Weight loss is difficult. The behaviors that caused the weight to pile on must be changed for the weight to go away, and change can be quite difficult. I was overweight for many years, almost my entire adult life. I didn’t like how I looked, I wasn’t happy when my already plus-size clothes were too small for me, and I was worried about my health. But, permanent weight loss didn’t happen until I stopped the behaviors that kept me overweight.
One of my favorite things to do with my children is cook. We especially like to bake together. I have bonded with my kids through many bowls of cookie dough. It’s fun, and when the hot cookies come out of the oven, yum! But, I no longer help ‘lick the bowl’. I modify the recipes to contain healthier ingredients and limit myself to a moderate portion of what we make.
Another habit I broke was cleaning my children’s dishes. I think most of you moms know what I’m talking about here. We can’t let that last bite or two go to waste, can we? Multiply your zero-waste thinking by the number of children whose dishes you are cleaning. For me, that could be another full meal’s worth! Waste is undesirable, but I’d rather give those last few bites to the chickens than end up on my waist!
I had to start thinking about what I was drinking. Many drinks have calories. I used to drink flavored coffee usually throughout the day. I just didn’t give it much thought. So, I realized that each cup I was drinking contained about 80 calories. That really adds up. Many of the diet drinks contain chemicals that I choose to avoid. So, although it took me a bit to get used to, water has become my drink of choice throughout the day. Now I enjoy my afternoon cup of flavored coffee, because I haven’t been mindlessly drinking it all day.
I learned to recognize emotional eating, which usually happened when I wasn’t even hungry. The problem was that it didn’t matter what emotion she was experiencing; Food was the solution! Happy, excited, angry, sad, they were all reasons to have a little snack. Controlling emotional eating was a crucial step in losing weight.
I love cookbooks and read them for fun. I had to stop doing that while I was losing weight. Thinking and thinking about food made me want it more and made it much harder for me to switch to eating in moderation. I was finally able to get back into my habit of reading cookbooks, but not until I lost weight. I needed to learn to cook and eat for health, not for entertainment.
These are just some of the changes I had to make to my eating habits to be successful at losing weight. Lots of little steps really do add up to one big leap towards fitness. The good thing about making changes to my habits is that by the time I lost weight, my healthier habits had become second nature. The me of today hardly recognizes the obese me of the past. That feels great.
2010 Julie Cazier