The Mom Diet

HOW CAN WE EXPERIENCE OUR FAMILY WITHOUT GIVING UP OUR SELVES?

Did you ever hear your own mom say “We can’t have nice things.“? I always assumed that phrase referred to more expensive clothing and furniture that would ultimately be compromised by a chocolate ice cream cone or lost cheese stick between the cushions. Now that I am a mom of young kids, I wonder if the phase “nice things” might also extend to the mom experience.

Can I be a loving mom and not feel like I am losing my mind at several points in my day?
Can I be a loving mom and feel peaceful happiness, even in the moments when my children are struggling?
Can I be a loving mom and also take care of my body and protect my mental health?

Special Weight Loss Challenges of Being a Mom

The physical, emotional, and psychological demands of being a mom are relentless. Every wellness intention competes with cleaning, shopping, cooking, and kids who need attention.

Relentless Physical Demands

Raise your hand if you’re tired. All of the time.

Q: How can you get more sleep when you wake up feeling tired and you have a family who needs you?
A: You can’t.

Relentless Schedule Demands

Time is a non-renewable resource. A decision to do something is a decision to not do everything else. How can you schedule lunch with an old friend when you’re trying to create an active weekend for your kids? How can you access the renewal of a yoga class when there is a 40-min grocery order that needs to be bought and put away? How can you eat the salad you made when your child asks you to read a book?

When wellness options compete with what we want for our families, we begin to feel conflicted, and defeated.

Relentless Psychological Demands

There is no single correct way to be a parent. We have the best intentions for how we want to teach our children, but there is often doubt. The little voices in our heads might be those of our own parents or grandparents, the shame that comes from comparing ourselves with other parents we encounter, and any negative feedback we receive in daily life from the public (Rule 1 of momming in public: avoid eye contact when your child is causing a disruption).

Four Mom Diet Solutions

1. Say No Weigh

You do not need to feel inadequate in order to lose weight. Recognize the assumptions and beliefs you have about how working on weight loss should feel. Acknowledge how easily past efforts derailed. Accept that following restriction diet rules creates conflict in your daily life.

2. Approach it like its a problem, with a solution.

Believe this: for every problem, there is a solution for making the situation better. The fleeting nature of willpower has trained dieters to have a superstitious feeling about how and when to approach losing weight. Taking an objective approach means looking at the facts, trying solutions, and understanding failure as information that something else needs to be modified.

The fleeting nature of willpower has trained dieters to have a superstitious feeling about how and when to approach losing weight.

3. Identify an Intention

Focus on one thing you can intend to do for a week or two. It is not a promise to do it, rather a commitment to try. Any time your day is inconsistent with your intention, new information about how this problematic pattern operates will be revealed. Here are some good starting-out intentions: eat more fruit/veg, be done at dinner, drink water before eating breakfast, limit snacking to fruit/veg, reconnect with your body through stretching.

4. Refuse to compromise your mental health.

It’s just not an option. Create a standard—”I won’t do a diet that is going to cause me to feel more anxious about eating, require that I am on my phone all day tapping and tracking, and leave me feeling bad about days that fall outside the diet’s parameters.” Keep it real by asking this question—”Is my diet app anything more than a glorified calculator?“. Continue reading about the contradiction between restriction and wellness

Leverage Your Hard-Earned Wisdom

For many moms, losing the weight that came with the pregnancy/infant/toddler/school-age phases of parenting will not be the first attempt at weight loss. It will be different though. This is a temporary time of life that has immense joy, but is also extremely difficult. Leverage the hard-earned wisdom you have gained and zoom out on your daily life to answer this question—

Are you ready for something different?