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Use Your Posse to Lose Weight
I’d like to take a moment to talk about your posse, those peeps that you eat/sleep/breathe with. You need to have them on board with you in order to achieve your goals.
Your nearest & dearest have to realize . . .
1. The food they eat will be healthier too. You can’t cook two meals every time your family sits down, you’re going to have to modify everyone’s diet in order for you to achieve your goals.
2. The snack food will be drastically reduced and healthier. Pile on the fruits & veggies and rice cakes. Tone down the ice cream, cookies, and candy bars. If they have to have junk food, tell them to do it outside of the house at work or school.
3. They will need to give you time to prioritize yourself. You’re going to need more time to exercise. Your peeps are going to have to work with your schedule to make sure you get the time you need. This might mean other people taking on chores and tasks that have been your sole responsibility.
4. If they love you, they’ll do this for you because it’s important to your health and well being. We have a saying in my house “Happy wife = happy life.” It’s a contraction of, “if Mama ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy.” When I get my exercise in all sorts of good things happen for my family, I have more energy, the house is in better order and I cook great tasting meals. When I’m out of sorts, the house is a mess and we’re ordering take out. We all have a smoother time of it if I get done what I need to get done.
(As I’m writing this, my husband is playing with our son and puppy. This means when we go out for a date later tonight I’ll be relaxed knowing I got this post done!)
Here are some things you’re going to have to adjust to . . .
1. You have to prioritize yourself. No, you don’t become the Queen of Sheba being fanned by servants and fed grapes, but you carve out the 4 to 6 hours a week you need for exercise, journaling and down time. Yes, it really is that much!
2. You have to sit down with everyone and let them know this is important to you and get them to buy in. It’s so much harder to be successful if your family and friends aren’t behind you.
3. You’ll have to remind them. You’ll have some early successes and everyone will ease off, then you’ll see the scale start to creep back up. You’ll have to remind them (and you!) that you need to do this for your health and the overall good of the family.
Hope this helps. I’d love to hear feedback.
Lisa
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Good suggestions. On weekends we juggle Jazzercise (me), tennis (my husband) along with kids karate and swimming. (So everybody is happy?). I still need to listen to this advice. I liked another post where you emphasized losing a pound a week – if I could put that together with a 20 minute interval training workout, a little willpower, and ixnay on any evening glass of wine I’d really feel great.
This is such a good point! I am struggling with this in my house right now. I am living with family who don’t like changing their unhealthy habits but I think I’ve ALMOST got my mother on board. She let me cook a low cal low fat meal tonight! We have the boys extra portions so they’d shut up and we ate the correct servings!
That sounds like a good plan Amber, try cooking a low-fat meal and see if they even notice … they might not. Of course, they’re always free to cook their own meals ;-)
Lisa