My Excuse…

Anyone who has been reading my blog for a time know I use to be a “fat girl” and not a slightly over weight but obese. Over the past couple years I have slowly come to grips with the weight, the weight loss and just being honest about it. First let me state before I get a ton of emails I am not a doctor I do not claim to know what is best for you or your body (that is for you to discover). What I can tell you is there is no easy fix, there is no pill, I did not have gastric bypass surgery (which is what people assume when you tell them how much weight I have lost). I did it the old fashion way diet and exercise. I tell people this and they respond, “oh I’m too busy or that doesn’t work for me” which is fine but don’t complain if you don’t want to do anything about it (that drives me nuts).

I have lots of issues regarding exercise and food, I personally HATE exercise and I LOVE food but I find exercise necessary. I am never going to tell someone to lose weight. Women have enough problems with self esteem and most know they need to lose weight, why do I need to berate them for that? What I will tell them is how much better I feel by making this life style change. I do have a tendency to say you shouldn’t drink that (Diet Soda) and most agree with me. If they are stuffing their face with OREOs I ask for one because they truly are crack.

This lead me to one of the pictures I found on my Facebook Feed this week:

I can’t tell you how much this picture pissed me off, I do work out and eat pretty damn healthy. I am the mom of two very active children, my husband is awesome during the day (does household chores, etc.) but he works nights leaving me doing the “nighttime stuff,” I started free lance graphic design work again (so my time is very limited), we also have no immediate family in the area and there is no nanny. In February I found time, one hour twice a week for a work-out and that was because I needed to get out of the house, away from my children (I love them but mommy needs time too). I have a hard time finding time to work-out and I work from inside my home. The moms who work outside the home, who value sleep over getting their ass kicked at a gym I applaud them, I also applaud the moms who go to the gym opposed to sleeping. The reason why this made me so mad is because I know she works out a shit load and can drop her kids off somewhere or can pay someone to watch them. I’m sorry we can’t all do that, most are living pay check to pay check. The thought of spending money on a babysitter so I can get my butt kicked at the gym is lower than having a spider crawl on me. Keep in mind I am not a slug, I work-out at least twice a week but my husband watches my son or he is in Pre-school when I am working out. If I had to pay to have someone watch my children while I worked out it simply wouldn’t happen. Now I would probably try to find a way to work-out, doing my exercise videos but that has been in motion for several years.

My point is I shouldn’t feel guilty about working out or not. Do I have excuses? Do I use excuses? HELL YES! Monday for example I had a rotten day, Tuesday I skipped pilates and went with my husband on a lunch date. We had giant burgers, fries and beer. It felt wonderful to skip pilates but today I was there getting my butt kicked because I ultimately feel better when I do pilates.

Here are my questions for Maria Kang:

Who watches your children while you work out?
Do you ever cancel a workout when one of your children are sick or does your staff handle it?
Do you prepare your own meals or does someone do that for you?
Do you clean your house or does a maid do it?
Do you do laundry, dishes, etc?
Do you enjoy making every other mother feel awful by posting your “prefect family?”
By the way how many hours in Photoshop did this photo go through before it was put into print?

I try to not to get all worked up about photos like that because they are Photoshopped, I know that. I also know that I will never have a six pack like that no matter how much I work out, I don’t even think a tummy tuck would help there – lol. I get people are trying to motivate people but this doesn’t motivate people this pisses people off. Now if you want to motivate people find real moms (who work, do everything else and exercise) and show people, yes, yes you can do it too. It is hard but you can find time to exercise, once you start you will find more time and you will slowly change. I didn’t change overnight this for me has been an almost eight year journey.

What have I accomplished in those eight years besides losing over 150 pounds?

Being more honest with myself about food (I am keeping a food journal – I still hate it)
Exercising really does help me sleep better and it helps my mood
If you fall off, tomorrow is a brand new day
Water is your BFF
OREOs (even Gluten Free ones) are still my crack. I would still steal them from old people and babies.
Even though I hate something (exercise) I do it because I have to
I also love sleep and if I have to choose between sleeping and exercising, sleep will ALWAYS win.
Scales aren’t as scary as I remember