I Hate Being Fluffy!!!

Where do you live? I love running and it is one of the most effective ways for me to lose weight and keep it off. I don't mind running alone but my husband won't let me go unless I go with him or a dog, and we don't have a dog. I would love to have a running partner. I know it could be hard to work out schedules and all that but let me know. Otherwise I will be taking the advise you got and try something else. I gotta do something too. I feel like my weight is slowly creeping up.

Amber
I found a few different videos at Walmart that are called 10 minute workout videos. There is one for pilates and one with an exercise band that came with the band. Both videos have 5 different workouts on them and I have found that I can do them easily because it is hard for me to convince myself that I dont have 10 minutes that I can workout. I would suggest those. I think working out is like quitting smoking, the first two weeks are rough but then you start feeling better and it gets a little easier. Good luck

yoga. a little everyday. there are some super fun 'mom & baby' yoga videos out there. it lifts the spirit, energy & weight while strengthening the spirit, body & easing tension levels.

yes, the miracle excersize (how do you spell excersize?)
have fun with it! there are a variety of styles, i'm certain you'll find something for you.

also: WALKING. simply taking the one year old out for a stroll everyday-- dressed for weather-- and walk around the block(s)... in a safe area. :)

hope that helps

Hi Amber!

I can relate with your frustrations! There is a book that I recommend- The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose. Despite the title, it is not all about eating only raw foods. It teaches you how to eat in quick elimination combinations for optimum weight loss. I have been following the principles for a week and have lost 4 pounds! If you want to read a little more about it, you can go to www.therawfooddetoxdiet.com I found the book at the library and just photocopied the recipes, but it is definitely a book that I would like to add to my library!

Good luck! I hate exercizing, but following these principles, you don't need to sweat your heart out to lose the weight!
H. Gaitten
Owner, Natural Choices
www.naturalchoices4baby.com

My suggestion is to get involved with www.slimbodycoach.com. It's a great website and teaches you to eat right.

I also absolutely LOVE working out to the Turbo Jam series! I never get tired of them!

I just want to throw this in the mix, and it may sound harsh, but it's true. Although I agree with the moms who say don't be hard on yourself, I don't agree that it only matters how you feel and not how you look. I'm sure to your husband it matters how you look. Most women think that it shouldn't matter to their husbands if they gain a little weight, and that their husbands should love them no matter what. Well, your husband didn't just pick you because you were smart or funny, he liked how you looked, and probably hopes you keep yourself looking great for him. Men are visual creatures, and if we want to keep our husbands looking at us and not wanting to look elsewhere, we have to put forth the effort to please their eyes. I'm sure you wouldn't want your husband gaining a bunch of weight either. It's not real attractive, and it's bad for his health. Now that I've said my spill, here's my help. First, find out what you should weigh for your height. Most women don't do that, then end up too skinny for their height, and that is unhealthy. As for exercise, running isn't good for the knees, walking is much better. To echo another mom, put your baby in the stroller and start walking. The fresh air and scenery is GREAT for you and baby. If you want to get some "me" time, wait until your husband comes home from work, hand him the baby and some toys, and head out the door. Or, wait until you lay baby down to sleep, and go. A quick 20 minute walk at a fast pace every day is wonderful for getting your blood going and losing weight. Make sure you work some hills in or you won't burn the calories. Also, you need to lay off the key lime pies. You don't have to starve yourself or eat things you don't like, but the sweets will keep you from your goal. I eat what I like, but I walk to keep healthy and in shape. It's all about moderation. I say, eat less, move more. Good luck!

you've probably heard it before, but what really worked with me was to lower my meat intake and raise my vegetable intake. i looked online for interesting recipes to try new vegetables, or the old ones in new ways. and i actually found ones my husband was willing to eat with me too! for the meat, i didn't cut it out entirely, just eat smaller portions.

Amber, my name is T. and I am a Personal Health and Wellness Coach. I am conducting a Community Weight Loss Challenge here in Sandy. Please feel free to contact me for all of the details. I would love to help. You can reach me at ###-###-####. See below for further information.
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I look forward to chatting with you very soon! T. F

Amber,
I can offer the advice to eat healthy and exercise every day. It is mostly self discipline. However I can also recommend our weight loss line. I am an independent consultant with Arbonne international if you would like to learn more about our awesome and effective program please contact me. It is also important to have good supplements. Good luck. L. O.

