is now 14 months and I am still not back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  I am back to my WW goal but my pre-pregnancy weight was under that.

It seems that there are actually a number of reasons tied into my second reason for weight loss for being harder this time.  I am already a Lifetime Member so that is one goal that I had before that I no longer have to motivate me.  I am already at my WW goal weight so I'm not motivated to get to the point where I don't have to pay anymore.  I'm not at my highest weight ever this time.  Although I am incredibly uncomfortable at times, I am within my healthy weight range for my height so many times I am the only person who thinks I need to lose weight.  Many people look at me and think I have already lost all of the baby weight.  They can't see those hidden pounds that I know are there and the elastic in my pants know is there.

Wow, as I write this I think I could keep writing more and more reasons that this is so hard.  Let's see, now I am a mother of 5, I have no time for myself, I get less sleep than I have in a long time, as the kids get older home schooling is getting more time consuming.......would you like me to continue?  I don't think so.  I don't think I can listen to myself whine any longer.  As I tell my children when the complaints and whines start coming, "What are you going to do about it?  Is the whining fixing it?  Is it helping?"  That would be a big, fat no!  So tomorrow instead of checking back for "What makes weight loss so hard?", check back for "What are you going to do to make it easier?".  It's time for some uplifting ideas and answers to our problems.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come." -1 Corinthians 10:9-11

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