Advice re lifestyle and weigh loss/toning

[Boygirlmummy]

Evening, after some stellar advice please from some real people. I have always been the biggest girl throughout my life. Never bigger than a 14-16 (I am 5ft 6.5) but finding it really hard to break the cycle now after having had my two DC.

At my smallest I weighed my ideal weight of 10 stone 7 (Cambridge diet) which swiftly came back on during my second pregnancy. I don't know what I currently weigh but I can feel that I am much bigger than I have been in a long time and living in jeans and loose tops. I am willing to try anything low ish impact due to sleep deprivation (DD1) and minimal experience with fitness and a healthy lifestyle. I also have relapsing remitting ms which at present is symptomless but I love using this as an excuse to not move about more often.

I would like some real experiences of exercise and diet plans that have worked for exhausted parents of toddlers, please! I have never ever been into any kind of fitness and just have no idea where to start. But I don't want to get diabetes and want to be able to run about with my kids which at present I can do but if I don't shift at least 2 stone for good, then I am concerned where I will end up.

So, any advice please? Where do I start? What have you tried that has worked? How do I break the evening snacking and gin binges? Help me!

Well, the first thing to do is take a big bin bag and throw all the junk food in the house, crisps, chocolate, biscuit, cake, ready meals, ice-cream, you get the picture. What is unopened give to a charity, what is opened goes into the bin. Ditto the gin.

Breaking an habit takes at least one week, so be ready to be grumpy and unpleasant and warn everyone in the house.
Stop eating in front of tv, MN or whatever and if you want to eat it is at the table and seated. Have your meals as a family and outside mealtimes, the kitchen is closed. Identify when and why you snack . Is it every time you turn on the tv and both things are associated? You can enjoy a tv show without food.

Take this opportunity to change drastically your lifestyle forever. For you and your DC and give your children the best start in life by not being the wrong model. Weightloss is 80 % what you put or don't put in your mouth and this includes drinks from sugared tea to gin. Get rid of everything. Seriously. Put colour in your fridge and go to your local library and take some cooking books.
Start waling / scootering with your children. Go to the park. Download a "map my walk" and aim to increase how far you walk everyday.

Thank you firie

I walk lots and lots but want to so something more to get a bit sweatier! Husband has agreed to go for it with me and we are buying a nutri bullet and loads of fruits veggies and linseeds etc today to have a go at some smoothie swaps. I want to lose 2-2.5 stone but over time and with realistic expectation.

Weightlifting? Light weights with lots of reps is advisable and can be as effective as lifting heavy.

Meal planning, smaller portions, listening to your bodies natural hunger and fullness ques.

Also, make sure you have realistic weight loss goals. Perhaps focus on the fitness, rather than the diet at first?

I've just lost over 2.5 stone and gone from a size 16 to 10. It took me 3-4 months. I'm finding it fairly easy to keep off (im actually still losing weight).

So I started when dc3 was 9 weeks old. So I was in the full swing of sleep deprivation! I just refused to use that as an excuse. I ordered the 30 day shred after reading a lot about it on here. I decided I would do it every day for 30 days NO EXCUSES. I also decided that is stop snacking and only eat things I really wanted. Initially I was on 3 meals a day and a small chocolate treat/yoghurt each night. I'd be fairly sensible during the week then at the weekend id allow myself a take away/chocolate/cake. Though I was finding that as is been pretty good during the week and kept to the excercise I didn't binge or eat as much as I had been. These days I eat weetabix with skimmed milk for breakfast a big bowl of fruit for lunch and a normal dinner (thoug I cook without using oil/butter/cheese etc to keep fat content down) I don't do salads as they don't fill me. My dinners are big and filling. At the weekend I have treats. I've never called it a diet- just a more sensible eating approach so I don't find myself obsessing about food.

I'm happy to help motivate you/push you along. It's very achievable. Just don't make excuses. I have 3dcs aged 5 and under. And things are hectic- buy my key to success is no excuses.

Good luck.

Just last week on the ABC Australia TV I watched the checkout, which is a consumer tv show about testing, scams, etc... and part of the episode was about the NutriBullet and expert such as biologists, nutritionist, uni professor just destroyed the marketing-crap about the molecular or whatever science behind the nutribullet. Any normal juicer - blender will do the same for you. iview.abc.net.au/programs/checkout-stories/FR1602H016S00 I don't think you can watch it from UK, but if you watch their youtube channel it might come up soon www.youtube.com/user/checkoutabctv/videos.

You can juice, which is always good, but it you don't change your habits, in a couple of years you will be back to square one. So do the juicing when you feel like having an evening snack or glass of gin, and still drastically change your lifestyle. Very quickly , the pain of cleaning the juicer will stop you doing it in the evening, and seriously, get rid of treats and processed food.

for exercise try HIIT , you will find tons of videos on Youtube, I used to do hers zuzkalight.com/category/workouts/ way back when she was on body rock.

I need to lose 2 stone so will be watching this keenly

for exercise try HIIT

HIIT isn't very low impact though is it? Although, there's been some studies that suggest high intensity exercise improves symptoms of MS. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4587912/

Agree with the juicing nonsense, just another fad. Smaller portions, healthier food, long term lifestyle changes.

I had a c section so had to be careful. Started swimming and Aqua aerobics when baby was 6 weeks as no impact. I also have a bad back, a disc problem so have to be careful.

I find it good to belong to a gym where you have to phone to book the classes, that way more likely to definitely go

We could use this thread to log when we do exercise, might perk us up to do more if we see other people doing more?

I went to Aqua aerobics tonight, then stopped for a chicken kebab on the way home . Only ate half the chicken though, and in wrap rather than pitta. Was delicious.

Anyway back to the exercise. I went swimming last night and to a 30 min class at gym yesterday morning which nearly killed me.

I really want a roast dinner. If it wasn't so hot I'd cook one! If I could only stop eating I wouldn't need to exercise so much!

If I could only stop eating I wouldn't need to exercise so much!

You're going to hate me for saying this, but you need to change your attitude towards exercise/losing weight. Exercise is actually not very effective for weight loss. I run 5 k in 28 minutes and I only burn roughly 300 calories. That's roughly a donut and a half.

Doing too much exercise can also cause muscle stress, which results in your body producing too much cortisol which causes you too retain water and fat.

Exercise is amazing. But you don't need to do so much of it to see results. Also, make sure you're taking measurements, rather than just weighing yourself. Exercise can change your shape and slim you down while the scales stay the same. (I'm 12 stone and a size 12 bottom/10 top).

If you really want to lose two stone, you will have to watch your diet. Perhaps focus on your performance in exercise and how certain foods make you feel, before and after?

I'm not a diet person personally. I'm quite content to stay a stone overweight and eat what I like and feel good working out.

I'll agree to disagree. The more exercise I do the more weight I lose no matter what I eat. As I build muscle I burn more calories.

Just been for a swim and loved it. Been 4 times to the gym since Sunday and loving it. The more I go the better value my membership so I'm trying to remember that too

How are you getting on poster? Have you found something that works for you?