If you're not a workout person, get your diet under control as a starting point and then start looking at exercise to accelerate/manage your weight loss. Eat more protein, less sugar and carbohydrates. Read some books about nutrition if you need help understanding what foods are good for your body. The South Beach diet book is really good at explaining how sugar and carbs contribute to weight gain. Read a couple of diet books and come up with a plan that will work for you.

Weight management is 80% diet, 20% exercise. Not to downplay exercise - everyone should exercise - but you have to change your eating habits to really change the way you look.

If it's hard for you to lose the weight alone, I am hosting a weight loss challenge. Kind of like the "Biggest Loser", you compete to win cash prize. What we do is get together Thursday evenings and do a nutrition class so we can support losing weight the healthy way. It's a great support system from the Personal Wellness Coaches that run this and from the other contestants. It's $29 which goes into a pool for a cash prize winning to whoever loses the most weight (we're doing 3 winners this time). The competition already started but it goes till Nov.20th and we're still accepting more people to join. In fact, we have 3 people that are just joining even though it already started. You can contact me at 888-236-4453 for more info.
-O.

These are some good inspiring links! ps if you use fitchick20 if you buy something from BornFit you get 20% off!

http://www.livebornfit.com/livefit.html

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3...

http://www.livebornfit.com/resources.html

I seem to lose weight when I'm not thinking about it! And I was in the mode that if I don't work out for an hour its not even worth it, it took me a long time to realize that that was something my idiot gym teacher in highschool told me and that every bit counts. Run up and down your stairs for 5 minutes before your daily shower, do leg lifts and side bends :) while you're waiting for something to heat in the microwave... every little bit helps. Good luck!!

Don't be so hard on yourself. Try your hardest to love yourself and muster the strength it will take to beat this!

I have found that it has far more to do with what I am eating than it does with the amount of exercise I am doing. Don't get me wrong, exercise only helps but I have found much better results by eating right and then adding in exercise.

To help me along I joinged Weight Watchers - WOW! It is a great program that doesn't teach you how to diet but teaches you how to eat. I have learned better options, portion sizes and even got my hubby to join! We have seen great results - I have lost 45 and my husband is almost to 20 lbs.

Good luck.

I hate being fluffy, too. I have done the diet up and down thing forever, whether I needed to or not...always striving to be better because I wasn't good enough as is. Sigh...needless to say, I'm 36 and sick of all that so I just turn towards health (without health being my total motivation...as I said, I hate being fluffy and I became fluffy with two pregnancies). I've found pretty much all diet plans work, then when I've gotten to my goal, the food race is on again! So about a year and a half ago, I decided to keep it simple and real. I was 40 lbs over fluffy still from my 3rd baby and in no mood to follow a diet. I decided to look up metabolism speeding foods which turned out to simply be foods I should eat, anyway...dark fruits and veggies, high in fiber and full of all kinds of great stuff. Leaner meats, nothing fried, read labels, etc. It's been terrific. My life has changed simply because of eating differently which has been great for my children, too. I've paid some attention to calories, but I'm in no mood to be a calorie counter. Basically I learned to eat around 100 calories per 10 pounds that I want to be (at 5'4" I like to stick around 120 so that means 1200 calories). I also learned that my body likes variety...I found that if I varied my daily calorie intake (for example, I'd indulge in Ben and Jerry's here and there), my metabolism got a jump start and boom, down another pound. As far as excercise goes, anything works...doesn't matter. Point for me is to move. If I feel like a hard workout for an hour, I take advantage of that. If I don't feel like moving, 10 minutes on an excercise bike at a rec center will do. The point is, I keep up the daily movement beyond riding a bike with my children or running up and down stairs putting away laundry...it could be that I do lunges back and forth across the yard while the kids are playing. Just something...some kind of excercise everyday. It has kept up the pattern for me and without the pressure of 'having' to excercise any sort of way, I've stayed pretty darn good, going up a bit, coming down a bit as I've gone along. I've even done stretching while watching my daughter at basketball practice or have had my 7 year old take me through her gymnastics stretch routine which she absolutely loves to do! It makes her feel good to be my 'teacher'. I just hate dieting...it's pretty simple...move everyday however that may be for the point of excercise and if it has ever lived, I can eat it. The best thing I've done is to educate myself (I've mainly done that through research on the internet and Scientific America magazine, believe it or not) about food and how my body works...and then put action behind the knowledge. Good luck! (oh, one way I've learned to sort of 'cheat' is to wear ankle weights during my normal daily routine...more weight means burning more calories, so I like knowing I'm burning the calories of a person 5 pounds heavier than me when I am running up and down the stairs putting away laundry!) P.S. Water, water, water!

