Do I Even Bother Keeping My Scale?

As I was unpacking I pulled out my scale and thought, “Do I even keep this?”

The last time I weighed myself was around Christmas. We had just begun another stay-at-home order here in Ontario and the food and booze were flowing. My clothes were feeling tight and I figured if I weighed myself I could shock myself into cleaning up my act and lose a few pounds. I hadn’t weighed myself since almost a year before and had mostly forgotten why I had stopped.

I had stopped weighing myself because I had realized that as soon as I take away the weight-loss goal and make it about achieving more strength, better gut health or generally feeling good everything falls into place where it’s supposed to.

Knowing the number was a slippery slope for me and even worse, repeatedly checking on that number. The reason is it would create this stressful yo-yo lifestyle that was so unhealthy.

If the number went up, I’d deprive myself. If the number went down I’d gorge and set off a SIBO flare up.

I’d completely stress about the natural changes my body goes through every month and every year.

What works for me is checking in with how I feel. Do I feel tired, weak, stiff? How is my gut? Am I bloated? How do my clothes feel on my body? How is my skin doing? Do I feel foggy, depressed or anxious? How is my stress level?

Once I have done a scan of my body and really have a sense of how I am feeling then I adjust accordingly. What I adjust is not always the same. Sometimes it means more smaller meals with extra vegetables. Other times because of my SIBO it can mean that I have to reduce my vegetables, fruits, sauces and animal protein for a little while to get out of a flare up and reintroduce them in small portions.

Sometimes it can mean I need to overhaul my schedule and really carve out time for daily exercise which for me is typically a little cardio and a fair bit of strength training with weights.

Lastly is my sleep. My sweet spot is falling asleep by 10pm and waking up at 5:30am. If I do that consistently then I am firing at all cylinders.

Ben and I are pretty similar when it comes to this approach. He called it his three pillars: healthy eating habits, daily exercise and good sleeping habits. I love that way of looking at it so I am going to steal it.

The couple weeks leading up to my move and right after I was a mess. I was eating whatever I could grab, which often meant leftovers on my kids’ plates, I was not exercising at all and I had the worse case of insomnia.

But I was easy on myself knowing that what I was doing was nearly impossible and I just had to survive it… moving four kids during a pandemic who weren’t in school as a solo parent to a new house and city. Phew!

But… I friggin’ did it!!! Whoop Whoop!

About a week after my move I was feeling it. All my clothes were tight, I was trying to sleep better but it was still spotty, and I had set off a pretty bad SIBO flare up. It was time to piece back together my three pillars.

As I unpacked I pulled out my scale. Weighing myself didn’t even cross my mind. No way was I falling into that trap again. I almost tossed it but remembered I may have to weigh my kids fromm time to time so I have slid it way under my closet built-it.

In the meantime I will be protecting my three pillars and making sure I don’t take life too seriously (I am shoving my face full of Lucky Charms as I write this… just keepin’ in real).

Good bye scale!

Stopping The Stress Eating Cycle

Stopping the stress eating cycle 2From close to my weight-loss goal (left) through gaining seven pounds (center) to losing six pounds.

Truth time. After rocking my healthy lifestyle like a champ at the beginning of the summer, and being within arms reach of my goal weight, I sabotaged my weigh-loss success. Stress hit in the form of my daughter going through the fretful fours, being too busy and my twin toddlers, well, being toddlers. So, true to form, I stress ate. Me stressed

This is a photo of me stressed. So hot right?

I hid, and avoided blogging about my body after babies journey. It wasn’t like I was reaching for junk food, I was just eating, and eating, and eating to comfort myself. Unfortunately, I am just barely five-foot-two, so basically a hobbit, which means if I even smell a dessert, I gain two pounds.gained weightThat smile on my face is very fake. If you ever see that smile, you know I am fake smiling at you. 

I was starting to think I should write a blog post about how it is normal for your weight to fluctuate after having babies, which it is, but that felt like I was throwing in the towel.

So, a week ago, I looked around at our home that was full of sick kids (’tis the season) feeling stressed out of my gourd. I was about to reach for a tablespoon full of peanut butter (yes, that is my vice, my sister’s too, so I can’t be that weird) and I voice in my head said “step away from the peanut butter Joanna.” So I did.

You see, I have been stuck in a vicious cycle. Our stress dies down, I get on track with eating healthy and exercising and then BOOM! Normal family stress hits and I start saying to myself “you deserve this.” Then I feel horrible physically and emotionally and get twice as stressed as I really should.

After I walked away from the peanut butter I hopped on my blog for advice, something that I actually don’t do that often. I re-read a couple of my posts that I wrote when I was in a good-place and was immediately reminded that I too, deserve to take care of myself and I don’t always have to go down with the ship.

So, for the last week I have gone back to eating healthy, and exercising when I can, without over-thinking it. I have lost almost six pounds since making this decision.

Here is the hard part, keeping the momentum. So, I am going to blog every Wednesday about my wellness journey. I hope that this will help hold me accountable. I debated about calling it “weight-loss Wednesdays” but I want to be able to cover everything, including my struggles with anxiety.

Here is the best part, I am what some may call an over-sharer. In fact, there are times in conversations that Mike will shoot me a look and tap his nose, meaning “reel it in a bit with the details Joanna.” That is why blogging is such a perfect fit for me. I really don’t give AF.

So, I will share every gritty detail, every pound, every photo.

Want to join in on the conversation? I’d love to hear all about your journey in the comments below or on Facebook.

Stay tuned…

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My Busy-Mom-Of-Four Diet Secrets

 

In this vlog I have answered the number one question people have asked me after my post What Having Four Kids (Including Twins) Has Done To My Body And My Confidence went viral. What do I eat and what are my diet secrets? In this post I will talk about how I have taken elements of diet plans, such as Weight Watchers, The Zone Diet and the Eat Clean Diet, and made those fit into my busy lifestyle. Please add any questions you might have to the comments section.

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