Raising kids #4- raising kids and weight loss

 How does weight loss  play into raising kids.  If you are an emotional eater raising kids plays a huge role in weight loss.  I've said it before, raising kids is a hard feat.  But raising kids is the greatest joy you will see in this life.  When your child runs up to you and is so happy to see you, that fills your  hear with so much joy!  

    Now back to weight loss.  Pregnancy is hard on a woman's body.  Some women can bounce back real quick  but some women like myself , their bodies do not bounce back in fact after one natural birth and 3 C-sections my body shows that it did not bounce back very well at all.  The more I learn about it, the more I realize that my body did not bounce back very well because of the choices I made after my babies were born.  If I would have ate healthy along with my exercise maybe my body would have bounced back a little better.  When I was nursing my babies  I was so hungry all the time.  

So what did I do I ate all the time.  That is what did not serve my body.  Having babies was not what hurt my body, did it change my body yes it did, but eating what ever I wanted hurt my body not pregnancy.  

    While my children were growing up, I was blessed to stay home with my children.  I babysat many different children to help supplement our income. One day while I was talking to one of the mothers of a little boy I watched, she said her son told her she needed to eat more so she could have a baby. Haha, we decided that because I ate so much while pregnant that he thought that was how the baby got in there. hahaha.  That experience made me thing about how much I was eating.  I did eat what ever I wanted when I was pregnant and nursing.  The only time I didn't was with my second pregnancy, because I was  borderline diabetic.  I ate very healthy that pregnancy and only gained 10 lbs.  After I had him I lost 20 lbs and felt great.  The only thing is I was so hungry while nursing that I gained that weight back and then some.  Even back then, if I would of controlled by thoughts about thinking I should be able to eat what ever I want when I want because I am nursing, I would not have gained so much weight.  Just because you have a baby does not mean your body with change the way you don't want  it to.  You have control over what you eat and what type of exercise you do. I firmly believe you can get your body back after having babies. I've seen a lot of women that have.

    The next thing I want to talk about is cooking for children.  Over the years, I've had to figure out ways to cook for children and cook for me.  My body does not do well with macaroni and cheese all the time.  That is a food that children like to eat all the time.  In fact my children like lots of foods I like but should not eat.  What do you do if  your children will only eat foods that are not good for your body?  That is a dilemma I've dealt with for 26 years.  I would go through periods of trying to eat what they eat, just less of it.  I would go through periods of cooking something for them and then something for me.  The best one I did was pay for my niece to cook for me because her kids liked to eat healthy and so I paid her to make a little more so I could have a meal or two.  That was great for me because I didn't have to worry about what I was eating and could just cook food for my family and we all were happy.  That situation was great for me but hard on my niece so we stopped doing that.  I tried to figure out how to make a few changes to the meals my family ate.  Spaghetti, I would use brown rice or spaghetti squash instead of noodles.  Chicken enchiladas I would use spaghetti squash instead of corn tortillas.  That was a good substitute but there were still some days I just wanted the normal food I loved. 

    I've realized that being healthy is hard work.  The quote by Mae West "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it" could ring true in this instance also.  No matter what it is we are doing, it requires hard work.  If you look at someone that is skinny and think they have it easy, I'm sure that something in their life is hard for them.  Not one person in this world has everything easy.  Just because it looks like they do to us, does not mean it is.  

    Over the years I've learned to adapt my food with some foods my family likes.  Something I did that it took a year for my husband and son to figure out is I started mincing broccoli and carrots  to put into my meat loaf and any ground beef I made for my family.  It took them a year to figure out I was putting carrots in it, only because I didn't cut it up as fine as I did before.  They still don't know that broccoli was put in there.  So hopefully they don't listen to this pod cast haha.  It was fun to find ways to sneak vegetables into my families food without them knowing.  That is one thing that has been hard, having a family that does not like vegetables.  But ask you can see I found ways to trick them.  haha Now my oldest son and my grandson love most vegetables so that is a good thing.  All I know is there are ways to cook for a family and cook for yourself.  You can find ways to make adjustments to your families food so that the food will be good for you too.  

Next week I will be talking about dealing with a spouse and his food issues.  Know all things are possible with the right mindset and putting trust in the Lord.  I'll talk to you next week.  +