Join a group exercise thing ... I've heard lots of things about Curves. I personally like 24 hour fitness - they have group classes of all kinds, and personal trainers too.

It also sounds like you want to retrain yourself in how/what you eat. Look into something to help you there - something that gives you lots of support, not just sending shipments of meals.

Rememer you're not going on a diet ... your changing your lifestyle to change your life. You CAN do it!!

There are have been some great suggestions on exercise and healthy foods that I support. I want to offer another option that would be in addition to eating right and the regular exercise.

Nintendo Wii. I do yoga and rhythm boxing and pushups and other stuff with the Wii Fit game using the balance board.

I also bought a game on WiiWare called Helix that is a great aerobics game. I prefer this to a regular aerobics video because I'm having fun trying to beat my score and refine my movements. The game technically only works your arms, but I like to jump around a bit while I do it, which also increases my heart rate.

Just another suggestion to add to your other exercise options that can be fun. Good luck!

I was absolutely in your same situation about a year ago. I walked with my kids a lot but the weight just wasn't coming off. You just have to find out what works for you. The only thing that takes off my weight is hard workouts. I have to do more aerobics than just yoga or walking even though that does seem to work for a lot of ppl! I love the biggest loser workouts and jillian's (from biggest loser) workout videos as well. I think I lost most of the weight in 2-3 months, believe me it will be so worth it to hear comments on how you look, it just motivated me to lose the rest! I also couldn't believe how much more energy I had once I got back in shape. Now we're expecting again so I'm sure I'll have to start all over, lol. Good luck !! :]

Hi Amber

I am a fitness professional and own a private fitness studio here in Castle Rock. I have been helping people reach their fitness and weight loss goals for over 25 years now. One thing that may work well for you is a little advice I give all my clients looking to loose weight - being that running places an enormous impact on the body it is better to just start by speeding things up. Anything you do, just do it twice as fast such as going up stairs, walking down the street, putting away laundry, pushing the vacuum. Carry your 1 year old in your arms as you go up and down the stairs and see if you can go up them 2x time! Go up and down 10x, 2 - 3 times a day every day. Find a nice firm chair such as a wooden kitchen chair/stool and then try standing up and sitting down...using only 1 leg! Great stuff to start with if you are apparently healthy with no limitations. Please feel free to contact me via my website at www.myfridayfitness.com if you have any further questions. Also, I do have a dvd you can borrow if you would like. It is a couple of olympic gold medalists and a doctor that helps explain a lot about your exercise and health. A nice workout, too! If you are interested in training, please check out my specials which are listed on the website and you can refer to my ad in the Douglas County Living magazine as well if you wish. I would love to hear back from you. Take care and all the best

C. Friday

I really like the Turbo Jam videos. They are fun, and they really help me. Also, I would recommend taking fiber supplements and drinking lots of water before every meal. It helps you eat less and helps you lose weight. I used the soluble benefiber stuff and it really seemed to help. Good luck!

start out simple. eat healthy, meaning cut back on sweets and pop--i recomend no pop--and don't eat until you are over full. eat slowly, which i struggle with myself;). drink lots of water, and start with walking 20 minutes to an hour at the most per day. no matter what workout you want to do, never dive into anything. always gradually start your programs.

P90X is the program that rocks! Check it out at www.beachbody.com. I lost 5 pounds in the first 8 days. I have now lost 8 pounds in 5 weeks. Only had 15 to lose in the first place so it's going great!

