How do you juggle weight loss with everything else?

Nads36

I have over 100lbs to lose. I work full time and have a young family. We have so much to do around the house, extra curricular activities, full time work, paperwork (perosnal and for work) as well as the day to day stuff like shopping, cooking & cleaning. Some nights I don't get to sit down until 22:00. How do you all fit exercise and planning of healthy meals around busy lives?

It's my 40th birthday next month and I really want to shift a stone - but I don't feel I will though. I currently weigh around 20st (280lbs).
Would love to have MFP friends to support each other - need the day to day accountability.
Thanks in advance!

missysippy930

Busy lives are common. You have to plan meals/shopping anyway, so choose lower calorie meals the whole family will enjoy. There’s many sites to get recipes from. Exercise isn’t necessary (I lost 100# with no additional exercise) for weight loss, but is very beneficial for overall health. Perhaps just taking short walks with the family to begin.

tinkerbellang83

Not putting a timeline on weight loss helped me immensely. I focus on non-scale goals, meeting nutritional goals, getting steps in, improving sleep quality, making time for yoga/meditation. These things all contribute to long-term success and I have control over them, I do not have control over what the scale says, my weight fluctuates up and down by around 5lbs daily.

I hadn't really put much more planning into cooking/grocery shopping than I had previously and prepping more foods ahead on my day off means I am under less pressure the rest of the week, as it's just a case of throwing something into the microwave to reheat it and maybe prepping some veggies, although more often than not I just use frozen veggies and steam them.

Yesterday in around an hour I made homemade Granola for the week (not particularly low calorie, but I like it and has lot of fruit in, which I struggle to eat more of), Made some Chicken, Chorizo & Chickpea Stew in the slow cooker which I left on timer for the night, which I will eat a couple of portions of for dinner this week, which I will have with rice or roast potatoes and veg and freeze the rest for a night when I don't have time to cook and then I made some Aubergine & Mushroom Soup, some for lunches for the rest of the week and 2 portions frozen for lunches for a week when I don't have time to prep.

Exercise isn't necessary for weight loss, you don't need to be doing hours and hours of cardio/workouts. If you're not sitting down until 10pm sounds like you're pretty active already. There are some great youtube strength training workouts around that can be done in 15-20 mins at home a couple of times per week which will help with maintaining muscle whilst losing fat and can help improve body composition (HASFIT, Fitness Blender, Nerd Fitness channels to name a few).

As above walking is a great cardio exercise that can be done with kids, which is beneficial for health and a good way to get the kids out for some fresh air.

amtyrell

Well 90% of weight loss is food and only 10% is exercise. So focus on the 90%
Eating less shouldn't actually require any more time. Yes learning how to weigh and measure takes a bit extra time for the first say two weeks but bevomes easier fast.
Also you can repeat meals and habits. I know growing up my folks repeated the same basic meals every week.

cherys

Try and set yourself up to win. Focus on healthy foods that are as quick and easy to buy and cook as unhealthy foods. If you are that busy, I'd look for things like additive free ready made veggie soups, ready roasted chickens. Sweet potatoes can be baked in a microwave in minutes, eggs scrambled in a dash of milk in minutes, sales prepped in minutes. Make sure you always have a bottle of water on the go as long hours can lead to dehydration, and in my experience, often the body reacts to dehydration by craving sugar or salt when what it really needs is water. Infuse it with different flavours. Try not to keep sugary or overly-processed snacks in the house. Stock up on fruit and plain yoghurt, snackable veggies such as peppers, carrots, cucumber, celery and iceberg.
Have something ready for days when you are craving a bit of rubbish. Low calorie chocolate drinks are good for this, or diet sodas. I wouldn't;t have them every day but for the occasional sweet fix, they help.

vegasgirl0825

I also have a very busy life and have found that if I don't plan ahead I am not successful. So, when I plan meals for the week, I plan ones that are low calorie or have a lower calorie component for me, but that my whole family will eat. (So if we are going to have chicken breasts and green beans, my family may also have some kind of potato with it but I will have an extra veggie or salad instead.) Since I have to grocery shop anyways, I make sure to include healthy snacks for me such as fruit, veggies, cottage cheese, etc.) Probably the biggest thing that helps me after that is prepping all my snacks/mini meals ahead of time. For me, this is usually a Sunday afternoon. I cut up and portion out all the fruit & veggies into baggies/containers so I can just grab and go during the week. Sometimes I make a big batch of low-calorie vegetable soup on sundays and portion that out to have as lunches/snacks during the week. I also throw a few chicken breasts in the crockpot and then shred them and portion them. I use that as snacks or to add to salads or whatever. I truly find that planning ahead and doing these things makes me more successful.

Also-in regards to a large weight loss...I am in the same boat and it can feel overwhelming. I kinda break my loss down into monthly goals to make it seem doable.