The Poor Mom Revolution

     Weight loss for me has always been a roller coaster, yo-yo or whatever you call the up and down fluctuations. I don’t know about you, but weight loss is always based on how my life is going. Sometimes I’m on cloud 9 with my head on straight, meal prepping for days, mother of the year, super organized and ready to take on the world. Other times I’m barely holding on and trying to survive day by day, my mental health is on the outs, I’m going through the day to day motions, doing the bare minimum and even that seems like a struggle. Some days, months, years are easier to eat clean, drink my water and schedule my time so that I can work out while also making time for everybody and everything else. Other times, I’m lucky if I get out of bed, put a smile on my face and go through the day to day motions. Weight for me is like an emotional game of chess. There are two sides continuously battling back and forth and the only way to win is with extreme strategy, a solid plan and allowing yourself some grace when you inevitably lose a round.

     Since I was in at least 3rd grade, I remembered feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, super self-conscious about what I wore and how I looked and from there it never truly ended. Sometimes it was people around me that would make a slight comment that stuck with me as I over thought everything that happened constantly. Other times I think it was completely self-inflicted. I always found myself comparing to others, wearing oversized and baggie clothes to cover up and couldn’t take a compliment if my life depended on it. To be fair, I’m not sure if much has changed. I’ve definitely grown into my own skin and know who I am, but I’ve been a “fake it till you make it” type of gal for a while. I think confidence is one of those things that has to be explicitly taught and practiced and as you get older, you’re rewiring your brain from everything you’ve ever known to remind yourself every couple minutes that you are awesome, worth it, beautiful and there’s no one else like you. I literally do affirmations with my kids every night as part of our evening routine and it forces me to say and feel the words alongside them. As they say, if you hear something enough you’ll start to believe it!

     I’ve always been an advocate that weight can be just a number and you shouldn’t live your life solely on the number of a scale. When I was younger, and in my prime playing volleyball, softball and basketball, I was told my BMI was too high. Now I’m a girl with thighs, a butt and fortunately hippy in general, but in school I was highly active. Our volleyball pre-camps and trainings were filled with wall sits and drills with squats for days, softball was a lot of running and since I pitched my legs got one of the biggest workouts. I have always weighed more than I looked and any weight that I gained would be in my stomach, but in middle school and high school I definitely didn’t have that problem. As if the teenage years weren’t bad enough, hearing that you weigh too much when you definitely don’t can build a bit of a complex. You then start comparing yourself to everybody else, overanalyze what you’re eating and start to overthink if maybe you are really fat like they say you are.

     I still remember teaching and the kids would get a folded paper to take home from the nurse saying if they were underweight, normal, overweight or obese. This started yearly from kindergarten and the kids faces when they read it broke my heart. We were constantly bombarded with this type of information growing up and so are our kids now. Instead of teaching kids and adults about portion control, the effects of processed foods and high fructose corn syrup, good vs bad carbs, how to grow and make your own healthy food, quick and easy recipes to survive on a low income… we’re taught about a food pyramid, fed endless amounts of misinformation about ingredients that can be harmful and may in fact lead to cancer and lifelong health, learned how to only make monkey bread and quesadillas in culinary arts class and how to simply be a consumer. 

     I know part of my weight struggle is genetic, and the cycle continues as one of my many coping mechanisms has always been food. In order to deal with things like life, depression, heartache I almost always overindulge. Whenever I got upset, anxious or I just didn’t really know what to do… I’d snack and eat whatever I wanted. It was a temporary fix that would make me sad and full of regret afterwards.  I remember my first official breakup freshman year of high school. I wasn’t sure how to act, feel and “get over it.” My solution with the pity party I threw myself, encouraged me to eat pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream until everything was good again. Only thing that helped would be if it was Half Baked with the cookie dough mixed in. It was so delicious! Now I know every once in a while it’s not a bad thing and it’s okay to overindulge sometimes, but I definitely did it way too often and as I got older it was an easy way out. 

     Just like at my house with cleaning, I’ll get to a point where enough is enough. I’ll go into hyper clean mode and throw out, scrub and rearrange everything in sight simply because I’m over the mess and ready to take on all of it. My weight is the same way. I’ll spend a while sulking that I got off course again until I’m over feeling crappy about myself and decide to make a change. Currently, I’m restarting my journey all over again. I’ve made plenty of excuses this past year about not having enough time and not having the money to eat healthy. Truth is that in May, I had a health scare that scared me. We all have a wake up call moment at some point and this was mine. I knew I wasn’t at my healthiest and in fact I was the opposite. I wanted to start working out and eating healthier, but at the time I wasn’t ready… I started meal prepping and working out in a week or two later I’d stop. I think I tried three or four times from the course of May until December because I continued to make excuses about working more and having a crazy schedule between camp, soccer and everything in between. What really put me over the edge was when I went to the doctor for an upper respiratory infection and my BMI had the paperwork auto populate the word obese on my printed out sheet. It always said overweight,  even at my lowest which I could ignore because at that point it was stupid and didn’t matter, but the word “obese” hit too close to home. Let me tell you I started getting myself organized and began a plan the following week for changing my food habits and workouts. 

     For us, it is a whole family commitment. I sat everyone down and mentioned that this was important to me and I was done making excuses. The kids were told that I was going to be consistent with my water, working out and food. They loved the idea and asked if they could remind me, push me and motivate me if they wanted to and I said they can do it as much as they’d like or not at all. I printed out a monthly calendar to keep track of my workouts, water intake and on point meals and I’ve completed it daily for the last 14 days. My son asks me daily when I’m going to workout if I haven’t already, and my daughter gets her exercise clothes on when I get home from work most days to join my hiit cardio, kickboxing, abs or stretch classes. The support melts my heart and I’m very internally motivated and need this! 

     I know life is crazy for all of us in so many different ways. Things throw a curveball in our plans constantly and it takes so much time, effort and mental power to jump back on the bandwagon and decide that change needs to happen. I’m here to tell you that you can do it! Now stop feeling crappy about the choices that were made yesterday, because that is gone and behind you, today is a new day for you to shine and move forward! This blog was created to be a community and safe space for those struggling with parenthood, money problems and finding their happiness. Don’t hesitate to reach out, I got your back!