Prioritizing My Priorities

Well, I'm finally making progress on that baby weight I gained after 4 kids and a 17 year marriage and knee surgery.  Why did it take so long?  It's not because I haven't tried to lose the weight, because I have tried just about everything that didn't sound insane (like the grapefruit diet), but I would always hit a wall after 10 or 15 pounds lost.  Was I frustrated and trying to convince myself I didn't need to lose weight?  Of course I was and did!  People can be happy if they are a size XXXL or a size 24, but I was not happy and that's what gets me to my point....I hadn't been successful before because I didn't make myself a priority.

Every mom knows that there are not enough hours in the day to do everything you want to do or that could be done, but we usually put the kids, spouses/significant others and chores above our own needs.  This leads to sleep deprived, stressed, under-appreciated and in my case out of shape moms.  I have known all along that a good night's sleep will help me be healthy, but I would stay up late working or cleaning just to get up the next morning exhausted and unfulfilled.  I made the decision to make sleep a priority and at 11 pm or sooner I would head upstairs to bed.  Once I made a few other changes to my priority list I was even able to be in bed by 10 or 10:30 some nights and I now regularly wake up naturally before my alarm.

How did I do it you ask?  Its an ongoing process but the first steps involved not caring as much about dishes in the sink and taking the time to explain to the family that they need to do more.  As a parent you need to transition from providing them with everything they need as babies and toddlers to teaching them what to do as kids and adolescents.  Maybe the dishwasher wasn't loaded exactly how I would have done it, but the goal was for me not to do it, right?

Now 7-8 hours of sleep alone will not solve my problem so the next thing I had to work on was what I ate and when.  To find out what I did and how well its working you'll just have to wait and read my next blog posts because its time for me to do some boxing on the Wii!

Moms Move Mountains and Sometimes Those Mountains Are Ourselves