Making a Change Alone

When I started eating healthier two years ago, I was flying solo. My kids and husband weren’t quite ready to make the change with me. 

I was stuck in a rut of years of on again, off again dieting and exercise. I was sick and tired of the post-baby muffin top belly that I cursed every day when trying to find something to wear that didn't somehow call attention to the weight around my middle. I was exhausted from the chaos that was life with 3 little kids and frustrated that I couldn't make figure out how to make a change and more importantly stick with it for longer than a month. 

Like so many people, I'd motivate, get excited to start, pick a Monday to start on (because god forbid anyone ever just decide to get healthy and start today!) I'd go strong for about a week or two, mostly eating "healthy" and then I'd slip. One little cookie here, a handful of chips there and then I'd start to rationalize, "well, today's an off day so one more cookie won't really hurt anything" or "I already messed today up so I the rest of today I won't count and I'll start again tomorrow." Or even worse, that one small slip would become bigger and bigger. By the next day, I'd tell myself it wasn't worth staying the course and eating healthy because I wasn't seeing a big change anyway. This would in large part be motivated by the fact that I missed eating the comfort foods I was accustomed to. I didn't want to be the only one turning down the pizza or avoiding the dessert table at parties. I was also tired of doing it on my own, navigating finding the time to workout when my kids weren't sleeping consistently through the night and when naps weren't happening during the day at home. I didn't really understand what it meant to eat healthy so a lot of what I was doing was guesswork anyway and no matter what I did, it didn't seem to have a noticeable impact right away anyway so it was easy to succumb to a "why bother?" state of being anyway.

So you can imagine why when I was searching weight loss tips online one night and I stumbled on my coach, Melanie's, blog and saw her transformation from frumpy, muffin topped mom into smiling, lean, energetic mom my attention was peaked. 

It is difficult to overhaul your life when you’re only one of many in your house, especially if your family isn’t totally on board for eating healthier or exercising regularly. There’s nothing worse than sitting there with your healthy, properly portioned dinner while your spouse or friends load up their plates with less healthy options. 

For a long time, that was enough to stop me from even trying . Or when I was "trying," I was easily dissuaded from staying the course.

So how do you handle being the only one eating healthy and working out?

• Know that the choices that you’re making are doing good things for your body on the inside and out.

• Where you can, try to bring people along for the ride. If you haven’t already, tell your family/friends what you’re doing. EXPLAIN to them that you’re trying hard to eat healthier and get in shape and tell them that you would love their support. Let them know that this is a CHOICE that you’re making for you AND your family. Invite them to join you!

• Treat your workout as YOU time. Make it a priority, a non-negotiable. I never used to be that person who enjoyed a workout or saw it as a way to clear my head, find inner peace, blah, blah, blah. Over time though, I've come to really look forward to that time in my day. It's one of the few things I have as a busy working mom of 3 that is MINE and mine alone. I get up early (by choice), walk myself down the basement, and I get in my 30 minute workout. It's MY TIME, MY CHOICE, MY SPACE both mental and physical and in the end, it's given so much more than 30 minutes of reward. I feel stronger, healthier, more energetic, more empowered to handle my busy life. After a year of doing this every day I can share with you that I am now someone who looks forward to working out, who sees both the value physically in doing it and mentally as well.

• Over time, I’ve slowly made steps to convert them to healthier eating habits. It didn’t happen all at once and it certainly hasn’t been a complete overhaul. I’ve committed to eating cleanly, they haven’t so I’m not about to become a food Nazi and throw away everything that they like. Yes, I still buy ice cream (and a lot of it as you can see from our freezer!) We do have Doritos in our pantry. We ALSO have a ton of fresh fruits and veggies in the fridge. There are healthy snacks at the ready at kid-level sight so that it is the first thing they think to grab when they get hungry. We have rules about how much dessert and when and they know "snack" means a fruit or veggie before a carb. It’s all about balance and making small, gradual changes that work for us. 

• Where you can, make eating healthier non-negotiable. 
• If you do the shopping in the house, slowly start making some changes to the foods that you buy. 
• Where you can, replace some of the snacks with healthier options. Depending on how openminded your family is, you decide how above-board you want to be about the change. If they’re not likely to be sold, be stealthy about it!

Do what you can to bring them over to the dark (or I'd argue the light) side and at the end of the day, feel good about the hard work that you are doing. Know that regardless of whether they support you fully or not, you're making a change for you and THAT'S what matters. 

Realize that they may not get on board and that is ok. You’re doing this FOR YOU. Stay the course and lean on the group for support when you’re not getting it at home. While we’d all love to see the people around us support us and choose to live a healthier lifestyle with us, they may not and that’s ok. 

Also know that they may at some point down the road choose to join you. When I started making healthy changes, I really wanted to see my husband do the same but he just wasn’t there yet. Now, almost two years later, he's in a good routine running 5 days a week and it's working for him. 

What I’ve found though is that my consistency with eating healthier and exercising has helped to model for my family that living healthier is important in so many ways. My kids now understand that exercise is something we do to be strong, healthy and happy and that eating healthy is something we do to fuel our bodies.

Change takes time and patience and sometimes you're going to have to go it alone for a bit. That's where it was key to create a support system for myself. If you'd like your own little support system, please do reach out. Some of the closest friends I've made have come from these little support communities - some are friends from a past life and others are formerly strangers to me but no matter what they started as, we're now a community of folks who are on a path together. Want to join us? Email me and let's get talking!