Stay at home moms of young ones. How do you do loose?

I second the gym with daycare. Totally worth the cost for me and it still saves my sanity during school breaks.

Exercise:
1) cardio in morning before they wake up at home (bought a stationary bike off craigslist-best purchase ever)
2) sneak off to do weights at the gym close to our house when daddy is home from work
3) do weights, squats, lunges, pushups, planks, whatever while watching tv with kids
4) youtube is a goldmine for workouts and i get bored easily so i love scanning through them
5) dance with the kids
6) listen to music and dance while cleaning the house

Diet
1) i quit eating what the kids eat.
2) oatmeal, eggs, chicken, lean beef, turkey burgers, sweet potatoes, green beans, kale, cottage cheese, greek yogurt, popcorn and fruit is basically my diet. If i want something else i will eat it, but only 1 serving and i dont go over my calorie count unless i exercise more. Some people call that a method of binging. I call it math and calorie management.
3) drink lots of water
4) drink green tea
5) drink black coffee... Creamer is a calorie sink.
6) if i go out to eat i only eat half and take the rest home for the next day.
7) i eat dinner at five and dont eat any more until the next day at breakfast. It works for me.

Those are my tricks.

owlcake wrote: »

How many mamas actually weigh thier food? Seems super annoying? But I see the benefit of knowing exact numbers

I do. It's not annoying at all. Super easy: plate on scale, turn on scale, food on plate, read number, done.

Well I wasn't a stay at home mum when the kiddos were young, I was working. But my husband was the stay at home parent and these are the things he did when his weight started to creep up.
1) do not eat kids leftovers or off their plates no matter how much it feels like a waste of food
2) just because kids are like hummingbirds and eat frequently, do not eat every time they eat (the snack for you and snack for me syndrome)
3) nap time for kiddo is not nap time for daddy
4) stay active to avoid kids and you eating from boredom. It's not just getting out for a walk or to the park but make an effort to do activities like a massive play doh creation, or using the big toddler legos to build a castle, or breaking out paints and painting masterpieces, etc
5) involve kids in diy and chores...like hubby would repair something and our toddler daughter would have job of holding the measuring tape and measuring stuff (even if it didn't need to be measured) or hubby would wash windows and toddler would have a towel to catch any drips. Or even help touching up paint. Obviously the projects and jobs need to be age appropriate like a 2yr old couldn't sort out long from short screws and be trusted to hand them as needed but a 5yr old can. A 5yr old can also be given a paint brush or small roller and shown how to touch up a wall. You also have to schedule things/break them up as younger kids have shorter attention spans. My husband is a typical man in that he found a way to make this stuff very much like a game...the kids loved doing projects with him and have learned so many useful skills.
6) do not eat in front of the tv or while on phone or laptop or tablet..studies show we turn into mindless eating machines if we eat while distracted by electronics. Eat together at the table.
7) if you're not single, set up regular times your partner can watch the kids while you exercise...I used to have the kids three times a week to myself in the evenings while he went to a spinning class at the gym. It was actually really good for me to have "mummy time" with the kids because the dynamic is different when it's just you and the kids vs being a couple with the kids. We'd play our own games and I'd involve them in cooking...a 1yr old can play with pots and pans and search out what you need, while a 5yr old can help with mixing and pouring ( used to make bread and my eldest daughter by that age would have her own dough to knead and make a "baby loaf"...which she'd proudly present for accolades and much munching. she now wants to be a chef go figure. But anyway, yeah young kids can slow you down while doing chores or cooking but they love to "help" and it's just another fun learning activity.

owlcake wrote: »

How many mamas actually weigh thier food? Seems super annoying? But I see the benefit of knowing exact numbers

I did it for a week and hated it, so the kitchen scale is collected dust somewhere in a cabinet. I admire the ones that do it though! It's just not for me, lol

emmarrgh wrote: »

I am a SAHM too and it's tough, I had to stop snacking when my son snacked, and stop buying the snacks like goldfish or alphabet cookies that I would just devour while Artie snacked lol. I buy fresh, frozen and canned veggies, so we ALWAYS have veggies with every meal, no excuses. Spinach with eggs, salad with lunch, roasted broccoli with dinner etc.

And I cook in a big batch and end up estimating how much I've taken from it, and I try to pick up more veggies and less everything else. It's not an exact science but right now it's working. Smaller plates help me have smaller portions. If I snack after Artie is in bed I enlist my hubby to make the snack and dole out ONE serving for me lol.

Activity wise, I have a Wii Fit that I exercise on during naptime, for 30 mins.but I don't fuss too much about it because I bought a fitness tracker, and my steps are 8-9k on a lazy day, and 12-13k on a busy day, so If I don't have energy for a workout, I let myself rest.

It's emotionally and physically tough to be a SAHM! But I'm determined to lose this weight and have lost about 8lbs so far, and I don't want to make any super drastic changes that won't stick.

This last one is a key point. If you are all gung ho and begin to exercise 6 days a week for an hour, you'll lose weight, but what about when something big comes up and you can't workout everyday? Or you just burn out? You really have to make the changes you know you can keep up with indefinitely--not just until you lose the weight. Maintenance is where it's at!