Do you give your kids a large portion of greasy take away for dinner? Let them skip breakfast and then fill up on a pastry for morning tea?
Do you let them stay up late at night and then drink 2 or 3 coffees a day?
Give them a whole bag of chips to scoff in front of the TV, and encourage them to wash it down with a litre of soft drink?
No? Didn’t think so.
Yet for many of us there have probably been times when you have fed these things to yourself.
Isn’t it strange how some of the things you would never dream of letting your kids do, are the very things that you have done to yourself?
So often as a mum you are so busy trying to keep your kids on the straight and narrow. Yet the rules that you apply to them you don’t always apply to yourself.
So what can you do to turn things around? Take your own motherly advice of course!
Remember your table manners
A great way to keep track of yourself when it comes to eating (especially on your own) is to imagine that you are eating in front of someone that you are trying to impress.
This means that you probably wouldn’t eat a leftover potato straight out of the fridge; or swipe a leftover fish finger from your child’s plate; or eat a drippy egg sandwich over the sink.
Serve yourself an appropriate portion of food and sit down at the table to enjoy it. So often we eat while we are watching TV, writing emails, feeding the children, driving in the car.
By doing this we suffer from food amnesia, as we are so engrossed in the other task that we are doing that we haven’t eaten mindfully, and this can lead to over-eating.
If you want something done, you have to do it yourself
We talk a lot about the importance of planning ahead when it comes to your meals and snacks for the week. If you’ve never done it before, it might seem quite daunting. But often once you get on a roll with it, you start to feel like you are taking the control back. Check out some of our recipes here to get you started.
Don’t give yourself a chance to get caught out somewhere absolutely starving without a healthy option in sight. We even have some ideas for healthy snacks from the convenience store or petrol station over here.
It will all seem better after a good night’s sleep
Getting a good night’s sleep can actually help you lose weight. Being sleep deprived can make you feel groggy, cranky and generally unhappy.
And for some of us, feeling like that can lead to poor choices, which leads to an attack of the guilts, which can lead to poor food choices. And the cycle plays out over and over.
Sleep also reduces stress and anxiety, which are known causes of the dreaded belly fat.
Sleep gives you energy, which means you are more likely to feel like going for a walk or doing some exercise the next day.
If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all
‘I really shouldn’t have the extra biscuit. Oh who cares, I’ve had a rough day and I deserve it. But really, a biscuit won’t help me lose the baby weight I’ve been carrying around. As if one biscuit will make a difference. I’ll never lose this weight anyway. I’ll eat two.’
Does this sound familiar? The negative self-talk that we have in our heads can be pretty nasty. And unproductive.
Turning off the constant babble in our heads takes time, and you need to be mindful of it in the first place. So when you hear that little voice telling you that it’s all too hard, you need to use an even bigger inner voice to stop the negative thoughts in their tracks.
Try saying positive things to yourself like ‘I choose to eat healthy food so that I can be the best mum to my children’ or ‘I deserve to be happy, and looking after myself with good nutritious food makes me feel good about myself.’
What if everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you to do that too?
How many times have you been out for dinner with friends and ended up making bad food choices ‘because everyone was doing it’?
Or ended up ordering dessert just so you weren’t the odd one out?
A lot of the time we think that if we don’t eat the large pizza, drink the extra wine, or order the big dessert, our friends will give us a hard time.
And you know what, they might. But if they don’t understand that you are trying to look after yourself, maybe they’re not your real friends after all.
You can do anything if you put your mind to it
This is probably the best advice for anyone trying to lose weight. The only person that can make the choice is you.
So if you have made the decision to eat well, move more, and shift the baby weight once and for all – know that you can do it if you believe in yourself. And your mum would be so proud.
GET YOUR 10% DISCOUNT
If you are ready to lose weight then the Lose Baby Weight plans offer a healthy and safe exercise and diet routine and you can get a 10% discount by using code LOYALTY at the checkout
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