Mama,
When I talk to mamas who are looking to improve their health and lose weight, they tell me time and time again that the hardest part of losing weight, or even just eating healthier, is being consistent. We all know how important consistency is, but being a busy mom makes actually being consistent so hard!
As a busy mom myself, I know that your time isn’t really yours. It belongs to your kids, your spouse, your job, your house, and then, at the very bottom of the list is you.
When you look at your life and your time like that, with you at the very bottom, it makes sense that you can’t be consistent with your health and weight loss goals! When you have this viewpoint, it’s impossible to eat healthy or exercise.
However, just because it feels impossible right now, doesn’t mean it’s impossible forever! The secret to losing weight, eating better, hitting the gym, getting enough sleep, or whatever health goal you have is learning to put your needs first on your priority list.
Did every alarm bell in your brain just go off when I said that? Did you feel instant resistance to the idea? Did you think, “I can’t do that; my kids need to come first!”
If you’re like me, you watched your mother, grandmothers, aunts and pretty much any woman in your life sacrifice herself and her happiness for her family’s happiness. That’s what I was taught that motherhood was. If you were taught that as well, then you have to listen up!
Yes, motherhood does require a lot of sacrifices, but it shouldn’t cost you everything. A few years ago I heard this phrase, and it changed my whole perspective: “You say you’re willing to die for your children, but are you willing to live for them?”
Ooooo mama. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was surviving on leftover mac and cheese and bites of dino nuggets, sacrificing my health, my happiness, and my sanity to be a good mom. But if I continued on that path I would not have been healthy enough to show up for my kids as the kind of mom I wanted to be. I was suffering mentally and physically and I couldn’t sustain that lifestyle anymore.
So I started making my health a priority. I decided that I was worth the effort of making a real breakfast and lunch instead of living on reheated coffee and my kids’ leftovers.
Feeding myself, getting adequate sleep, journaling and moving my body weren’t going to be things I did “if I had time” They were things I deserved to do every single day. Because they made me feel good. And when I felt good and strong and nourished I had the energy to chase toddlers, take my kids to all their practices and show up as a loving wife.
Making that shift to take care of myself first, and then to take care of the rest of my family changed the trajectory of my life. And I’ve seen so many mamas have this same experience inside of the Macros Made Easy Program.
One mama who is in my program was struggling to speak up for her needs as well. She would make a meal plan and then when her family didn’t want to eat it, she would fold and go eat out wherever they wanted.
Every week when she got on our call, she would say, “I wanted to stick to my plan, but my kids wanted something else, so I had to do that instead.” And she would feel frustrated and disappointed because she wasn’t making progress toward her goals.
That’s what it feels like not to prioritize your needs.
Anytime this happened, my client and I would work on a new plan. One that would help her stick to her goals. We worked on telling her family about her goals and asking them for support. We came up with “scripts” for what she could say when her family wanted to go out but she had already planned for a certain meal.
We worked on delaying gratification for herself and her kids. Instead of saying, “I want this now, we need to go eat it.” we worked on saying, “Ok, I recognize that I have this craving. But I already created a plan, and I’m going to stick with that today and we can go out tomorrow.”
And a few weeks later, she came on a call and was a totally different woman!
She was putting her needs first. And the most amazing thing for her was that no one was upset with her for it either! When she expressed what she needed, her family was fine with it! And she realized that asking for her needs to be met wasn’t an inconvenience for anyone else. It helped the whole family support her as she needed it.
Amazing things will happen when you start prioritizing yourself. And the amazing thing that you may not realize right now is it will have a ripple effect throughout your family.
When you show up for yourself, and start expressing your needs, you’re modeling to your kids that it’s ok for them to do the same thing. It’s ok for them to tell their friends what they want - and even more importantly what they don’t want. They don’t have to bend to peer pressure. They can have a voice, just like their strong mama does.
Mama, if you want to feel good in your body, then you have to stop believing the lie that your needs come last. When you start taking care of yourself, not only do you show up as a better mom, wife, worker, or whatever other title you hold. But you start to show yourself that you can create the consistent habits you need to become the healthiest version of yourself.
I help busy mamas on the go lose weight and put themselves first without feeling guilt or shame! In the Macros Made Easy, you can learn how to create consistency and how to prioritize yourself so that you can reach your health and weight loss goals. Schedule a free discovery call to start living your healthiest life.
Schedule a Free Discovery Session here: http://bit.ly/DiscoverySessionKmore
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