Diaper Swappers

Take No Prisoners

Probably every person I know wants to lose weight. If they don’t, they could afford to. How many people make New Year’s Resolutions about losing weight? I know I do, each and every year. Last year I vowed to lose fifty pounds. Come this New Year’s Eve, I will have lost forty (my current count).

Weight loss is not easy for most of us. It involves not only exercise or practicing self control—and weight loss happens most when fully utilizing both of these—but also changing your lifestyle. If you want to keep weight off, you cannot fall back into bad habits of midnight McDonald’s runs and boredom eating.

Most people who claim to want to lose weight continually make excuses for why they can’t. I know, because I used to do it. I “couldn’t” eat right with junk food was in the house. I would say that when it was all gone, then I could eat right. So I would eat it faster, pretending that I was doing myself a favor. Then when I would go grocery shopping I would pick up all the junk food all over again. Or, I would blame it on my husband or kids. If only they would stop eating junk food, then I could too. It is so much easier to have a scapegoat, isn’t it? That is why too often we make one up to ease our guilt.

I “couldn’t” exercise because the girls woke up before I had time, or because I had too much to do. I have heard all these excuses and more from friends, too. They don’t have room to exercise. They don’t have the equipment, etc.

You know what changed for me? The desire to lose weight. Which is to say, I finally decided I’d had enough, and I got a real desire to change. Not a wishy-washy if-we’re-out-of-junk food desire, but one that was real. Do we have junk food in the house as I write this? Yes. What is the difference? I am practicing self-control and not eating it. Why am I motivated to do that? Well, it has to do with so much more than just being thin. By society’s standards, I may never be thin, and I am OK with that.

I want better for my girls. I don’t want them to struggle with weight. I want them be healthy, so I have to set the example by being healthy for them. My new motto in losing weight is Take No Prisoners, Accept No Excuses. I work out six days a week and I consume about 1,200 calories a day. The more I work out, the less I desire junk food because I know that will just put me a day or even a week behind in my goal. I still indulge on occasion, but I am careful with how much I allow myself to consume. By cutting it back, I enjoy the food more.

And yes, I still slip. I get a box of Twizzler bites and end up eating the whole thing. But the next day I am right back at it, making up for it. If you slip into old habits, don’t give up, don’t stop fighting to meet your goals! You are worth it!

You know something else? Just yesterday I was complaining about how hard my new workout was. And then yesterday night I got a new pair of jeans—I had gone down a size, and was truly able to fit into them, not “squeeze” into them! It makes it all worth it!