#10 Before you start give your self at least 3 weeks to prepare. This happened inadvertently for me,we were going to try the first week of February, but hubby was still overseas and I decided I just couldn't do it until he got back, I was too overwhelmed. So, to make those three weeks count, I decided I would do several things to get ready for my diet. The first was to eat all the food that I knew I wouldn't be eating on my diet. I hate wasting money and if you have the food why not use it. If it is too much for you give it to a food bank, but I ended up using most of the food that I had in the house that I wouldn't be using for my diet. The second thing I did was try and really look at the 'why' I was eating. I tried to ask myself one question when I was putting food into my mouth and that was: "Are you hungry or is it something else?" Most of the time I could figure it out and if I was stressed, I tried to put the food away and do something physical like take the kids for a walk around the block. There were several times when I had the kids put down to bed, clothes laid out for the next day, lunches packed and I would start shoveling food into my mouth. I couldn't figure out why so I let myself eat what ever it was. Then it happened again the next night, and the next. I asked a friend and she said, sometimes moms are so regimented in their day that when they don't have something to do they feel anxiety and then fill that hole with food. LIGHT BULB time! So when I started to feel that anxiety, I'd go surf the net!
The reason I let myself have that time was because I didn't want to work really hard to lose weight only to have it pile on again. How many times have we lost weight only to watch it creep back on. I think it is because we didn't solve the reasons we were putting that food into our mouths in the first place. There was a time I was considering gastric bypass surgery as an option for my obesity. Then I found out that about half of the people who chop up their insides gain all the weight back and that terrified me! Who knows what missing most of your stomach and some intestines will do to you by the time you are 90, and then it was no guarantee that you would keep the weight off! that scared the heck out of me! so I really wanted to figure out the whys and the three weeks I let myself prepare were a life saver. There is a line in the Cinderella Pact by Sarah Strohmeyer where she talks about a revelation by the main character about how people loose the weight by they don't focus on the parts that are inside their thinking that made them fat in the first place and they gain the weight back. I didn't want that for myself.
#9 Have a Buddy System
I can't tell you how many times Holly and Gretchen have saved my diet. They have talked me off the ledge of driving to the store for my personal gate way drug (ice cream) they have inspired me with their ability to stick to their own exercise routine. I think of them as my "sponsors" like I am an alcoholic, they have saved me. My husband has always been helpful and after training him not to act like my dad (woops) he has been a great support as well. However, he is a boy and sometimes they *just* don't understand!
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