The way you feel is very common for moms. I am sure you are much harder on yourself then anyone else would be. However, it doesn't really matter how you look but how you feel. I think it is great that you want to take steps to improve how you are feeling. A group with a build in support system and other moms to workout with is exactly what you need. If you visit www.strollerfit.com you can find classes throughout Colorado from Castle Rock to Fort Collins. StrollerFit offers three different classes for all fitness levels including a class to restore the core (moms tend to lose 2-3 inches in the hips and waist in as few as 4 weeks). Good luck to you!

www.flylady.com, check out the section called "Body Clutter"

Hi Amber,
First of all, don't be so hard on yourself. Weight loss takes time and it's not going to come off right away, but I can assure you that with dedication and a good program, it will happened! I recommend Stroller Strides. Stroller Strides is a fitness program that moms can do with their children. There are locations all over the front range, including my location in Castle Rock. Classes are 1 hour in length and include powerwalking with intervals of strength training using resistance tubing, the environment, and the stroller. Currently my classes are held at the Fairgrounds Regional Park in Castle Rock every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 9:30am; however, classes will be moving indoors on October 20th. For more information, check out my website at www.strollerstrides.net/castlerock.
Good luck with your weight loss!

Hi Amber,

I know exactly how you feel. Before I became pregnant I was 138 lbs, now I'm 170 +- few pounds. I'm doing everything I can: Weight Watchers, working out, nursing (not that this is a plan of my plan *lol*) and nothing is coming off. I have to say that I've lost 60 lbs before so I know what I'm doing. The scale is just not moving and I'm more and more frustrated. I just can't stand my body the way it is.

I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone :)

I had a new baby 6 months ago...and have been working out without much actual weight loss on the scale...until a couple weeks ago when I incorporated this into my day. Check out what it is on my blog. www.fordeverfamily.blogspot.com it's amazing!!!!!

Hi Amber,
I was in a similar situation and found the best thing is portion control and excercise. Make the time for you. It is hard to do as a parent but you have to. I also have no self control if there is chocolate in the house so I don't have it here. Anything that is a treat that you have a hard time staying out of just don't buy and don't have it in your home. That has worked best for me by just getting rid of the unhealthy temptations. It also wasn't bad for my kids to not have those foods in the house. Don't be too hard on yourself, it is a lot of work to loose weight. Take your time, be good to yourself and stay positive. As soon as we turn negative towards our own being it makes it really difficult to lose weight.
Good luck and always know that no matter our size we are loved by our children and we are beautiful.
SarahMM

I had about 40lbs to lose. I was able to do the first 25lbs my self but needed help for the last 15lbs. I joined weight watchers. The main things it gave me was a support group and the push to REALLY keep a food dairy. All the studies say the dairy is what does it. When I am being really good about it the results are amazing. It stops me from taking that handful of whatever, since then I would have to go write it down. I even write down when I have bad days and it gives me a feeling of control so the bad days don't turn into a bad week. The great thing about a food journal is you can do it yourself is WW is not for you.
The exercise is important but getting the food under control is what will really to it. I also found a gym that has a drop in center that I feel comfortable with and that was a great help.
GOOD LUCK!!

Take out white flour and sugar, and go all natural! Commit to doing some form of exercize for a minimum of 30 minutes daily (walking, swimming, biking, etc.). There is a fabulous program I used called Body for Life by Bill Philips (I lost 24 lbs safely in 12 weeks). Also a good work out is Barry's Boot Camp, but it's a little pricey. Good luck! We're all behind you!

Walk, put the baby in the stroller and walk, look at nature, talk to your baby and next thing you know you have walked a few miles. Get a trailer for your child and ride a bike with pulling them behind, this was a life saver for me with two kids. I got one of those Burley trailers and would take them for a fun ride, getting the work out without feeling like I was working out! It was great!
As far as weight loss, don't eat after 6pm. Start your day with your biggest indulgence, the most calories and work your way backwards. Sounds goofy but it helped me lose 22lbs in January, that and I got sick but I just stopped eating at night as I was so tired and not feeling well and went to bed a lot earlier. Just stopping my snacking at night, not eating past 6pm and walking I lost 22lbs in three weeks! Seriously!
You don't feel you are on a "diet" either. Keep raw veggies and cut up and in the fridge so if you need to snack it is handy.
My kids call me "squishy" still so don't feel bad about being fluffy, hee hee...

I like the pilates videos, they're really easy to begin with. I always put more weight on nursing than when I'm pregnant. I give myself a full year before I really worry about my weight, but the pilates help me feel stronger and work up to a harder workout.

Weight watchers works for a lifetime of healthy eating habits, also lots of walking. Also journaling your feelings, over eating is often a sign of something deeper going on. It's great you are doing this now, you want to teach your kids good eating habits, a key for a healthy life. Good luck!